On Christmas Eve, after much hemming and hawing, I placed an order with CDNN for a CMMG stainless steel ar15 .22lr conversion kit. The deciding factor was the special they were running:
-The stainless conversion kit with handy-dandy storage tube and 2 25 or so (can't remember exactly, that's all I'll be putting in them) round magazines. They even threw in a Colt screwdriver keychain.
Price before shipping: $189!
Due to the Holidays, it didn't arrive until today. It sat in a warehouse about 30 minutes from my house because they closed early for the holidays and I was too late calling to pick it up. :banghead:
The kit arrived in 2 heavy plastic ziplock bags, handy for later parts storage. The conversion bolt itself comes in a plastic tube with rubber endcaps; a lot like the ones at Lowe's or Home Depot to store screws and hardware bits in.
Quality of the bolt looks good. All the welds are as they should be and the conversion runs smoothly when cycled by hand. If I cycled it really slow I could make the extractor hold the bolt open, but I practically had to set the bolt onto the breech face to get it to happen.
The mags feel like, well, mags. They're metal and have some heft to them. I haven't loaded them fully yet, but I imagine they'll be very similar in loaded weight to a real mag. The followers run smoothly up and down and look almost like humpbacked GI followers. The followers are polymer of some sort instead of metal. We'll see how they hold up in the long run.
I'll be running the kit in a Spike's Tactical lower with Del-ton everything else, until my Bill Springfield FCG shows up. 16" standard barrel, A2 setup, no free float tube.
Before installing the new bolt, I coated everything in FP-10, especially the mock .223 casing that serves as the .22lr chamber. Yanked out my bolt and put it in the nifty storage tube. I lined up the conversion bolt and slid it into my receiver.
The first thing I noticed right off is there isn't enough spring tension on the bolt to lock the charging handle unless it's released from full battery. My charging handle is still fairly new; either way, no big deal. Went to close my lower and it looked like the bolt was hanging out too far. Gave it another firm push after another thin coat of lube and it slid in enough to allow the rifle to close. The back of the conversion sits RIGHT up against the buffer tube, though it's not used. I assume this helps to stabilize the bolt assembly.
I cycled the action and did a function check. Everything works normal, except for the bolt release; which is rendered inoperable by the conversion assembly. Again no big deal, the magazines have a last shot hold open feature.
I loaded 5 rounds to function check it. I shoot Federal Lightning, now called Champion, in all my .22's. It's cheap and clean; if a gun won't shoot them, it's gone. It's too cold here to do any prolonged shooting, but I walked out back, chambered a round, and all 5 rounds fired and ejected as they should. The brass even kinda flies the same direction!
THIS THING IS COOL!!!
I went back inside and loaded up another 10 rounds and grabbed a target. Hung up a 4" bullseye and fired 10 rounds offhand at 25 yards. Using my standard sight setting (zeroed at 50 yards), the rounds were hitting about 6-7 inches low, which at 50 yards would probably be (I'm guessing) 4-5 inches. Since I only hit the bottom edge of the paper and got a lot of mud splatter, group size was inconclusive. I also might have gotten a little trigger happy toward the end; did I mention this thing is fun?
Took my rifle back inside and cracked 'er back open. It took a minimal amount of effort to get the conversion back out (I think I need to clean my chamber a little better). Those of you that have a 10/22 will know what the inside of the receiver looked like. Thin gray film of residue from the barrel to about an inch past the edge of the gas tube. I'm curious to see how nasty it gets when I really have time to go shoot it. The barrel was about on par with any other .22 barrel that had just shot 15 rounds.
I'm really excited to get out and run this thing through it's paces. It's gonna be great to finally be able to enjoy shooting my rifle more often without chasing brass and spending a fortune. Unless something goes awry with it, this will probably be considered the best purchase of 2009 for me.
GO BUY ONE!!
Pics to follow...
-The stainless conversion kit with handy-dandy storage tube and 2 25 or so (can't remember exactly, that's all I'll be putting in them) round magazines. They even threw in a Colt screwdriver keychain.
Price before shipping: $189!
Due to the Holidays, it didn't arrive until today. It sat in a warehouse about 30 minutes from my house because they closed early for the holidays and I was too late calling to pick it up. :banghead:
The kit arrived in 2 heavy plastic ziplock bags, handy for later parts storage. The conversion bolt itself comes in a plastic tube with rubber endcaps; a lot like the ones at Lowe's or Home Depot to store screws and hardware bits in.
Quality of the bolt looks good. All the welds are as they should be and the conversion runs smoothly when cycled by hand. If I cycled it really slow I could make the extractor hold the bolt open, but I practically had to set the bolt onto the breech face to get it to happen.
The mags feel like, well, mags. They're metal and have some heft to them. I haven't loaded them fully yet, but I imagine they'll be very similar in loaded weight to a real mag. The followers run smoothly up and down and look almost like humpbacked GI followers. The followers are polymer of some sort instead of metal. We'll see how they hold up in the long run.
I'll be running the kit in a Spike's Tactical lower with Del-ton everything else, until my Bill Springfield FCG shows up. 16" standard barrel, A2 setup, no free float tube.
Before installing the new bolt, I coated everything in FP-10, especially the mock .223 casing that serves as the .22lr chamber. Yanked out my bolt and put it in the nifty storage tube. I lined up the conversion bolt and slid it into my receiver.
The first thing I noticed right off is there isn't enough spring tension on the bolt to lock the charging handle unless it's released from full battery. My charging handle is still fairly new; either way, no big deal. Went to close my lower and it looked like the bolt was hanging out too far. Gave it another firm push after another thin coat of lube and it slid in enough to allow the rifle to close. The back of the conversion sits RIGHT up against the buffer tube, though it's not used. I assume this helps to stabilize the bolt assembly.
I cycled the action and did a function check. Everything works normal, except for the bolt release; which is rendered inoperable by the conversion assembly. Again no big deal, the magazines have a last shot hold open feature.
I loaded 5 rounds to function check it. I shoot Federal Lightning, now called Champion, in all my .22's. It's cheap and clean; if a gun won't shoot them, it's gone. It's too cold here to do any prolonged shooting, but I walked out back, chambered a round, and all 5 rounds fired and ejected as they should. The brass even kinda flies the same direction!
THIS THING IS COOL!!!
I went back inside and loaded up another 10 rounds and grabbed a target. Hung up a 4" bullseye and fired 10 rounds offhand at 25 yards. Using my standard sight setting (zeroed at 50 yards), the rounds were hitting about 6-7 inches low, which at 50 yards would probably be (I'm guessing) 4-5 inches. Since I only hit the bottom edge of the paper and got a lot of mud splatter, group size was inconclusive. I also might have gotten a little trigger happy toward the end; did I mention this thing is fun?
Took my rifle back inside and cracked 'er back open. It took a minimal amount of effort to get the conversion back out (I think I need to clean my chamber a little better). Those of you that have a 10/22 will know what the inside of the receiver looked like. Thin gray film of residue from the barrel to about an inch past the edge of the gas tube. I'm curious to see how nasty it gets when I really have time to go shoot it. The barrel was about on par with any other .22 barrel that had just shot 15 rounds.
I'm really excited to get out and run this thing through it's paces. It's gonna be great to finally be able to enjoy shooting my rifle more often without chasing brass and spending a fortune. Unless something goes awry with it, this will probably be considered the best purchase of 2009 for me.
GO BUY ONE!!
Pics to follow...
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