AR-15 with .22 Conversion Kit?

[Rugerdaddy]

Is this legally a .22, or still considered a centerfire for the purposes of "assault weapon" laws? In other words, can it have the evil features, or not? Thanks for your answers!

[Hakoomay]

The bolt and firing mechanism is rimfire, so centerfire laws do not apply from this standpoint.

I'm sure the legalese-seasoned cal gunners will chime in with details.

[alpha_romeo_XV]

I think there are many in use in this state and haven't heard of any arrests or convictions due to them. Interesting that the kit with 10 rnd mags costs more than the 25s.
Even though I have a couple dedicated 22LR uppers, I though about getting one of the kits on sale during freedom week just to get the 3 x25 rnd mags to use in a compatible 22LR upper. I also wanted to see how the reliability and accuracy was compared to the dedicated uppers. I vacillated deciding to long and freedom week ended.

[baranski]

Originally Posted by alpha_romeo_XV

I think there are many in use in this state and haven't heard of any arrests or convictions due to them. Interesting that the kit with 10 rnd mags costs more than the 25s.
Even though I have a couple dedicated 22LR uppers, I though about getting one of the kits on sale during freedom week just to get the 3 x25 rnd mags to use in a compatible 22LR upper. I also wanted to see how the reliability and accuracy was compared to the dedicated uppers. I vacillated deciding to long and freedom week ended.

Well, they gotta pay someone to pin those 10 round mags.


Mine (from CMMG) has been utterly flawless, keep it wet with lube and rock on.

[AR22]

Not legal advice but it seems this has been discussed many times and the consensus is, for now anyway, they are NOT under the same rules as the Big Brother Centerfires are.

I have several dedicated .22s built with CMMG Barrels and Bolts. All run flawless. Even with Binary.

I have to completely disagree with the run it wet with lube though. Very bad idea in any rimfire. Take my advice or not but adding wet lube in a dirty powdered round like a Rimfire is asking for instant sludge and a complete mess in your Rifle.

All my dedicated .22s and all other 22 Rifles I have, have only had dry lube ran in them for years. Wet is fine in a regular AR15 centerfire. Not a Rimfire.

Cleanup is a breeze running dry lube too and are far in between when running dry lubes also. Heed my advice or not. Up to you.

The worse Rimfires I have ever bought that had the curse of the Liquid Oil are the Remingtom Nylon series. I have had some of those when I bought them you could hardly charge the bolt. This comes from people dumping oil in them for years. Sad thing in the case of the Nylons. They even told people to never run oil in them. People did it anyway. And they end up non operational till someone cleans them up or cares for them properly.

[Caligun818]

Sounds interesting, can you post a pic?

[AR22]

I do not know for sure if you are referring to one of mine. But here is one of A2 Clones. Alot of it, atleast what is legal as far as Machine gun parts is all USGI FN parts and a A2 clone lower.

[Caligun818]

Originally Posted by AR22

I do not know for sure if you are referring to one of mine. But here is one of A2 Clones. Alot of it, atleast what is legal as far as Machine gun parts is all USGI FN parts and a A2 clone lower.

That looks pretty cool. Thanks for posting. I'm entirely new to guns. Does a .22 rifle like the m&p 15-22 require a fingrip in CA?

[Tunabliss]

I have two CMMG kits with hmmm@% round mags. They run flawless and fire just about any type of ammo. The way I understand it, as long as the kit is in the and gun is completely assembled, it is a .22 cal and free from AW rules. However, if you remove the conversion kit and put it back together, then its not a .22 anymore... But I'm no expert. I just know the .22 conversion is fun to shoot. pretty accurate out to 100 yrds. Even with a 1:7 or 1:8 barrel.

[Jimi Jah]

I bought and installed the true .22LR barrel and bolt cap. Accuracy improved a whole lot.
The lower had the buffer and spring removed, it's all rimfire now. yes, it has the pistol grip and adjustable stock. I've used the same old Ceiner conversion bolts since 2013. I just removed the .223 conversion tip and installed a SS CMMG cap. I have two of these and never broke an extractor or firing pin.

[Garand Hunter]

If you remove the kit and do not put the CENTERFIFE bolt carrier group back into the rifle it is not a AW. Take a look at the last set of regs published, pg 2 of 15 pgs, S 5470 (c) tells the story, take a look. Centerfire is the kicker. No BCG installed it is not centerfire. That is where I got the info I use to determine that my AR 15 with or without the rimfire bolt carrier is not a AW, as long as the centerfire bcg is not installed. My point of view and I am not looking for a PO to ask his opinion about it.

Regs file and stamped received July 19, 2017 Office of Administrative Law.

Psalm 1

[AR22]

Mine is a dedicated .22 Long Rifle A2 GP Barrel and dedicated 22 BCG. The lower gets swapped between other uppers. It is used for some of my 5.56 uppers also.

[th3jesus]

Having owned a CMMG .22 conversion for a while now I gotta say it's fun to use and saves you a stupid amount of money. But it can be very finicky.

Trouble begins when you use anything other then your standard LR. If you want to use something like super colibri (500fps+-)you can expect it to not cycle but you will also find yourself clearing jams when the casings refuse to eject. So always carry a knife to clear it.

The other thing that happens a LOT, I mean a LOT. You will go through firing pins like crazy. The way it's designed causes them to break in half where the retaining pin sits. Also the tip of the firing pin also seems to break 1/4 from the tip.

Running it Dry really does work but believe me you want to clean it after every use because it will cake carbon all in the 22 chamber. Again causing casings to jam in the chamber.

[AR22]

I run dry lube in all .22s regardless of type of Firearm. I do not clean very often. Not as necessary when using a dry lube. With the dry lube I can go through alot of rounds before I even consider having it take down and thorough clean.

I know about the Firing pin problems first hand. CMMG usually sends me a couple when one breaks. So I stay ahead of the problem that way.

But right now I am running a Bore Buddy pin. It is their prototype they sent me for free to give it a test run. If the regular production ones are even as good as the proto. They will have something. I have been running the prototype they sent me with good success for over a month now. That is with Binary and single mode. Probably only around a 1000 rounds so far. But I have had CMMGs break in way less than that.

CMMG has great stuff overall, and top notch CS. But their Firing Pins do suck bad..

I do not know what the Colibri stuff is but if it is CB velocities like CCI at around 710 FPS. Of course it will not cycle it. Very few semi autos will cycle CB caps. I only know of one that will, and cannot think of who made it right off. But it is not on the AR Platform. I know none on the AR platform that will.

They were never designed for less than Standard Velocity. If you are wanting to run CB caps. That is not the Rifles problem at all... That is ammo related.

Mine run perfect with every ammo I have tried, SV and above. Even Remington, Winchester..LOL

[galun]

Due to ammo prices I bought a bolt conversion and I loved it. Then I got a dedicated upper and loved that too. I ended up building a dedicated AR-22 with the same configuration as my AR-15 - exact same lower group, handguard, position of angled fore grip, reddot optics.

It was freaking awesome. Any rifle drill that requires only one shot felt exactly the same. Gotta love the $0.05 cpr instead of $0.50. I ended up practicing a lot more instead of conserving ammo.

Thanks for the heads up on the firing pin breaking. I have done a few thousand rounds and the firing pin was fine. But I ordered a few from CMMG proactively. I love this setup so much that I don't want to be down waiting for parts.

I have good experience with high velocity copper plated loads. Auguilla 40 grain at $3 per 50 from big 5, and Remington golden bullets.

[AR22]

Mine will even shoot Winchester ammo, Even Remington, but I do not do it other than for testing to see if it will work,LOL

CCI is still my all time favorite 22 ammo.

Yes unless you have a anomaly, or are the luckiest man on the planet. Your CMMG pin will break, guaranteed..I keep atleast three spares around.

That way one breaks I call CMMG to send one or two new replacements. Always free. Cannot figure out why they do not find someone that can make them a new pin that works. I would think it would be cheaper than sending out new one constantly. But that is the only bad thing I can say about their products. So still good stuff.

[loademup]

Originally Posted by AR22

I have to completely disagree with the run it wet with lube though. Very bad idea in any rimfire. Take my advice or not but adding wet lube in a dirty powdered round like a Rimfire is asking for instant sludge and a complete mess in your Rifle.

All my dedicated .22s and all other 22 Rifles I have, have only had dry lube ran in them for years. Wet is fine in a regular AR15 centerfire. Not a Rimfire.
Cleanup is a breeze running dry lube too and are far in between when running dry lubes also. Heed my advice or not. Up to you.

Sorry to get away from OP's legal questions, but since some of you guys mentioned it...what brand of dry lube do you use in your 22lr AR 15?

I have the CMMG 22lr conversion kit, but have not used it yet; my lower is a Colt M4 carbine with a notched hammer. Do you guys swap out the notched hammer for a round hammer (per CMMG's recommendation?) or just continue using the notched hammer with no issues? I'd prefer to keep the notched hammer in and not change anything to the lower.

[AR22]

Some people say they like the Hornandy One Shot dry lube. Have never tried that one yet myself.

I have used Rem Dri Lube alot in the past. I am trying something in a dry lube made by PB Blaster right now. It seems to be pretty good. I like PB Blasters other stuff so it may be a good product I think.

Try and see what the hammer does. Most will be fine. But I have seen a couple people claim they had troubles. Most do not. I think you will be fine though.

[ShaneB]

Im curious if these conversion kits would be legal in a pistol length AR, 10.5,12.5 ect.

[smle-man]

Originally Posted by th3jesus

Having owned a CMMG .22 conversion for a while now I gotta say it's fun to use and saves you a stupid amount of money. But it can be very finicky.

Trouble begins when you use anything other then your standard LR. If you want to use something like super colibri (500fps+-)you can expect it to not cycle but you will also find yourself clearing jams when the casings refuse to eject. So always carry a knife to clear it.

The other thing that happens a LOT, I mean a LOT. You will go through firing pins like crazy. The way it's designed causes them to break in half where the retaining pin sits. Also the tip of the firing pin also seems to break 1/4 from the tip.

Running it Dry really does work but believe me you want to clean it after every use because it will cake carbon all in the 22 chamber. Again causing casings to jam in the chamber.

I have thousands of rounds through my Ceiner/M261 kit with no parts breakage. I bought it used from a Calgunner so I have no idea how many rounds are through it.

I try to count the number of rounds I shoot per magazine so as not to let it snap on an empty chamber but I don't always manage to do so.

[SVGUY]

Going with dedicated upper, can anyone recommend a good inexpensive lower?

[alpha_romeo_XV]

Originally Posted by SVGUY

Going with dedicated upper, can anyone recommend a good inexpensive lower?

Did you want to build the lower from a stripped receiver or buy a completed lower? I built my last one from an Anderson lower receiver and its has served me just fine. Caveat I spent as much on the trigger as the rest of the parts. I just can't be happy with an 8-9 lb mil spec trigger.

Many LGS carry the Anderson receivers as a budget lower.

[Garand Hunter]

No issues with my CMMG kit. Works great, my direction to get the AW issue resolved. But I neve used the colibri rnds, no powder in them, primer only.

Psalm 1

[Jimi Jah]

Never use Colibri in a semi auto, it won't cycle and you may have an extraction issue.

It does work great in my Henry Golden Boy.

[LateBraking]

-Dedicated .22LR upper (I built mine out of a scrap upper receiver and used the CMMG .22LR barrel with no gas port plus CMMG's bolt carrier group so it's undeniably a .22LR upper setup). You probably don't want to run a **** ton of cheap training .22LR out of your AR upper anyways, for starters twist rate isn't right for .22LR, and when people dump cheap lead tipped .22LR ammo through their AR uppers they can clog up the gas port over time. SOTAR (School of the American Rifle) showed this in one of their AR barrel autopsy videos. Seriously if you can buy a complete upper from Bear Creek Arsenal for $300, you can probably do a dedicated .22LR upper for around that much or even cheaper. My cost was low but I was digging through my scrap AR parts bin for stuff.

-Cheap lower receiver with .22LR plug, so if anyone cracks it apart you can insist it really is used for .22LR only. Poverty ponies (Anderson) is only like, $40, and there's polymer lowers out there for about that price too if you want it even cheaper. It's not like .22LR hits the lower with any appreciable amount of recoil. https://borebuddy.com/product/22lr-plug/

-PewPewPewPewPewPewPewPew.

[AR22]

Any lower will be fine. I would avoid the plastic ones though. I know some will claim they used a plastic lower and it is fine. Good for them. But they are supposed to be aluminum. And for a reason,LOL No way those Plastic lowers will last in a hard run Rifle for sure and very sketchy on a light used Rifle too. Not worth it to even consider Plastic for the few dollars you will save.

I have used many different ones, CMMG, PSA, Anderson, Aero and so on. Never a problem with any of them.. More less just buy the Logo and markings that may appeal to you. It will be fine.

I believe Aero and maybe one other company only, really makes most of the lowers. They are then finished and roll stamped by whoever buys the lower to finish it up for sale by their particular Company. Some do a nice refined job of finishing them out, some a little less attentive. But they work as they should.

[Jimi Jah]

My lower is Aero. The buffer and spring were removed to lighten it up and make it rimfire only. Then the adjustable stock and pistol grip were attached.

[galun]

Originally Posted by AR22

Some people say they like the Hornandy One Shot dry lube. Have never tried that one yet myself.

I have used Rem Dri Lube alot in the past. I am trying something in a dry lube made by PB Blaster right now. It seems to be pretty good. I like PB Blasters other stuff so it may be a good product I think.

Try and see what the hammer does. Most will be fine. But I have seen a couple people claim they had troubles. Most do not. I think you will be fine though.

Where do you put dry lube on the ar22? Are you talking about the bolt specifically?

I have been putting a little gun oil on the bolt carrier rails, firing pin, extractor pin when I pull the bolt apart to clean. And the usual AR15 maintenance lube points.

Where would you suggest switching to dry lube? Or switch to dry lube for all?