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Posted: 3/8/2009 9:17:41 PM EDT
| I have been thinking about getting a dedicated upper from Spikes but was wondering what the accuracy difference would be like between a conversion & a dedicated upper. I mean is it a big difference? Also if I were to get a conversion would that affect the accuracy of my barrel with .223? There is a pretty good price difference between the 2 obviously but if there wouldnt be a big difference between the 2 as far as accuracy & if it wouldnt screw up my barrel I would probably go with the conversion but I just dont know so I thought I would ask you guys that have more knowledge on this topic than me. Thanks in advance. |
I also was considering the two deffernt ways to go. I decided to go with the conversion from Brownells. If you are looking for the best shooting groups then go with the dedicated upper. My purpose is to use it for training and 50 yards is good enough for my accuracy so I will save the rest of my money for 5.56 ammo. I use this conversion in my fighting rifle and everything is the same just switched out the carrier group and thats it. No buying or switching equipment from one rifle to the other just the conversion.
I have yet to shoot mine since I just bought it yesterday but from what I have read make sure to use quality 22LR ammo. |
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I think it's hard to say what the difference will be between a dedicated .22 upper and a conversion kit in your barrel as it is dependent on the individual barrel and the only way to know for sure is to try a kit in your barrel and see if it meets your needs/expectations. The easiest/cheapest way to do that would be to borrow one and try it in your setup. If you don't have that option available to you, the next easiest way is to just buy the conversion unit yourself and try it out. If it meets your needs, you are good to go.
If it doesn't, you can always order a dedicated upper, less the .22 BCG you will already have, and get a new chamber adapter or modify the one that came with your conversion kit and basically create your own dedicated setup. This way will cost you a little more (maybe $40-50 more) than just buying the dedicated setup to begin with, but the end result is the same. Just throwing it out there as an option to you if you haven't considered it. |
| yeah my bigger concern was whether or not my barrel accuracy would be affected for .223 with the conversion, I think I will just go with the upper & not have to worry about it, how long is the wait for them baddazar15? on the site it says about a week but when I called last week I was told 3 or 4 weeks, just curious |
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yeah my bigger concern was whether or not my barrel accuracy would be affected for .223 with the conversion, I think I will just go with the upper & not have to worry about it, how long is the wait for them baddazar15? on the site it says about a week but when I called last week I was told 3 or 4 weeks, just curious In Stock |
| that is excellent news thanks TT, Im all excited now I cant wait to get it & try it out, now I'm gonna go get a few boxes of bulk pack ammo from walmart so I'm ready to test it out when I get it, this is gonna be great now I can shoot my "AR" at the indoor range at my club, so now no matter what the weather is like I can shoot my "AR", I'll be able to practice all year long & save quite a bit of money on ammo too |
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yeah my bigger concern was whether or not my barrel accuracy would be affected for .223 with the conversion, I think I will just go with the upper & not have to worry about it, how long is the wait for them baddazar15? on the site it says about a week but when I called last week I was told 3 or 4 weeks, just curious The website says 1-3 weeks, but I placed an order for a custom 22 upper on Saturday and they shipped it today. Needless to say I'm quite thrilled. And it's looking like the weather might cooperate this weekend. 
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Shooting the conversion will not at all hurt your upper. You might want to brush out the bore a bit to get things clean but
the only thing that gets real cruddy is the trigger as the blowback action poops some crud there every time you pull the trigger. Dedicated uppers will also do this,nothing a can of brake cleaner or Gun Scrubber won't fix. Accuracy of the drop in conversion will be pretty decent if you have a 1/9 or tighter twist. 1/8 and 1/7 barrels ––-not so much. Accuracy will also depend on ammo choice. Some of the bulk ammo is ok,some is poor accuracy and poor in reliability also. I have had good results with my Ceiner with Federal Automatch. I expect that accuracy will vary a bit from one Ceiner unit to another also. I have shot my buddy's dedicated Spike's and it is a sweet accurate gun. I have a 1/12 (old M16 upper) That was holding it's own against the Spikes . With a match trigger and a high power scope off a rest the spikes would beat my Ceiner by a bit with most ammo but my ceiner would outshoot the spikes with a couple of ammo's. It was a pretty close thing. Shooting without a great rest it was impossible to call a winner between the Spikes,my Ceiner in the 1/12 and the Ceiner in a 1/9 bushmaster. The thing I keep returning to is that I own 5+ different AR's with different barrels,lengths,sights and sighting systems. With the Ceiner I get use in all my different guns. Practise indoors with my service match rifle, long range messing about with my varmint rig and a 20X scope,plate matches with my red dot carbine, or whatever gun I feel like messing with . If I had only the Spikes I would get just the one setup. |
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Im in the same boat. I would like to know if the dedicated upper requires any tuning as some of the kits may need. And when you talk about a difference in accuracy how much are we talking about? Is it measured in inches or feet? With my 1/12 upper, it is measured in 1/4 in increments. |
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http://www.cheaperthandirt.com/ctd_images/bgprod/AMM-057.jpg
Hard to find, but 60 grain 22lr would stabilize much better with 1/9 twist than the typical 36 grain 22lr that most people use. Seen reviews where people say their 22lr conversion on their AR-15 was much more accurate using these rounds. There a little more expensive, probably cause they are lower volume, than most .22lr, but still a whole cheaper than 5.56 or .223. |
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I always "assumed" the typical 35-40 grain .22LR was mostly empty space in the cartridge anyway. At least if you shake a .22LR round it seems that way. So probably there isn't any problem with shortening the cartridge for the longer bullet.
BTW, from what I "read" (by no means am I an expert), one of the biggest factors in determining proper rifle spin is the length of the bullet, probably why these longer bullet 60gr 22lr are more accurate going down a barrel designed for a 55gr-62gr 5.56/.223 bullet. All things being equal, a more massive bullet will be longer, so when you hear people associate a twist with the grain of a bullet, that's still solid advice. That's why the military uses 1/7 twist, to shoot tracers, a tracer bullet of equal mass has to be a lot longer, since the tracer material is a lot less dense then the lead/steel in the M193/M855. Again, from what I "read", too much twist is better than NOT enough, but way to much twist the bullet can come apart, it is getting spun fast enough for this to happen. Seems like a possibility with cheap low quality .22LR being spun more than twice the rate that is considered correct for them. Could that be the reason for some of the accounts of lead deposits all over the flash suppressor when using a .22lr conversion? |
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yeah my bigger concern was whether or not my barrel accuracy would be affected for .223 with the conversion, I think I will just go with the upper & not have to worry about it, how long is the wait for them baddazar15? on the site it says about a week but when I called last week I was told 3 or 4 weeks, just curious In Stock Hmmmmm, just when I thought I had finished buying everything I wanted...... 
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What about when used with an RDIAS? I've seen some comments that the conversions work better than dedicated uppers... True or false? Both bolts are the same so it doesn't really matter. If its different at all I would say the dedicated upper would be better due to having more back pressure from having the proper twist rate. |
| according to UPS tracking info I should have my upper tomorrow, woo hoo, I've already stocked up & got 3 boxes of wally world fed bulk pack ammo, and a forend rail & aimpoint clone on the way from Bright Flashlights, if I'm lucky I will have those on saturday if not then monday or tuesday, so I will be pretty well set up by next week, cant wait to get this |
| Draven - When I was shooting the colt conversion through a colt HBAR, I was getting out 3-4 times a year and shooting 1-3 boxes an outing. I bought the Model 1 Sales OCMP dedicated upper and have it on a RRA NM lower, I am getting out 3-4 times a month and shooting 2-3 boxes each outing. It works that well. I really refer the dedicated upper - the sights are adjusted to the load, there's no chance of leading up my 223 barrel, and the extra investment encourages me to get to the range more often. Good luck with your decision. |
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ok UPS just dropped off my ST-22 upper about 45 minutes ago , I have the upper on my RRA lower, have to go out & do a few things hopefully I will be able to get to the range to test it out, I will let you guys know what happens, I feel like a kid on christmas morning
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ok UPS just dropped off my ST-22 upper about 45 minutes ago , I have the upper on my RRA lower, have to go out & do a few things hopefully I will be able to get to the range to test it out, I will let you guys know what happens, I feel like a kid on christmas morning Awesome! |
| ok so I finally got to the range today to try out the ST-22, and it performed flawlessly, I shot between 200 - 250 rounds. I didnt have any FTF's or FTE's at all. Accuracy seemed to be good but I was only shooting irons & in all honesty I've never been great with irons & it was at only 20 yards and a lot of it was off hand too, but I was happy with it. I am going to be putting a red dot aimpoint clone on it so I should be able to sight it in a bit better once I do that so the accuracy may be better once I do that, but again it was definetly combat accurate, at least at the 20 yards I was at. The only thing that was close to a problem was that toward the end of my session the bolt would stick a little bit sometimes when I was pulling the charging handle to load it, it didnt stick during firing there were no issues there at all. Its possible that I might need to put a drop or 2 of oil on it since I didnt do anything before shooting it or maybe it was just getting a little bit dirty but either way I'm not too worried about it. I am very happy so far but I do want to do some more shooting to really put it thru its paces. I was firing pretty rapidly at some points & it just kept shooting with no problems, it was great. |
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