Rimfire AR

[Viper225]

Years ago I put together a 22 Rimfire AR15. I used a Tactical Solutions M4 Upper, and the lower build used a CMMG lower with DPMS internals. Colt M4 handguards to match the ones on my Colt M4. I got 2 plastic lip Black Dog Magazines with the upper, and ordered another 5 of the then brand new X Form stainless Steel feed lip 25 rounders.
Over the years it has had it's ups and downs on function. Last week I did a sponge bath cleaning job and was not happy with the jams.
I did a search on curing jams when using a 22 AR Dedicated Upper.
Several areas were identified to work on:
Polishing the feed ramp with a Dremmel Tool with a white buffing wheel, and polishing compound.
Run a Brass Cleaning Brush chucked up in a drill to smooth out the chamber. This required cutting off a brass cleaning rod.
Reduced Power Springs in the lower was another possible cure for it not cocking the hammer all the time. Brownells had the JP Reduced Power Spring Kit designed to improve the trigger pull.
The next thing I discovered was that my old RED FOLLOWER Black Dog X Form Magazines have a new replacement follower to improve feeding. I contacted Black Dog and got 5 of the improved followers, and a new X Form 10 round magazine in the mail. The new short 10 round magazine should make shooting off the bench work much better.

With Springs and Followers on order I started on the other tune up work. I started with a good cleaning, and not a sponge bath. I found a clump of crud in the extractor cutout on the barrel. I am sure that was not helping anything. Running a cleaning rod through the barrel, I got lots of carbon and fouling on the first several patch's. That was another area that I should have not let get that dirty. I went to polish the feed ramp, and my first few minutes looked to be polishing lead off the feed ramp. I did not expect that either. Running the Brass Brush in the chamber did not tell me much.
The lower needed a good take apart cleaning, and not just hosed out with Power Blast. I decided to put that off until the spring kit came in from Brownells. I took the Bolt Carrier out and cleaned it last week. Yesterday I took it apart further. I did not get the Firing Pin out, but I plan to. My supply of small punch's needs tuned up again. I did not have the size I needed.
I will have another weeks wait on Springs and Followers before I have all the Tune Up Work completed.
I think the Full Cleaning Job will have cured about 50% of my jamming. With luck the other work will have cured another 45%. Keeping my fingers crossed.

Some are probably thinking why not get a S&W M&P 15-22? For a start I got this Tactical Solutions Kit way before the M&P 15-22 came out. The other reason they still sell the Dedicated Uppers is that they feel more like a real AR15/M16 which is important when used for training purposes.

Bob R

[Fishbed77]

I don't know much about Tactical Solutions, but I have a CMMG .22LR dedicated upper I purchased about 5 years ago that ran great out of the box, and still does to this day.

[TrueBlue711]

I have a 10/22 and figured I'm good on the semi-auto 22 rifle department. Prices for semi-auto 22s (such as Sig 522 and M&P 15-22) are cheap, but expensive enough for me to not look at it.

But now I'm seeing PSA has dedicated 22 uppers with the 22 BCG included for $300....I'm changing my tune now. Agreed on your point, having an AR-like 22 will be great for training. So now I'm really debating about getting that PSA upper to throw on my AR lower to train with.

[GLK]

I have a TacSol dedicated 22LR M-4 style upper, all I have ever used was a bore snake & compressed air to clean. One thing that is a must for reliable function is making sure you don't have a notched hammer in the FCG. Mine also prefers to eat CCI minimags.

[bfoosh006]

FWIW... Norma TAC .22LR has an oily coating that also help feeding dramatically in my "AR" 22.

And next time... if you have a USGI 4 section cleaning rod kit... those will work great for a chamber rod.

I polished the edge off of my chamber ass end with oversized bore mop and car cleaning wax using the sections of the USGI rod... That also helped feeding issues.

[Ibmikey]

My DPMS dedicated .22 Lr has run like a sewing machine for the past five years, this rifle is total DPMS not just an upper and has never had malfunctions using Black Dog magazines.

[GLK]

My DPMS dedicated .22 Lr has run like a sewing machine for the past five years, this rifle is total DPMS not just an upper and has never had malfunctions using Black Dog magazines.

Can you pull the 22LR upper and put a 223/5.56/whatever upper on it?

[Destructo6]

Some are probably thinking why not get a S&W M&P 15-22? For a start I got this Tactical Solutions Kit way before the M&P 15-22 came out. The other reason they still sell the Dedicated Uppers is that they feel more like a real AR15/M16 which is important when used for training purposes.

That is true. The MP15-22 does feel toy-like, however, in my experience, shooters tend to forget that when concentrating on other things, like weapon light, transitions, etc.

The 15-22 magazines are recognized as the better .22lr magazine for ARs and Redi-Mag has designed an adapter to allow their use in .22lr conversions or dedicated types like the CMMG.

Speaking of the CMMG dedicated .22lr, I know others have not had this experience, but i'll share mine (yet again). I was issued 6 for evaluation. These were factory guns, unmodified. Loading mags beyond 10 rounds was an exercise in frustration, even with the loading tool. Accuracy was abysmal, barely keeping on 10"x12" target at 50 yards, which leads me to believe they used a standard 1/7" twist rate barrel with a chamber conversion. Reliability was also less than stellar.

I received the same number of MP15-22s and they quickly won over any doubters (myself included). The mags were easy to load and they were reliable with acceptable accuracy. Loaded up with an Eotech, weapon light, sling, etc, the weight issue became less noticeable.

After the eval ended, the CMMGs were shelved and the MP15-22s used up the remaining 70k rounds.

[Ibmikey]

Glk, The lower is a standard AR platform, the upper is dedicated to .22 LR