.22 Dedicated barrel for an AR

NavyShooter

NavyShooter

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Goodday all,

Well, I mucked about in December with an old chunk of barrel I had lying around, and had a talk with the CFO office about it, destroyed it, and went looking for a new chunk of barrel to muck about with.

Someone came through for me with a 24" or so chunk of an old .22 rifle barrel that they didn't need anymore. (THANKS!)

So, yesterday, I went over to a friend's house who has a big old Southbend lathe, chucked it up, and had at 'er.

I came home after 4 hours in front of a lathe with a bushing to put on the barrel to bring it up to AR-15 diameter, a barrel that's got the section for the bushing, the front sight base, and the muzzle threaded for 1/2-28 flash suppresors. I sweated the bushing onto the barrel last night when I got home, and sat there, rather pleased with myself.

Then I realized that I had taken not one picture of the process. Damn.

So today, I found myself in need of a milling machine capable of doing the work on the fixed adapter for the .22 kit, so I put my little Sherline 4400 into "Mill" mode, and got to work.

There's a bit of roughness to the mill-work, partly I think due to the fact that my milling setup required the barrel to hang off to the front of the machine...a little bit of room for flexing. *shurg* C'est la vie.

So I milled the slots for the rails, then I went to work relieving the face of the breech to leave the feed-ramp.

I've spent 4 hours in front of the mill today (a Sherline does not allow for deep cuts...I'm taking .005 per pass...and when you're going through almost 1" of metal....that takes...A WHILE.)

So, I'm 8 hours into this project (not including the aborted previous project) and can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

I have a bit of detail fitting on the face of the breech, cleaning it up a bit, and fine tuning the fit, then I have to ream the chamber for .22 LR, and cut the ejector slot.

I can see me spending a few more hours in front of the machine tomorrow, and having this nearly done!

Woohoo!

Looking forward to maybe testfiring it this weekend.

Pics to follow....I'll take some now that I'm thinking about it...

NS
 
I do....but the barrel in it is not a .22 barrel, it's a 5.56 barrel with some little tweaks done to it.

I've long wanted a one-piece .22 barrel.

I'm almost there...
 

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Hmmm.....got the chamber reamed today, the muzzle crowned, and the barrel properly fitted to the Ceiner kit/upper receiver. Required a few extra minutes of milling this evening after the hockey game.

Items left for completion:

1. Extractor slot

2. Front Sight base bushing

3. Final fitting/filing of feed ramp

Right now, it's ready to test fire. Unfortunately, since I haven't finished the feed ramp nor the extractor slot, it'd be single shot only....kinda defeats the purpose, eh?

Anyhow, almost there, and damn does it look nice!

NS

(Total machining time now approximately 10 hours. Fitting/fiddling time approx 2 hours. Expect another 2-3 hours to complete, hopefully tomorrow morning followed by a test-fire tomorrow afternoon!)
 
Extractor slot cut.

Feed Ramp Finished.

Rifle test-fired.

Life is good. It works.

Had a quick spin by the range with my daughter in tow, (she's 4) so she stayed with the gear by the safety area and held the ear-muffs on her ears, while I went in and fired a couple mags through it.

The first mag was rounds that I'd dummy cycled through the action at home, so they had some slightly gummed up edges, and had a couple of jams. No biggie, the second mag of dynapoints went fairly smoothly. Overall, quite satisfied.

NS
 
Neat project.
I'm thinking of getting a dlask raw forging and mounting a cooey 64 action inside an AR upper,then just milling out the magwell to fit the .22 magazine and a trigger slot and using the Whole thing as a "stock",since the lower would not be able to accept AR parts or magazines,nor would it hold any moving parts.
It would be neat to have an unrestricted .22 AR plinker ;)
 
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Nope...had it with me at the range this evening, but will likely post pics tomorrow.....went back with Mig-QM on here, and we hammered through a few mags to test it out.

Accuracy is very pleasing.

With the original 1/12 barrel and the Ceiner Chamber adapter, I was turning in 1 to 1.25" groups.

Tonight, we had a nice 3 shot cloverleaf in the x-ring. Group size tonight was in the 1/2" range for the most part.

Approximately 200 rounds fired, with some good result, and proved that I need a new recoil spring for the kit. The bolt is failing to fully close about every 3-5 shots, and resting the mag results in extraction problems. *sigh* There is a solution to that one that I know how to implement though.

Life is good, pics to follow tomorrow.

NS
 
NavyShooter said:
resting the mag results in extraction problems. *sigh* There is a solution to that one that I know how to implement though.


NS
Click to expand...
I've been trying to come up with a way, idea to adapt my Colt .22 mags to the bottom half of a Thermold so I can practice shooting prone. Never considered pressure on the mag causing a FTF.
 
Looking good NavyShooter! Wonder if getting something like the "Black Dog Machine" full body mags would help eliminate the FTF's... Don't know if they're available up here, but it would eliminate having to cobble up a housing for the OEM mags. Apparently they are made to work with the Ciener conversion units...

hsld.
 
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