In 2 posts, character limit thing.

Back when DPMS discontinued their dedicated 22 with the 10/22 style bolt I found (midway I think) uppers only heavily discounted and bought one.  My initial reaction was I must have got a lemon, wouldn't hit the broadside of

a barn with any ammo I fed it, unlike all the reviews I read about them.  It was WAY worse than the Ceiner/Atchison kit I had on a 1/12 .223 upper, never liked the Ceiner either.  So the upper just collected dust for a decade.

I have a savage 22 bolt rifle that is fairly accurate, but with my suppressor purchase I got a large assortment of heavier than 40gr subsonic rounds to try in it, and a couple 40 gr subsonic.  They were ok for the best of them

and not too good for most in accuracy.  Ok being worst group 8/10's at 55 yards, anything more not good.   Of course the best was the winchester load made in Australia that is no longer available.  I came accross a discount on

a XX match Douglas 22 blank in 1-14 twist and said what the heck, it can't hurt.  Had the nice added benefit of plenty of barrel blank left to have my DPMS dust catcher rebarreled into an 11"  pistol upper.  I had both done at the

same time by Paladin Machine service, he is only an hour and 30 minutes drive.  I went there and he had a heck of a time getting the barrel off the savage, they don't come off as easy as their centerfires, even though they

have a barrel nut, one that has no flat on it.  He looked at me after a while and asked if I minded if he destroyed the barrel nut and made me a new one with proper wrench flats for an extra 15 bucks, go for it.  The DPMS upper

had a thick heavy round free float forearm on it.  Turned out that was a problem getting off.  I told him I don't care about the forearm, I'm putting a different one on it anyway.  Left the Savage barrel and upper there and went

2nd part

back a couple weeks later to pick them up along with 3 more suppressor mounts for my Griffin suppressor he made far cheaper than buying factory ones.  He had ended up milling off the DPMS forearm just in front of

the barrel nut so he could get a tool in the nuts gas tube holes to unscrew it.  The Savage showed a great deal of improvement on all the subsonic loads and a very small improvement on the various standard velocity

40 gr loads.  The DPMS upper is now as accurate as my bull barreled 10/22 with standard velocity ammo, and does well with all but the American Eagle(garbage in all 22's I own) subsonic ammo.

The DPMS upper had to go back for a small tweak to Paladin, the feed ramp is milled directly in the barrel and there was a little feeding issues here and there that he got straightened out while I waited.  I had always wanted a

good and accurate dedicated 22 upper, it only took a decade of dust collection to finally get one.  The DPMS shoots new manufactured CCI standard velocity into 2/3- .7" groups at 55 yards, it shot the last of my at least

15 year old, may be over 20 years old CCI standard velocity into less than half an inch.  CCI's new standard velocity doesn't hold a candle to what I'd been used to for decades.  


I've tried 3 different lot numbers of it in the last year, they all pale in comparison to the old stuff.  ES on 10 shot strings grew over 30 FPS compared to the last of my old lot, with group sizes growing by .25"+ at 55 yards,

with maybe 1/15 having a gross flyer adding an inch to the group that the old stuff may have had 1 in 30 flyers that were no worse than 1/2" added for the flyer.


I'm sure CCI will tell you they have made no changes, but the new lots I have say different.   Since the late 70's CCi standard velocity probably accounts for 95% of all 22 rounds I've shot.

Thomas at Paladin is a freaking genius, no question about it.  I don't want to go too far out on a limb but my attitude toward him is if he cannot make it, it cannot or does not need to be made.  If I lived that close to him I'd either be broke or he'd have to get a restraining order against me.

If his neighbor hadn't complained at rezoning hearings when he tried to get his workshop zoned commercial so he could keep his FFL, he would be too busy to make driving out there worth it.

It sounds like you have a second generation DPMS upper which uses the original rectangular Nordic bolt.   I have a DPMS Gen 1 with 16” heavy barrel and round free float hand guard.   I read the hand guards had thread locker and you needed a strap wrench to get them loose after heating the threads.   I’ve never attempted taking my hand guard off.  My DPMS Gen 1 bull barrel is accurate but I’m using a Geissele G2S trigger in my dedicated lower.

I think DPMS had two versions of the Gen 2 dedicated 22 LR uppers.  A Bull Barrel and a Flat Top with 16” M-4 profile barrel with fixed front sight tower and M-4 two piece plastic hand guard.

Here is my DPMS Gen 1, probably similar in appearance to your Gen 2.

Exactly what mine did look like.  It now is an 11" barrel and a much lighter handguard and the new barrel I had him turn it to .75" instead of the .9 something the OE barrel was.  As it originally was, it sure was

a heavy upper.  BTW, when I said mine couldn't hit the broadside of the barn, I'm talking 2.5" groups min with the best ammo at 20 yards.  Thomas at Paladin inspected the barrel and couldn't find any reason

it was that bad,  Actually said the chamber was good, bore looked fine, and crown was no problem.  But it wouldn't shoot at all.

On mine, Thomas tried heat while I was there and had so much pressure on the handguard he was afraid of damaging the receiver.

That's why he milled the handguard off just in front of the barrel nut, better tool to turn on the nut, less heatsink and getting the heat directly where it needed to be.  He said it was still a bi*(*&(th.

DPMS used Nordic bolts

Probably a liberal transplant

Glad to hear your DPMS upper is now a shooter.  I have the original Nordic upper that has a similar issue with accuracy.  Just like what you had to do with your DPMS, mine was rebarreled by Taccom and that made it into a decent .22 rifle.

First time I ever heard of anyone not satisfied with their Nordic upper.  When they came out I read a lot about them, but just couldn't stomach the price for what amounts to a fun toy for me.  Even with the cost of the barrel blank and cost at Paladin to do the re-barrel put solely against the cost of the DPMS upper, ignoring the fact I got my Savage rifle rebarreled with it.  The total price ended up right about what a Nordic would cost.  Of course, I got the barrel blank on a super sale and the DPMS upper was massively discounted when they stopped making them.