AR-15 .22 LR Conversion

[rjrivero]

With the price of Ammo climbing almost daily, I bit the bullet and bought myself a .22LR Conversion kit. It will serve two purposes, allow me to shoot more, and give my daughter more trigger time this spring and summer. while her rifle gets built.

I decided to go with a conversion from Spikes Tactical, and should be here Thursday. I'll do a writeup on it with an indoor range report as soon as it gets here!!

The AR-15 has a fast twist rate, for the 22LR, so I don't expect the accuracy to be TACK DRIVING, but it should be good enough for plinking fun.

[mycar47562]

Kool can't wait

[rjrivero]

The conversion came in today. It's a nice looking piece. All you have to do is remove the stock bolt, and then put in the replacement bolt. The front end is an adapter. It shapes like a .223 with a couple o-rings to keep the powder from blowing back into the receiver. The back end has a small ramp on it for the .22LR to travel up and a chamber. This adapter is held in place by the guide for the bolt. The bolt itself is a simple blow back setup. The entire assembly is Nickel Plated to ease in cleanup.

It comes with a plug that you can put into the gas block, if you plan on shooting "a large number" of .22 LR. Folks have complained that prolonged use of 22LR in the AR-15 barrel causes carbon buildup inside the gas tube and can be a bear to clean. I haven't heard ANY reports on how many .22LR it takes to muck up the works, but I plan on finding out.

It's a simple, elegant design. They recommend putting two full magazines through it in order to get everything to seat. It came with a 27 round magazine, and I ordered 2 extra with it. After that, it should be all good to go. I will be bringing this to the range on Saturday. It's a shortish indoor range, after all it's cold out.

I'll take some pictures and put some rounds down range and let you know how things turn out.

[mycar47562]

kool i would have figured it would of been a whole upper reciever

[rjrivero]

kool i would have figured it would of been a whole upper reciever

An entire upper receiver would yield better accuracy, since the twist for a .22LR should be 1:16. They say the twist in a .223 is too fast for the .22lr at 1:7 or 1:9.

For plinking, this should be fine, but for any precision .22 work, an upper receiver would be the way to go.

[rjrivero]

I got to the range today, and was able to put 40 rounds through the kit. The accuracy is "fair." I didn't have time to stick around for the last cease fire to pull my targets, but all the shots hit in a about a 3" circle at 50 yards. (Again, I didn't get the target and only looked at it through binoculars.) Point of impact was about 1" high. With .223 shot from a bench, the shots are all touching at that range, dead center. So, it will be an acceptable plinker.

I'm hoping for MUCH tighter groups with the dedicated upper, I couldn't wait 4 months to get my daughter on the range, so this will do in the interim.

The instructions say to feed 2 full magazines through the kit before worrying about reliability. I did get 2 magazines through it, and it functioned beautifully. I'm happy with the investment so far.

[Remphoto]

What brand of ammo are feeding that thing?

[rjrivero]

What brand of ammo are feeding that thing?

Federal Bulk ammo from Wal Mart. Works great. I did have a failure to eject (I see that I claimed Flawless execution above.) It ended up getting stuck over the top of the next round in battery. They say it may happen until the bolt gets broken in well.