TNW 9mm Carbine Range Report

Sharps '74 said:
- at 50m (this time from the bench) it put 8 rds into a 2" group! There were 2 flyers outside of the 3-1/2" black bull that I'll blame on poor trigger control wearing gloves. I missed the trigger 'set' before final let off that is very noticeable without gloves.
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I may have posted this before, but here's a 10 shot target shot with Remington UMC 147gr on my first trip to the woods shooting my TNW ASR last year. Owing to dense trees I had trouble finding a decent clear shooting lane, and it was a very rainy day, I had to hurry to get back down a mountain behind Coquitlam before dark, so I finally gave up finding a 100 yard lane and settled on 45 yards slightly uphill between a lot of skinny trees, resting a bipod on a rotten old stump while crouching and trying to balance an umbrella as it was cold and uncomfortable.

TNW_ASR_45yds_RemUMC147gr_10shots.jpg


It generally shoots about like this from the bipod, as I can't seem to tame the effect of my heartbeat on the butt of the rifle, swinging it on a slight diagonal. Got to keep working on that during my infrequent opportunities to get out into the bush. So at 45 yards I was getting what amounts to a sub-1" group, stretched out to a little under 2" because I can't master timing my shots between heartbeats. From a bag I do much better... but frankly don't think those targets are worth recording, because it's cheating in my context. Not going to do a lot of shooting from a bag or a rifle rest if I'm hunting small game. A 1" group at 50 yards is not hard with mine from a bag though, when I've tried it.

Sharps '74 said:
- with the same sight setting as at 20-25m it grouped 4-1/2" high at 50m. I already proved that it shot 4" high at 100m so I'm learning about 9mm trajectory.
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I use either Strelok or Chairgun software to figure out where to zero my scopes for whatever I'm shooting. Of course not being an IPSC competitor my zero is likely to be quite different from yours. I tend to set my total range at 100 yards in the software, then optimize zero for that to have the longest midpoint with no compensation. I print range cards for everything and laminate them. With the ASR that means for example with standard 147gr subsonics I don't think about anything besides the crosshairs between 30 and 55 yards, with 6" of holdover at 100 and 1" of holdover at 15 yards, using my 2-7x scope and a Burris PEPR mount. That would vary a bit depending on scope height and bullet velocity of course. But I wouldn't want my bullets hitting high at 100 unless I planned on shooting something at 150 quite often, which isn't likely for my shooting habits.
 
Nice shooting, both of you!

My benching today was done utilizing a rubber seat cushion under a First Aid kit. Generally I HATE bench shooting and after a rifle is '0'd I shoot only from field positions. I EXPECT my rifles to shoot well from the bench or I won't own them.

I've got a nice Bushnell 1.5 to 4.5 power scope in a PEPR mount that would likely bring out the best accuracy potential of the TNW ASR. If I was to hunt with it, that would be an ideal optic for it. For our club 3 Gun events, the red dot offers very quick target acquisition on close range targets.
 
Yeah, fast shooting stuff is a very different game. I do like a dot sight for informal plinking. Or I did, before they started flaring out a bit for my right eye. Still, the simplicity is nice. Heck, I like iron sights best! Just can't use them these days.

Agreed on the scope zoom range. Mine's 2-7x and I wouldn't likely enjoy anything more magnified than that. Too hard to find the target, too dim. Only reason I have a much more powerful scope (5-35x MTC Viper Pro) on my main air rifle is that it's nice to see where the pellets are hitting at longer ranges. Obviates any need for a spotting scope. Pellets don't make a lot happen at 50 yards and beyond so a more powerful scope makes sense, and with zero recoil from the PCP I can often watch the pellets in flight and hitting the target so it's a bit of entertainment and education there on how they go.
 
I previously had a JR Carbine and have shot a bunch of the ar based ones while shooting uspsa in the states,, and i have gone to the ruger pc9 w a midwest industries chassis,,, little heavy but dang its solid and once set the barrel nut properly,, its pretty damn accurate for speed steel and ipsc
 
I just examined the chamber area of my TNW carbine and this bit about polishing the feed ramp is so much hooey, a myth. There is barely a mark in the carbon of the feed ramp compared to what I se in my semi-auto pistols after a range session.

Watching what happens when cycling dummy rds, the cartridge clearly makes the jump from the lips of the magazine to the chamber without engaging the feed ramp. I mean NO contact.

This why the lips of the magazine are so important to reliable feeding. If the rd is not held at the correct angle, (i.e. too high) you risk failure to feed and failure to eject as the top cartridge will interfere with ejection.
 
Sharps '74 said:
I just examined the chamber area of my TNW carbine and this bit about polishing the feed ramp is so much hooey, a myth. There is barely a mark in the carbon of the feed ramp compared to what I se in my semi-auto pistols after a range session.

Watching what happens when cycling dummy rds, the cartridge clearly makes the jump from the lips of the magazine to the chamber without engaging the feed ramp. I mean NO contact.

This why the lips of the magazine are so important to reliable feeding. If the rd is not held at the correct angle, (i.e. too high) you risk failure to feed and failure to eject as the top cartridge will interfere with ejection.
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Not sure what to make of this. I just put some light behind the receiver, set up my phone in front for a close-up, and filmed a couple of rounds of Winchester 147gr JHP being fed slowly into the chamber. Didn't try dummy rounds as frankly the aluminum painted ones I have don't feed the way live cartridges feed, the weight is all wrong and the bullet shape isn't right either. Wish they made heavy JHP dummy rounds... but they'd probably charge triple for them, so whatever.

I'm seeing no spontaneous 'jump' like you're seeing. The nose of each of 10 cartridges I tried first from an SGM 10/33 pinned mag, then from a Magpul 10/15 pinned PMAG (shown in this clip) went exactly the same:

- Cartridge jumps up when the bolt is retracted

- Bolt coming forward pushes the cartridge very slightly nose-down and starts it sliding forwards

- Bullet nose hits lower feed ramp and slides upwards, contacts second feed ramp with no noticeable change of angle

- Bullet nose is inside the chamber with about 1/4" of brass case still held down by feed lips on magazine

- Moment rim of cartridge clears feed lips the whole thing jumps up, tilting to parallel with bore, and finishes feeding

If I tilt the rifle nose-down just a bit more steeply and try this slowly, the cartridge weight alone carries it out of the magazine too early resulting in sometimes falling sideways, more often just jumping into the chamber. But held level or muzzle-up it follows the same routine every time as shown:


So either your ASR works quite differently from mine, or something else I can't guess at is giving you a different result. If you use Youtube's controls and slow it to 0.25% speed it becomes even clearer what's happening.

Further to the sharp leading edge on the feed ramps; when I first got mine and tried manually feeding live rounds - Remington UMC 147gr - I was seeing them jam up whether I fed slowly or just dropped the bolt. Examining the bullets I saw a clearly defined cut in the copper jackets about 1/2 way up the bullet's lower face as presented to the ramp. Examining the ramp made it clear what was happening. The bullets were catching on this sharp edge just slightly, enough to allow the bolt coming forward to bend the back of the case down into the mag well just a bit, bending/cutting into the bullet jacket. Polishing that leading edge was probably the most important initial modification as it entirely eliminated this problem. I was left with FTE issues due to the stock spring, but that probably relates specifically to 147gr subsonics, not something you'd be seeing with 115gr and 124gr pushing out somewhat harder, driving the bolt and buffer weight back with more authority.
 
Cycling my gun as slowly as possible, I see no contact with the feed ramp.

If there was, there would be drag marks in the carbon on the feed ramp and there is none.

There is a video of a guy shooting 147 gr ammo in his TNW and he has nothing but trouble and another with HP ammo. It would appear that they perform well with 124 gr RNFMJ.
 
I cycled A- Zoom dummies thru' the gun again and there is no contact with the ramp portion directly ahead of the mag follower. These dummy rds have the ogive of 115 gr FMJ rds. There is contact with the much smaller ramp directly at the bottom of the chamber but I see little evidence of it after cleaning the barrel.

It does not appear to need any enhancement (throating) as my gun feeds 124 gr well. Why the need for the larger beveled ramp I cannot imagine.

On a 1911, throating a feed ramp wider aids the chambering of SWCs, so long as it doesn't go into the chamber. In the meantime - "If'n it ain't broke ...".
 
Sharps '74 said:
I cycled A- Zoom dummies thru' the gun again and there is no contact with the ramp portion directly ahead of the mag follower. These dummy rds have the ogive of 115 gr FMJ rds. There is contact with the much smaller ramp directly at the bottom of the chamber but I see little evidence of it after cleaning the barrel.

It does not appear to need any enhancement (throating) as my gun feeds 124 gr well. Why the need for the larger beveled ramp I cannot imagine.

On a 1911, throating a feed ramp wider aids the chambering of SWCs, so long as it doesn't go into the chamber. In the meantime - "If'n it ain't broke ...".
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Well yeah, don't fix what's working already of course. I was relating my experience in telling how I had to polish the ramps after lightly rounding the sharp edges, not claiming that the same would necessarily apply to everyone else's ASR. But as there's extremely little actual material removal involved it seems harmless enough even if one did it unnecessarily. All I did was break sharp edges by maybe a 0.3mm radius, rounded the outer corners to maybe a 0.5mm radius, then polished the ramps and leading edges to make them shiny. Removing the black chalky finish and maybe a thousandth of an inch beyond that to smooth out the machine marks. Hardly qualifies as 'larger.'

When my first A-Zoom dummy round jammed into the factory-fresh chamber so thoroughly that the extractor ripped off a chunk of the rim, such that I had to hammer it out with a brass rod using considerable impact force, it was obvious there was a problem. A subsequent dummy jammed after cleaning carefully but I didn't pull that one so hard as to rip off the rim, just went straight to the brass rod while pushing back on the bolt knob. After that I decided to polish the chamber. 400 grit wrapped around a bit of cloth on a dowel for a soft polishing using a cordless drill, followed by 0000 steel wool wrapped around the dowel the same way. Took a minute. After that treatment the chamber went from a dull black chalky finish to shiny and dummy rounds popped out just like they should. Maybe mine was just rougher than most? A Friday afternoon when everyone at TNW just wants to go get a beer sort of gun?
 
Good video, by the way. TNW should hire a user of their products to make their videos. The TNW videos are embarrassing for their lack of professionalism.


I tried some homemade dummies made with lead RNFPs - no-go. When they fed, it took a STRONG pull on the cocking lever to extract.

I also tried a police dummy I picked up on the range with a yellow plastic 'bullet' and fake primer. Same result.

I've got a couple of cases of 115 gr ammo coming so we'll see how they feed and function. If they don't, my wife has inherited them for her CZ Shadows.
 
That seems to be the pattern. The TNW appears to function best with 124 gr RNFMJ ammo. Must be a function of the recoil spring as supplied.

"Some tuning may be required" to ensure reliability.
 
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Tried some aluminum case 115 gr ammo today, loading from both a closed and open bolt. The TNW ate it just fine in the sub-0C temp. It grouped well off hand at 25 yds but lower than the American Eagle 124 gr. It shot high at 50 yds as did the American Eagle 124 gr.

Had two FTE on the first rd with new Glock mags which I attribute to not a firm enough hold. I learned earlier that the carbine requires this to function reliably.
 
It being a sunny day with above 0*C temps, I took the TNW 9mm to the range again. Ammo was aluminum case 115 gr.

Off hand at 50 yds, it kept 17 out of 20 rds in an 8" v x 4/12" h group with 3 flyers where I blew it with poor trigger control.

Had one fte when I failed to keep the stock pulled into my shoulder.

One of these days I'll mount a scope on it and shoot it from the bench to see what it can do.
 
Rested and with a halfway decent scope you'll almost undoubtedly find it shoots 2MOA or better. Pretty accurate carbine. But hey, for competition shooting like you're doing it needn't be scoped. Still... I'm keeping an eye out for a good deal on a 1-6x FFP 30mm I can afford. Which is a laugh. But hey, it could happen as that zoom range is rapidly becoming popular of late. 1x in a bright scope with a clear reticle would be nice for close range fast acquisition, especially if illuminated, while keeping most of the longer range potential I have now with my 2-7x Leupold.
 
My 10-32 threaded fitting to lock the barrel nut into place bothered me too much, didn't like how it looked at all. So I figured out a way to fit something where lifting a micarta (some old canvas phenolic resin stuff I've had for ages) knob unlocks the barrel nut. Since I've bonded a barrel shroud to the barrel nut - extending forward hand position significantly - this gives lots of leverage for getting the barrel nut in really snug. Once it's there, a steel pin now drops into place with spring tension. It's basically a much enlarged version of the tiny piston and spring with grub screw they put in at the factory, with a release knob added.

TNW_ASR_barrel_nut_locking_mechanism.jpg


Sorry for the MS Paint drawing but it's what I have available. Dimensions are no doubt way off, but it conveys the approximate layout. I chopped down a 5/16"-18 grub screw to 4mm deep, leaving the hex hole intact. Then I made a steel pin with a narrow shaft to barely slide through that hex hole, threading the upper half of it 8-32 for the knob. A spring compresses between the bit of grub screw and a larger end of the shaft. I drilled a 1/4" hole all the way through, polished it, tapped a 4mm deep section at the upper end for the grub screw and put that screw in with some blue Loc-tite. Below the wider flange the steel shaft again narrows to fit into a matching hole (my previous rounded hole, squared off with an appropriate endmill), the tip slightly eased to have no sharpness and polished. It had to be inserted from inside the receiver then captured with the knob threads, secured with a drop of Loc-tite while threading it in, pushing hard on the tip of the shaft to keep it from spinning.

Now I lift the knob a bit to screw in the barrel nut and shroud and when it gets fully tight, around 30lbs of torque, the knob drops 3mm and there's no way it will come loose in shooting. To remove the barrel I have to lift the knob before it will turn. I'm rather pleased with how solidly this worked out. I can see why they didn't do this in the factory - not everyone wants to tighten it to the same degree so you'd get many customers complaining that the barrel doesn't lock up. And perhaps it'll wear a little over time... but it's hard to imagine it changing much after all the break-in cycles of assembly and disassembly I've put it through while tinkering. The aluminum tapered face of the nut meeting the barrel flange doesn't show significant wear. A dab of grease there and on the threads now and then will keep it moving smoothly.
 
Sharps '74 said:
Nicely done, bit is it really a solution to non-existent problem that a TNW extended fore stock will not solve?
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Not really. I mean, the additional torque possible with the handguard probably means loosening in use is less likely. But it doesn't prevent loosening in an absolute sense. The tiny factory detent pin with its tiny spring, engaging with the shallow slots in the aluminum barrel nut (whether stock or extended handguard type) doesn't really do much to prevent it loosening. Mine shows considerable wear, though I took out the detent pin early on as it seemed a bit rough and was cutting into the anodizing and polished it thoroughly so as to reduce this wear. Didn't change much. Barrel nut retention was the same, though it was a bit more of a *tick* *tick* sound when tightening or loosening deliberately, compared to a rougher, grinding sound as stock.

With the larger pin and spring and adding the manual disengagement element, wear to the barrel is eliminated if I hold up the knob while tightening or loosening, and much reduced if I let it ride the teeth with the highly polished flat end of the pin, this action making very little sound at all. And the absolute retention with the new pin means it just can't work loose, even if I shoot for years without ever removing the barrel. There's perhaps a tiny added benefit in that I'm tightening the barrel nut to exactly the same point every time, removing a small variable which could perhaps affect return to zero (though I doubt it).

Of course I'm not suggesting anyone else should perform such modifications on their TNW ASR. Just sharing what I decided to do with mine. Did it mostly because I'm afflicted with an obsessive personality. I keep coming back to all my guns and tinkering with them, refining function and reliability until they're about as perfect as they can be, for my use.
 
The TNW extended rail foreends I've seen have a sliding key lock that locks the picatinny rail sections together and prevents it from turning.... even their AR shroud adapter would serve as a locking connection by itself without a shroud.
 
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