.22lr upper from Questar?

[41 Colt]

Just a thought but if the upper needs machining to work you might want to send it back for a fixed one

I know, but there have been alot of reports of problems with these, it's not just mine. Questar also isn't getting a new shipment for at least 3 months, and I already waited 5 months for this one.

 

[Questar]

I know, but there have been alot of reports of problems with these, it's not just mine. Questar also isn't getting a new shipment for at least 3 months, and I already waited 5 months for this one.

Let's set the record straight...

You experienced a problem with your unit (late Friday according to your post) and instead of contacting us you decided to start making changes and modifications to your unit. Then when the changes you made didn't work you sent us an email telling us you were having a problem. Even though it was the weekend and we were closed, we answered you quite quickly and explained that normally if you make alteratioins to a product you void the manufacturer's warranty... but I also stated that we would contact Tactical Solutions on Monday when they opened and see what they would/could do.

Instead of waiting until Monday you said that we told you that your warranty was voided and you kept making posts about additional modifications, etc..

Now you are posting that "Questar isn't getting a shipment for at least 3 months" which is NOT accurate... we currently have a shipment scheduled to arrive in about 3 to 4 weeks. We have also been working with Tactical Solutions to fix the couple of units we had that experienced any issues and expect to have replacements for those units on that next shipment (hopefully within 3 to 4 weeks maximum).

I appreciate that you are impatient and you certainly have ever right to fix the unit yourself if that is your desire... but please don't give other readers the wrong impression by giving them inaccurate information.

If there's a problem with a unit then we'll get it fixed... assuming we're given a chance to do so.

Respectfully...

Mark

 

[G22]

oh ding

 

[Soli]

And he's down for the count!

10...

 

[Questar]

And he's down for the count!

10...

No... he's not... we'll do everything we can to help him get the unit operational... but the more "modifications" he makes himself the harder that's going to be for us and the less likely Tactical Solutions is going to be to do it for free... and I think that's understandable.

Right now Tactical Solutions is working out details to send us "replacement parts" to resolve the issue we've established exists with some units. Since Matt never really informed us exactly what "his" issue was and now that he's modified the unit it's hard to establish what was wrong to start with and what he's created himself through modifications, it's unclear what's needed to fix his "issue".

Mark

 

[41 Colt]

You experienced a problem with your unit (late Friday according to your post) and instead of contacting us you decided to start making changes and modifications to your unit. Then when the changes you made didn't work you sent us an email telling us you were having a problem.

After a 40 minute drive to the range and all I get is CLICK, CLICK, CLICK, CLICK with three different kinds of ammo I'm not leaving without trying something.

Everything I tried was posted on AR15.com and has been tried by users there with varying results. I had a few tools with me so I thought I would give them a try instead of going home completely dissapointed.

Clipping coils off the firing pin spring and reshaping the end of the firing pin didn't fix mine, so I then left, having shot less than 10 rounds of .22lr with very likely struck primers.

AFTER returning home I posted on CGN and the next day emailed Questar.

Instead of waiting until Monday you said that we told you that your warranty was voided and you kept making posts about additional modifications, etc..

You certainly made it sound like it was, so I continued to look at the unit and see if I could fix it.

Now you are posting that "Questar isn't getting a shipment for at least 3 months" which is NOT accurate... we currently have a shipment scheduled to arrive in about 3 to 4 weeks.

I apologize, I was mearly going by what's posted on your site:

"We're taking orders for the next shipment now... Current lead time is 60 to 90days"

 

[41 Colt]

I got it working, went through 250 or so rounds at the range. 50 I put through my Atchisson kit to compare. CCI MiniMag and Stinger worked great, only a couple FTF that fired the second time. American Eagle not so much, about 1/4 - 1/3 FTF, and only half of those fired when I put them through again. I could get all the AE to fire with the Atchisson kit, but I had 1/3 FTE, I'm not touching that stuff again.

 

[Questar]

Okay, after comparing the bolt assembly of the TacSol with my Atchisson MKII conversion kit which runs extremely well, I see two real big differences: The length of the bolt assembly that houses the firing pin, and the firing pins themselves.

Here are images to show what I mean. This first picture shows the bolt length difference between the TacSol (left) and the Atchisson MKII Conversion Kit in a CMMG .223 Upper (right). You can see the TacSol is longer. I used cleaning rod sections through the mounting pin holes to help keep the uppers aligned. The red lines are the back of the bolt, and also the firing pins are pointed out.

This may not seem like it makes a difference, but it probably does. With the Atchisson kit installed on my DPMS lower I can see the hammer through the gate, and clearly see that in the fired position the hammer just touches the entire back on the bolt as I install the upper. It sits flat againts the bolt basically.

On the TacSol the extra length will cause the hammer to contact the bolt at a lower part, meaning less firing pin contact in this case. Because of the design I can't directly see the way the hammer sits, but I can see between the gap of the upper and lower as I mount the upper and can clearly see the hammer being pushed back. This will cause the hammer to sit at a slight angle, meaning contact near the base but poor contact where the firing pin is. You can also see in the above photo the firing pins protrude about the same amount.

Here is a diagram to explain.

This is intentional... it's part of the design of the Tactical Solutions system.

These .22lr systems don't have any kind of "safety" built in to them to stop the gun from firing when out of battery. In fact this was a common problem on other makes... so when Tactical Solutions designed their conversion kit they intentionally built this in as a kind of "safety" to help avoid out of battery firing. It doesn't totally eliminate it, but it makes it a lot harder for the gun to fire if not in battery all the way.

If you mill this off you take away that bit of safety feature that was intentionally designed into the system.

Something to consider.

Mark

 

[Questar]

One other issue we have found relates specifically to DPMS lowers... though we have seen it in some others as well, (had an LMT that also showed the same problem)...

Every manufacturer seems to be a little different on their triggers... DPMS for example has a much lighter hammer spring and disconnector spring than some other makes (RRA for example which is quite heavy). We tried one of the TS uppers on 2 different brand new DPMS lowers and found that we had problems with the units failing to reset the trigger. It was doing the same thing intermittently on a brand new LMT lower. But when we mounted the upper onto a brand new RRA lower it functioned flawlessly for well over 100 rounds (3 different types of ammo)... no issues.

There is a noticeable difference in the strenght of the RRA hammer spring as compared to the DPMS (lightest) and LMT.

The hammer spring mostly affects the light strikes but combined with the disconnector spring it can also affect the trigger reset on the .22lr kit.

The bolt speed on the .22lr kit is much faster than on the .223/5.56 bolt... we found that the TS bolt was actually moving back and forth too fast for the disconnector on the DPMS to actually engage and reset the trigger... as a result the trigger would move back and then follow the bolt forward again without the disconnector having a chance to grab the hammer and so it wasn't resetting. In some instances you would even get a slam fire when this happened.

Increasing the spring strength corrects this issue as the disconnector moves faster/stronger to engage the hammer as the bolt moves to the rear... and the stronger hammer spring resolves the light strikes if they are a problem.

Mark

 

[rockenrod]

A buddy of mine bought one from Mark/ Questar. We went out to the range the other day and fired hundreds of rounds and 2 different types of ammo. I ran it off a Eagle Arms Lower ( Armalite) with out any problems/ failures. I just need to convince the finance minister into letting me buy one.

 

[zenmagic]

My buddy and I each have one. I am running it off a new Stag lower and he is running his of a Colt A2 lower. Both of us have HUGE FTF issues. Even the rounds that do fire have exceptionally light strike marks. Heck, the extractor marks are more pronounced than the pin strike mark.

 

[Epoxy7]

My Stag 2T arrived. I've put the .22 upper on it (I have the flat top Tactical Sollutions .22 upper). It was a very tight fit. I actually had to use a rubber mallet to get the second pin to go in. I'm sure it'll get easier after a few times. The good news is it's a very good fit with no rattle or wobble. I've only dry fired it so far, still waiting for the optics. It does look fantastic. I'm just hoping it works really well.

 

[Questar]

My buddy and I each have one. I am running it off a new Stag lower and he is running his of a Colt A2 lower. Both of us have HUGE FTF issues. Even the rounds that do fire have exceptionally light strike marks. Heck, the extractor marks are more pronounced than the pin strike mark.

Do you have access to a "full strength/heavy" hammer spring that you could try in your lower? This will resolve the issue 99% of the time and will not have any negative affect of your lower when used with .223/5.56 uppers.

This simple change corrected every instance we had of similar issues. There is a wide variation in the strenght of the hammer spring being used by different manufacturers. We had 2 brand new DPMS lowers that wouldn't work until we switched the spring... then they fired 100's of rounds without a single fail to fire or light hit.

Contact me via email if you're still having issues: Sales@Questar.ca

Mark

 

[c4pyro]

Well Just tried out my upper today. Questar was nice enough to send me a heavy hammer spring for my new dpms lower, but I figured I would give it a shot anyways without changing them. I was using remington yellowjackets and put 3 mags through no issues. Its a fun little toy.

 

[DASQ]

Since no one else in this forum (or the internet) seemed to know, the AR-22 upper is a near perfect fit with the Norinco CQ311 lower. I got mine from Questar yesterday, and took it to the range today. There is NO 'wiggle' or 'give' in any part that is not supposed to move. The upper sits as well as the original .223 upper. The rear locking pin is pretty snug, the first 2-3 times I removed it I needed the rubber end of a screw driver to knock it out and then wedge it to the full unlocked position, but now it's easy enough to do by hand.

Put about ~1100 rounds with no cleanings in between, through two of the black dog magazines (work awesome, by the way), one with the longer follower for holding the bolt open, and the other with the standard size follower.

Went through about 800-900 rounds of the Federal 36 grain/1280fps HP stuff with 0 jams or misfires, FtE's etc, but when I tried some Winchester '333' 36 grain/1280fps HP, I had a stovepipe jam every 10-15 shots on average. I tested out the bolt, extractor, and the magazines, firing upside down, firing 'limp', firing so the shells ejected straight up, pretty much everything possible short of changing springs, extractor claws, and bolts. It just doesn't like that bullet it seems. My friend tried a couple rounds of subsonic through it and it had no problems putting the bolt through full recoil cycle and extracting.

Ironic that the 'cheap' Norinco AR-15 knockoffs seem to fit and run this Tactical Solutions upper better/less issues than a lot of other manufacturers (from what I hear and read, anyway).

Great fun. Get one. And someone find me a speed loader. My thumbs will not last the life of the upper.

 

[Epoxy7]

Good stuff DASQ.
I found the fit on mine with a Stag lower to be very tight. I also had to use a rubber mallet and plastic to get the pins in and out. It's a little too tight. But I'll take that any day over wiggle.

Here's a picture of the Varmint model on a Stag lower. I plan on putting an Eotech on it.

 

[c4pyro]

I don't know, maybe I just got lucky, but as long as a use decent 22 ammo, no issues. I really don't see how an extra 5 bucks for a brick hurts me at the end of the day.