I’m about to find out if a large ejection port is required.

RESULTS?!

About 30 rounds in semi.  So far so good. 5 rounds loaded at a time.

It's easy enough to enlarge by hand with a file, takes a little while tho! I just copied the CMMG shape: https://www.dropbox.com/s/k7vxw49wknz1cci/filed_ejection_port.jpg?dl=0

Awesome. I got a banshee upper during the sale and my thread protector is basically welded on with red loctite. Anyone else get theirs like that?

Bryan at CMMG warned me it might be hard to get off but mine only had a dab.  The guys are supposed to use blue he said they sometimes grab the wrong variety.

Yeah they went a little overboard on the red with mine lol. I emailed them and their response was pretty funny. I'll heat gun the shiz out of it and go for it.

Full auto rpm testing today:  CMMG 9mm Banshee upper/Spike's Cal Multi lower/Magpul CTR stock/Endomags/Blazer Brass 115 FMJ 9mm.  I had no misfeeds but a single bho with one round left in the magazine.  About 300 rounds of 9mm fired

The sweetest combo was the Kynshot .308 RB5005 hydraulic buffer with a round carbine spring.  666 rpm and very soft recoil.  I also tried the Tubb's flatwire spring but the plain round wire spring felt better and reduced rpm a bit.

Off topic but my .300 BLK upper worked equally well with the RB5005/round wire carbine spring combo using subsonic ammo.  Supersonic ammo was terrible.  Rpm went to high 900's and comfort/control to 0.

On my 5.56 upper the sweetest buffer/spring combo is what came with the Compressor: Spikes T3 and round carbine spring.  585 rpm, feels as good as the Banshee.  Surprised me since the hydraulic buffers felt noticeably better with the other configs.

Thanks again to amphibian for leading me down the rabbit trail to successful tuning.  I can live with a buffer switch for the 5.56 and everything else is so smooth I don't want to mess with it.  Except for the supersonic .300 BLK issue.

were your mags gen2 or gen3? (magpul)

All of the 9mm Endomag equipped are Gen 3.

I've been looking into Amphibian's posts here and at his own site, too.  I might start a new thread in the SBR section with my experiences (mostly positive so far).  The SBR section seems appropriate since I don't have a Guard upper yet and what I'm looking for is one setup for my SBR lower that will let me swap uppers and mags and not much else (if possible).  This is why I jumped on the Endomag pre-order and am looking at the Guard upper.  The fewer changes needed to swap calibers with one lower, the better.

Unless I can find a heck of a deal on an 8" Guard upper, I'm going to build one with their bolt/barrel combo and an Aero upper per earlier recommendations here.

Speaking of Aero uppers, does anyone know if there is a difference between the 458 SOCOM and the XL uppers?  The both look like they have the same widened ejection port like the Guard upper receiver.

A bit of my trip to the range yesterday.  At 19 seconds hot brass went down the back of my shirt and then into the back of my pants.  

I tried to be cool about it and tuff it out , thankfully by the time I got done with the second mag it had cooled off and I stood up and shook it down my pants leg.  Like someone said: be glad it ejects and worry about where later.

Yesterday I was worried immediately about where it went.

Was sitting straddling a park bench so it leaned me back a bit.  Still new to full auto and getting used to control.  Much easier standing leaning into it.

Very happy with the Endomag equipped Magpuls and the CMMG Banshee upper.

EDIT: Ideas on why I got lrbho with one round left in the magazine?

Just need to trim a bit off the BHO tab as discussed here: https://www.ar15.com/forums/AR-15/Anyone-seen-this-MEAN-Arms-9mm-adpater-/15-728601/?page=11

Oh yeah I forgot about that.  And it is only 3 pages back.  

Thanks for the reminder amphibian.  I won't worry too much about forgetting stuff until folks start telling me that my fly is open.

What can are you using?

Waiting on a stamp for a Rugged Obsidian 9.  That is a KAW Valley XL Linear Compensator on the Banshee.  Worth every penny of the 50 bucks.   It does a great job of throwing all the noise, flash and blast downrange.

Guys next to me at the bench loved it since they didn't have to deal with a typical muzzle device lateral discharge.

Wow really?  That thing has a tone similar to a suppressor; definitely not like a typical gunshot (on a video anyway).  Very cool!

I was surprised too, have never used other than vanilla flash suppressor.  I didn't take out my hearing protection but it felt about the same as my suppressed 5.56.  Must have everything to do with how the blast is directed through the ports in the end.  They all face forward.

Watching video more closely I spotted something interesting at 15 seconds,  The flash is visible about 3-4 inches in front of the muzzle.  It appears in mid air shaped like the cone of vapor behind a fast jet.  As the firing continues the flash moves farther out.  It is weird.  I'm used to seeing the flash right there at the muzzle on sbr's, not hanging in the air several inches out.

Twist your brains around this:
speed of sound is ~ 767 mph (1,125 fps)
speed of 9mm out of Banshee is ~ 852 mph (1,250 fps, maybe less)
I think the fatty linear compressors' forward porting may be reducing the speed of the Blazer Brass 115's to subsonic.  That would be cool if true.

Attached File
Attached File

Tiny muzzle flash far out.
Attached File

@HDSledge

The reason for the different muzzle flash has to do with the frames per second that your camera is recording at. Remember a video is just a bunch of captured still frames. The muzzle flash is probably pretty consistent but the camera is capturing at different times

You have a point there.  The flash out of the compensator is invisible from my viewpoint.  I didn't know there was one until I looked at the video.  Other videos show muzzles flash clearly and the ball of fire is hard to miss.  I the like the comp but will be happier when my suppressor stamp arrives sometime next year.

It is really hard to figure out who sells what other than directly from cmmg, especially uppers and non standard parts like their rdb bolt/barrel combo. Their website seems to only locate lgs's where you will end up paying top dollar and stand little chance of finding the non standard parts that are in demand. Seriously I dont know why they arent set up with the big vendors like brownells, midway etc to stock their uppers/specialty parts so better pricing can be had and ultimately they can move more units? Optics planet says they have the bolt/barrel combos but they often are misleading/lie by omission about whether the items are infact in stock, in their possesion and ready to ship (often not the case).

Complete guns are not too hard to find online.

Optics Planet is back up to $380 on the 8" version, only the 16" version is still at $330.  I did e-mail them, and they agreed to honor the $330 price for me.  After reading your note, I think I need to confirm they have it in stock, and it will ship immediately.

If only I knew something biggerer/betterer/fasterer wasn't going to be coming out at SHOT show, I'd pull the trigger on this one.  As it is, the CMMG bolt/barrel, and the Aero XL upper have both gone up since I started looking.

FM Products has a new delayed blowback system that is discussed on this page.
https://www.ar15.com/forums/AR-15/Foxtrot-Mike-s-9mm-upper-anyone-heard-of-them-/15-715196/?page=9
They said they were going to introduce it at Shot. They have been pretty tight lipped on it.  They said no gas port in barrel, proprietary barrel and BCG (like the Guard).   Will be interesting to see what it looks like.

Has anyone tried the Guard w/ an H3 buffer, the 9x19mm bolt, and a .223 bbl?

?????
Sounds like you are talking about shooting a .223 round using the Guard BCG assembly....I think that would be catastrophic or close to it.
The Guard doesn't lock the bolt at all...just delays it.  I personally think they could be more aggressive on the bolt's angled cuts and make it delay more but I get it...They probably did what they did to give it a larger operating window.

All the full auto tweaking/testing I've been doing with the Guard is to try to soften that recoil impulse even more than it is out of the box from CMMG.... down to MP5 levels.  I think if it doesn't do that already, trying to fire a rifle caliber would be really bad.

I surely won't be the guinea pig on that test....
BTW, years ago I did some prototype testing with another manufacturer for a piston operated 9mm upper and we used a 5.45 bolt which has a bolt face size identical to what you need for 9mm which I think was .40".  So I'm sure you could also do that...take a 9mm Guard BCG and put it into a 5.45 upper and it would go bang but I think it would also be a bad thing and crap would break.

CMMG made the carrier key the way they did on purpose so if you try to put their BCG into an upper with a gas tube or piston op rod, the key is going to hit it to prevent you from doing any of the shenanigans we are talking about right now.  I know you could remove the tube but again, I think this is a bad idea.

I went out to Optics Planet a few days ago, added the 8" bolt and barrel combo to my cart and applied a 10% off coupon to figure final price.

I paid off my credit card and went back to Optics Planet the next day and saw the price had jumped.

I just checked CMMG's website and it looks like they have the 5" combo now:

https://www.cmmginc.com/product/56086barrel-and-bcg-kit-5-4140cm-sbn-9mm/

Trying to decide if I should see if Optics Planet will give me the old price, or wait and see if they will have the 5" combo.

Edit to add - I may wait until SHOT to see what FM Products comes out with.

As mentioned above, Bowers (I was considering a VERS 9S) didn't like the 5" (Banshee) upper as a host.  He seemed to like the 8" (Guard) upper better.  Surprising to me, as I was going back and forth between the two, with the ' 5" for suppressed use' mantra (for 9mm) stuck in myhead.

I too am waiting until SHOT.  If nothing uber-cool comes out, I'll be picking up the Guard 8" barrel and bcg.

Curious if anyone had tried it.  The FAMAS is a lever-delayed blowback action that has worked well despite its magazines.  Worst case is the case ruptures and dumps gas everywhere.  Not as likely to kaboom the upper since the bolt would be unlocking as normal, just faster.  

I don't think it would kaboom, but I do think something would break.  Probably the lugs...like this:

I also wondered how Tom tested the 5".  I know CMMG recommends using the bolt weight in the 'Guard' when suppressed.  I know in his post, he also tested the CMMG's own can as well.  I'm guessing maybe he tested with their reps present and if that were the case you would think that they would have the most optimal setup there...maybe he is just more picky?  Maybe he thinks a straight blowback 5" AR is bad too...but who knows.
I'm not interested enough to go ask him since I really don't care for the 5" for ballistic reasons.

My 2 cents on the whole 5" vs 8":

I am getting a custom suppressor setup made that will be 5" long but 2" in diameter.  I'm not going for max quiet.  I just want hearing safe and short but still be subsonic.

Below data is what I did with a Chrony in the summertime in Florida.   All data is 5 shot averages.

With my ~9.3" Full size UZI SMG
158 Gr IMI Blue Tip - 934 fps
147 Gr JRN Precision Delta w/ 3.7 Gr Titegroup (max charge is 3.6) - 946 fps.

With my 9mm Beretta (4.8") and the same 147 Gr JRN Precision Delta w/ 3.7 Gr Titegroup (max charge is 3.6), I only get 887 fps

I'm looking for as much knockdown power for steel plates as I can get.  I'd really like to be right at about 1000 fps and with the 9.3" barrel I'm still under that.

I know the trend is to go 5".  I can see that if you going for max compactness.  I would also do as short a suppressor as possible if going with a 5" but with the understanding your terminal ballistics won't be as optimal.  I don't see the point of going to a 5" then sticking an 8" can on there.

I have a 5" Colt blowback barrel and with a ~7.5" MK9k (2" in OD).  
So we are talking about barrel + suppressor being ~12.5" for barrel + suppressor.
The shorter the barrel, the more suppressor has to work.
I personally would prefer for that overall length to move the length to the barrel and shorten the suppressor for better ballistics and more powder is being burnt up while the suppressor isn't dealing with as much gas.
So if I go 8" with a 5" can gets me around 13", pretty close to the same length as going with a 5" barrel and 'full' size suppressor (MK9K is pretty short).

Of course this is all moot if you're just shooting paper or cans.....all comes down to what you are trying to do.

I don't actually think the lugs would break, b/c it's a totally different operating system we're talking about.  The largest issue is the case is extracting as soon as the bullet moves forward, which tends to result in case head ruptures.  Would be interested in testing w/ steel .223, M855A1 not so much.

Anyone tried CMMG bolt+barrel paired with PSA gen4 lower glock?
Planning to use Aero XL upper and PSA lower w CMMG bolt + 5in barrel for suppressed build.

I mentioned earlier that I was looking at the bolt/barrel combo on Optics Planet, then the price jumped.  I decided to wait and see what came out of the SHOT show before making a decision.

I hope we find out something soon.  I just found a complete 8" 9mm Guard upper on sale plus a coupon code for $535.  I may need to jump on that.

I've never bought anything from tacticalshit.com.  Anyone know if they are reliable?

While I was typing this, I looked for reviews online.  Turns out their storefront is close by.  I may just take a drive out there.  Of course, I'll have to pay sales tax.  

Edit to add - found a lot of bad reviews.  Guess I'll keep waiting to see what comes out at SHOT.

Waiting on SHOT feedback for the same reason. FWIW, I messaged OpticsPlanet with some "price match" form they have, and they agreed to the $330.xx price they used to have listed.

Thanks!  I may need that.

See circled area.  I just put in the previous $330.xx price they had listed for the 8" guard, and got a "we'll take it" email. Attached File

I did not read every page, so be gentle:

Is the only difference on the guard 9mm bolt and a standard 5.56 bolt the angles on the locking lugs?

Thank you.

No.

Mainly juat wanting to know if the lugs are the same location around the bolt? Wanting to know if a standard bolt (in theory) would slide and feed the same as a CMMG guard bolt in regards to an endo mag for the guard.

What are planning to put in that Endomag?

.22 TCM9R

Not trying to hijack the thread.

Attached File

For the most part they are the same.  The lugs are in the same locations as a 556 but angled as you mentioned.  Also, the bottom two lugs are "narrowed" (outside of lugs has been shaved down) in order to fit between a Glock mag's feed lips.  Other differences I can see are not as many machining operations done to the Guard bolt, for example the groove for the gas rings is not cut, nor the "pocket" in front of the rings or "shoulder" (surface that rides against inside of bolt carrier).

556 on top, Guard on bottom:
Attached File


Narrowed bottom lugs:
Attached File

I have a couple buddies out there now and they don't see FM Products there.
I looked and can't find them: https://n1a.goexposoftware.com/events/ss19/goExpo/exhibitor/listExhibitorProfiles.php?ff_form_refresh=&search_str=&field_name=&area_id=&pavilion=&new_exhibitor=&new=&keyword=&search_field_X=display_name&search_field_Y=&category=&search=Search
Tried searching for FM or Foxtrot...no hits.

Thank you very much!

Well that sucks.  Maybe they'll still release some info?  Hopefully?  I was really looking forward to seeing their new design.  

No problem!

Well, crap.

Thanks for the update.

I was kinda getting psyched about the idea of a front/side charging Guard upper.  If I read right in the other thread, you can make a guard bolt work with their upper, but they don't sell the parts separately.  I don't really have the funds right now to buy both and then mix and match parts.  I know, "go be poor somewhere else".  

I know, I'm in the same boat and have been pestering them about a 'builders kit'.  I think they are nearly a year behind on that offering

I'm giving it until Monday.  If there's no word on their new offering by then, I'm ordering the CMMG unit.

One of my buddies said he only saw two FM Products rifles that were in the Glockstore's booth and they weren't any kind of delayed anything.

Not to get too side tracked but he was also looking forward to seeing LWRC's really cool delayed blow back 45 that used HK UMP mags that they showed off like 3 or 4 years ago and that wasn't there either.

They are a day late and a dollar short.  CMMG can't be beat considering their lead to market with the RDB system.  Of course tech support via Bryan B. is 10 out of 10.  He has been very responsive to all my questions and inquiries about their system and the Endomag as well.  Btw they are all very happy and impressed with the Endomag with their Guard/Banshee 9 uppers.