Thursday, April 15, 2010

Shooting on the cheap...

Unc has a thumbnail sketch up about his CMMG AR conversion purchase.

Mine has worked fine given two caveats:
  1. It needs to be well lubed. A problem with rimfire AR conversions is that they have nothing to prevent them from firing out of battery, and so if the bolt is dry and doesn't quite close all the way, things could get exciting for people to the right of your rifle.
  2. Remington Golden Bullets have had me prying duds out of the chamber three or more times per magazine. Have I mentioned how much I hate this carton of ammo? But it's plated, and I vastly prefer plated ammo, since it'll probably not foul the gas port as much.

14 comments:

staghounds said...

Prying?

What, you don't carry a clearing rod to the range?

Retardo said...

The Rem Golden Bullets are ideal for not fouling the gas port, because they never go near it. The downside is, you'd harm the target as much and make a lot more noise if you beat two rocks together and howl.

Anonymous said...

Remington Golden Bullets are weird.

They run absolutely great in my Advantage Arms Glock 17 conversion.

Not so great is most everything else, including my buddies CZ .22lr Upper.

They run fairly Okay in my S&W M&P .22lr. Only failures I pick up is the occasional dud.

Tam said...

tomcatshangar,

The lot that I got here is not featuring the "occasional" dud; it's running better than one in ten.

I have shot them in: CMMG AR, M&P-15/22, Ruger 10/22, Ruger MkIII 22/45, S&W Model 34, and S&W K-22. All are featuring nice crisp primer strikes, and when the round is rotated to give the FP a whack at a different section of rim, still no dice.

It's this ammo, it's not the guns. It's an unusually bad lot.

Anonymous said...

I'm still looking for a dedicated .22lr upper with a barrel in that caliber, stead of almost, but haven't found one. Madogre drew a blank too. Anybody?

zeeke42 said...

Anon, check out Spikes Tactical. I don't have one, but I've heard good things.

PresterSean said...

Concur on the crap Remington Golden. I have the same ratio of duds in my Romanian M69 and in my Buckmark. What's a reliable replacement that's not Stingers?

zeeke42 said...

The federal 550 bulk pack runs great in my guns. I get about 1 dud per brick.

RevGreg said...

Haven't had a chance to try out the CMMG upper, the Spike's Tactical uppers eat .22LR at an alarming rate on a registered lower...especially with a Black Dog Machine 50-round mag!

(Not associated with either, no kickbacks. My friend is a beta tester for Black Dog though but I doubt you'll hear many complaints from anyone about their products.)

Ben said...

Tam,

For what it is worth, my CMMG AR-15 conversion kit prefers Federal bulk to Remington bulk. You might give that a shot.

My 1911 .22 kit is the reverse.

RevGreg said...

Oh...and there is always the Ceiner conversion which works fine but I tend to steer people clear. Jon's an okay guy but they simply RAPED people for years with the prices for their crappy mags until others got into the game.

Anonymous said...

I had a case of .45 ACP Aguila that did that to me. Spooked me a good bit, when I discovered it, the only firearms I had in .45 ACP where Glocks.

The next trip I tried some in a wheel gun and an H&K, it didn't matter how cratered the primer was, a too high percentage of rounds just would not go off.

Drove me nuts.

It taught me that cheap is sometimes inexpensive, and cheap is sometimes just cheap for a reason.

WV: valuecop hey, I guess we really do get what we pay for...

Dr. StrangeGun said...

That there is nothing to prevent OOB firing is a shock... all that qould be required in that upper would be for the firing pin to center with only a small striking protrusion with the bolt closed... with the bolt hung back, the firing pin wouldn't be exposed at all for the hammer to strike.

Anonymous said...

I've got a TacSol upper and love it.

As far as gas port issues go:

*Swap in 5.56 BCG
*Load magazine
*Load loaded magazine
*Charge the weapon
*Fire the weapon
*If the weapon does not cycle, run the charging handle and load another

Keep repeating. The gas system on the AR will clean itself out after a few rounds. Maybe 10-15 if you ran a heavy shooting session.

Regards,
english kanigit