Spikes Spikes Spikes
It took me years to get a .22lr AR together. I bought 2 of the Bushmaster .22lr's. One per Christmas for 2 years. The first one just didn't work, at all, with any ammo. I mean did not work. I never made it past 5 rounds with either one. The second one miss fed a round and the bolt closed on the rim fire round sending a slug through the side of the carbon 15 upper receiver.
Good thing my brother was on my right!
Bushmaster took both back and "checked them out" sent them back to me and again, neither worked. Both were sent back for refunds.
So that's 2 years. I skipped a year or two, then I decided to look again. I saw the Ruger, S&W, Colt, Tactical Solutions, and Spikes all were trying the .22lr game.
I began my research again. The Ruger, S&W and Colt were easy no's. They were imitation plastic POS wanna be's. I was actually shocked at the S&W.
They were pretty sad really.
So I started looking at the Tactical Solutions and Spikes. Both are great (from what I hear, I have not held a Tac Sol).
I ended up with Spikes. I liked the design of their bolt and the interface with the barrel. It is very easy to clean all the gunk that a .22lr leaves. The Tactical Sol, not as easy(but only a little less so).
With the Spikes all parts that get grimed up come out when you pull the bolt. The chamber face that is left is easy to reach, raised, and free of texture. This allows the user to scrape the carbon off easily. The bolt is hard chromed. This allows for a scotch bright pad cleaning. If it gets finicky from carbon build up, a good field cleaning takes just minutes.
I went dedicated upper. I am glad I did. The .22lr is so dirty that I would not like all that stuff fouling up my 5.56 upper. Anyone who has ever had to clean a TAC 65 or other user serviceable suppressor knows just how dirty a .22lr is. We aren't just talking "dirt" either. Lead cakes everything. If you just clean the carbon, lead will still build up. So, Imagine all that stuff in the gas tube or whatever.
So performance, how does it work? At first it was finicky. It did not like Rem SubSonic especially (Turns out nothing really does).. And that is all I took on it's maiden voyage.
For it's next outing, I bought a bunch of different .22lr ammo to test with. It loved one of them. ( I won't say which one. Everyone's guns is a bit different) So, I bought 5K rounds of that one. With that .22lr ammo it is flawless. thousands and thousands without a hiccup. Now that it is broken in, it is much more tolerant of all ammos. It even eats Rem .22lr SubSonic.
The Black Dog mags are simply awesome too. Easy to clean and reliable.
The Spikes with the BlackDog mags is as close to a MilSpec .22lr as you can get. It feels and shoots like a real M4.
It is solidly my favorite gun of all time. I have it suppressed with a Tac 67 can. It is quieter than most pellet guns.
So my vote is for Spikes.