This was just posted on Subguns.com

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We get the M11/9 question a lot and have been holding off making the announcement until we had ATF approval and were ready to ship but rather than wait any longer, the answer is YES, we have a newly designed AM15 Upper Receiver kit specifically for the M11/9 machine guns that we will be ready to ship pending ATF approval.

We've incorporated all of the design features and experience that we've picked up over the last 5 years with the M16 AM15 version into the newly designed M11/9 AM15 upper and it adds an incredible new dimension to the popular M11/9 platform. Like everything we sell, the M11/9 AM15 upper receiver will have the same 30 day return period available. We're that sure you're going to like it!

The anticipated price is the same as the M16 AM15 at $1999. Its a completely new design and virtually no parts are interchangeable since the M11 version is much more compact than the M16 version and only minimally extends the overall length of the M11/9's standard length.

We will be adding pictures to our webpage in the next few weeks as well as some video of it running. We do not currently have "a list" nor are we taking any deposits or offering any pre-sales. We will post a paid ad here on subguns when they are ready to ship. Although we appreciate everyone's interest, PLEASE do not call and ask for more info and how to get on the list and have we heard anything and how much longer etc. since our customer service team has no additional information to share other than what I've posted here.

Hopefully it won't be too much longer and it will definitely be worth the wait.

Thank you for your business and your support,

Craig Wheatley
Tactical Innovations Inc.
www.tacticalinc.com
208-267-1585 PST

I think I’ll buy one for the M11/9 and one for my pending M16. Full auto 22LR is so much fun. I have the Lage 22 kit suppressed with a Mystic X on my M11/9, works well and leaves everyone with a smile!

This is awesome news! And yes would gladly pay 2K

Any pics?

This will have a impact on the AM180 market if they work.

I actually just got an email for my wait list M16 AM15 upper earlier this week.

If the M11/9 upper is anything like the M16 upper it took about 3  years from initial deposits until Craig actually delivered any uppers.  They then went out of production for a long period of time and he started building them again earlier this year (gen 2 version)

His note on subguns states they don't  have ATF approval at this point, so an M11 upper is probably at least a year (or more) away knowing how long tech branch approval takes (looking at Lage as an example).  Once he starts accepting deposits its probably another year before you will actually have product in hand.

Tactical Inc also had an M11 proto version on their website years ago teasing it was all ready "as soon as they have ATF approval"

https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2010/11/25/am15-22lr-upper-275-round-magazine-for-m119-smg/

Hopefully he is quicker with the M11 version this time around, but I am going to take the bird in the hand right now and grab a AM15 M16 upper while they are available and before the production window closes again for who knows how long.

Not to derail the thread... but... how long were you waiting on the M16 upper?  I've been on the "notify me when it's back in stock" list for a year or more and have heard nothing.  I checked when I saw this thread, as I had no idea they were back in production, and I'm still on the notification list.  Do I have to contact them via phone or something to get on a "waiting list?"

According to my conversation with Tactical Inc. when I gave them a credit card today, I have been on the waiting list i.e. "notify me when back in stock" since 2010ish.

I hit their website for other misc. parts or magazines maybe once or twice a year and would always pop over to the AM15 page to see what the status was and in March noticed the change that they now had Gen 2 versions they were shipping (but were still out of stock).

When I saw the update on the website in March,  I called them  to inquire as to my status in line and they told me it shouldn't be more than another 6 months or so and they would contact me when my number came up.  (Ended up being about 2 to 3 months)

From my conversation today it sounds like they are really short on parts.  I tried to buy a second drum winder and extra steel drum mag base plates (as they are recommended) and they had none to sell as every very little bit they had was being used to complete full kits for backlogged customers.

Its on my list to call E&L tomorrow to get another winder and some of their aluminum base plates as I have a small pile of lexan drums stockpiled from years back.

If you want one now there is a Gen2 AM15 currently on GB for only a $100 premium and another Gen 2 for sale on machineguncentral.com for only a $50 premium.    I actually considered buying the machineguncentral unit but Tactical Inc. emailed me before I mustered the motivation to contact them.  You can always call them and inquire as to timeline and then decide if an extra $50 or $100 is worth the estimated wait time.

Wow, interesting.  I have an AM180 so I probably won't get one but I don't know, maybe I will.  

I do want to get some aluminum bottom plates.  Guess this kicks me in gear to get them now.

My AM15 showed up today.  Seems like a nice piece of equipment.  Fingers crossed it runs well.

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Wake me for the Lage .308 belt-fed.

len needs to get the RPD upper approved.

Awesome man!

Get us some pics when you get it together and try to get us some video.

nice

Looks awesome. Wish Tactical Innovations would produce a closed bolt version of the AM15.

I will post an update on functionality along with some fully assembled pictures and video in the next couple weeks once I find some time to work on it and ultimately get it out to the range.

Overall the quality appears pretty nice and the machining of the upper receiver and the feed block appears to be high quality.  The bolt rides inside the receiver extremely smooth and the amount of little spring loaded detents, etc. make it look like a lot of thought was put into this.  The only complaint I can find at this point is that there are some obvious end mill machining marks on the bolt itself.  Not the end of the work but given the quality of the rest of the parts and how tight everything fits together the end mill machining marks on the bolt did stand out.   However, I don’t suspect the machine marks will in any way inhibit functionality.

After looking over the fire control parts in person last night, I am considering making a drop in open bolt fire control group, similar to a Timney or POF where everything is self-contained into a drop in assembly/cage and copy how a basic M60 FCG works.

The biggest issue in swapping the fire control group out is that you have to replace the selector as there is pivot linkage part that rotates on the selector and essentially acts as a bridge or link between the open bolt trigger and open bolt autosear (which ultimately depresses the hammer/sear allowing the bolt to go forward).  Swapping out the hammer and trigger is no big deal, but getting the selector out means removing the pistol grip each time which is a pain in the ass.

There is also the concern in the back of my head about the impact the hammer pin holes will take as the hammer is now effectively the open bolt sear and is what catches the bolt and holds it back.   I know Colt essentially designed this system and if an open bolt 5.56 upper doesn’t damage the lower pin holes, I doubt a much reduced energy 22lr bolt will have any detrimental effect….but still it’s still in the back of my mind.    A drop in open bolt fire control unit would distribute the impact over 4 holes vs. 2 and it would also be made to shim up against the front of the lower receiver fire control pocket for additional impact resistance.

I will test it out with the factory FCG and if it runs well and I like the upper, I would consider making a drop in open bolt FCG group that just requires removing the trigger and hammer and leaves the normal autosear and selector in place.  

It should be pretty straight forward to make an HK style FCG trigger box/cage to capture a basic M60 style FCG setup and also make the cage in such a way that it will only fit into a M16 receiver that is fully relieved for a factory auto-sear so that it couldn't drop into a normal semi auto AR15 receiver.  Not that it probably really matters as I see no reason this upper wouldn't drop right onto a semi AR15 lower and dump the whole mag if you pull the bolt back and let go.   That said its still probably best to just make any FCG group for this upper as an M16 receiver only type arrangement.

I would have also preferred a closed bolt setup but after playing with it a bit last night suspect that reliability due to bolt bounce is probably the crux of the issue.

With just the upper in your hand,  if you pull the bolt back manually and then sling it back forward with your finger acting as the recoil spring, the bolt basically bounces all the way back open after smacking the bolt face.  

If you were tactical inc and even if you could get it to 99% reliability with a closed bolt setup that would still mean between 2 and 3 stoppages per large format drum.   Emotionally, I assume most folks will react differently if you have 99% reliability and you get one stoppage for every four-ish 25rd magazines on a normal box fed 22lr conversion (and that is easy to clear) than if you get multiple stoppages on each 275 drum that are difficult to clear.  Even though statistically its the same stop rate, I suspect it would be viewed differently i.e. "I cant get through a single drum"  vs. " I get one stop every 4 or 5 box magazines.

From a conversion standpoint it doesn’t look like it would be extreme amount of work to mill a channel down the bolt and install a spring loaded firing pin.  However, you would need to probably add a bunch of anti-bounce weights and maybe some type of detent systems like the Norrell 10/22 or gorilla ciener ball detent mod.   You are also probably limited in the amount of anti-bounce mass you can add to the system as well.

Just to be clear, a semi auto receiver can be machined to M16 receiver specs as long as the auto sear hole is deleted.  In fact such a semi auto receiver is commercially available.  It would also be a recommended practice to submit your drop in trigger design to the NFA Technology Branch for a determination.  Good luck with the project.

Scott

I guess its good that I don’t own one those jail bait “99% M16” lower receivers.

From a constructive possession perspective, I only control what I personally own.    Just because some outfit decides it’s a good idea to market and sell what amounts to a 99% M16 lower receiver to the general public, doesn’t mean that everybody else has to design around their lack of good judgement.

Regardless of the availability of 99% M16 lower receivers, at the end of the day the fire-control system for the AM15 system is not relevant in terms of whether you are in possession of an illegal machinegun or not as the AM15 upper will fire automatically with exactly zero fire control parts in the lower.

Legally speaking with this product,  you either have a legal home or use (i.e. M16 receiver) for an AR15/M16 pattern upper that fires from an open bolt with a fixed firing pin …. or you don’t.

The “Colt-Like” open bolt fire control parts provided by Tactical Inc. that come with the AM15 upper are in my  estimation more problematic from a constructive possession perspective if you own a semi AR15 and really wanted to dissect it.

If you were to install the Tactical Inc.  AM15 provided open bolt trigger and hammer/sear assembly into a semi-auto AR15 lower receiver and attach a standard 5.56 upper with a full auto carrier,  that formerly semi-auto AR15 will now fire automatically.   So when you pull those open bolt parts to convert your M16 back to closed bolt operation you now have a bunch of full auto conversion parts laying around without a legal home and which are capable of dropping into and converting a semi-auto AR15 into a machinegun.

My proposed drop-in AM15 fire control design would not fit into 99.99999% of the semi-auto AR15 lower receivers sold to date.  (and zero semi lowers I own)

In the event an AM15 owner also owned a “99% M16”  lower receiver and managed to shoehorn my drop in fire control housing into it, the end result would  be exactly nothing….. as my design has no way to strike the firing pin when a normal upper is installed, being as it has no hammer.

Of course, if you took my proposed AM15 drop in fire control housing, installed it into a 99% M16 lower, and then attached an AM15 open bolt upper, it would fire automatically.

However, in that scenario you created an illegal machinegun the second you push-pinned the AM15 upper to a semi AR lower.  Whether you install any fire control parts (of any design) in the lower or none at all…..doesn’t make it more or less of an illegal machinegun at that point.

I have done a couple test fire sessions so far with the main one the end of last week where I ran about 500 rounds through the upper.

A couple things to note so far.

-  Upon my first test firing I got some “runaway” type symptoms where I would let go of the trigger and the gun would continue to fire a handful of rounds before the sear would finally catch the bolt.   I was using the recommended 40gr CCI Mini-Mags and even with a suppressor attached would still get sporadic multi-round runaways when letting go of the trigger.

-  The AM15 standard spring is surprisingly stiff, so I cut down an old A2 stock spring and the runaway condition ceased with the lighter spring.  Informally the cut down A2 spring is probably 60 to 70%  as strong as the standard AM15 factory spring.  However with the lighter spring I was getting some sporadic rates of fire where the ROF would slow down in the middle of long bursts and I would end up with one or two stoppages per drum with the lighter cut down A2 spring.

-  I currently have the official AM15 “adjustable” buffer and factory light spring kit on order and will retest with that new spring and buffer to find the right combination of power and reliability.  I did talk to Craig and he mentioned he was surprised I was getting runaways with CCI minimags and a suppressor and thought there may be some drag in the systems.  However, so far there are no marks in the buffer tube and when I remove the buffer spring and reassemble the bolt slides back and forth in the receiver just under the power of gravity by slightly tipping the gun fore and aft.  Maybe its just a break in issue or my lot of CCI is slightly underpowered compared to what he tests with.

Now that I have had the upper a bit there are two design aspects I think could be improved.

1.  The adjustable aluminum buffer tube spacer isn’t ideal.   It’s designed so you can adjust the depth the bolt carrier moves back and forth before it bottoms out so that the bolt doesn’t impact the back of the upper but also allow for maximum bolt travel.  However, after each shooting session the adjustable spacer’s set screw  would work loose, which means that the spacer can rotate and change spacing depth.   It’s also difficult to get the spacer out of the buffer tube as there is no spring pressure to push it past the detent.   I assume I could probably just use some thread locker on it to try and keep it from loosening up.   However,  I have a RRA polymer fixed stock to carbine stock buffer “spacer” on order and am just going to cut it to fit and ditch the more complicated adjustable aluminum version.  (more on the spacer below)

2.  One other aspect that I am not thrilled with is the amount of over-travel the bolt has vs. the sear engagement.    Assuming the bolt bottoms out on the spacer as currently designed, the bolt gets a pretty good running start forward before it is caught by the sear/hammer.    My current plan is to cut the fixed polymer spacer so that the bolt doesn’t get such a sizeable running start at the hammer/sear and engagement is within ~0.25” of where the bolt bottoms out.  I assume this will speed up the ROF a bit.   While 22lr doesn’t have a lot of energy the bolt itself is pretty weighty, the factory spring is pretty strong and when combined with a running start to build momentum, it doesn’t do much to alleviate concerns about receiver pin hole wear over the long term.

So far I have been diligently checking my hammer pin hole for any signs of wear and so far have seen nothing of concern.  However, I am still committed to make a drop in trigger system that will better distribute the bolt to sear impact load across the receiver vs. concentrating all of it on a single 0.154 hammer pin.  

I have a few projects ahead of this to finish up first so it may be a month or more before I can get back over to making custom parts for the AM15.      I also want to make sure I can fully resolve the runaway condition while also keeping reliability up before investing a bunch more time into the setup.

Quick camera phone pic from the range.

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Great write-up! Thanks

Any word from tactical innovations on the M11/9 180 conversion upper?

I’m not on subguns or FB so no clue if they are posting updates there.

Just crickets

Got on Tactical Innovations site today and was looking around. Noticed that all of the AM180 parts had the name changed to AM15 & AM11.  So things are looking good for this to come to bear.

cool!