Pk,

the barrel cleaned out just fine after the 20 rounds of 5.56; however the chamber and the conversion kit were filthy when I got home. I meant to take pics before I cleaned it but my OCD kicked in...

I'm going to experiment with several brands of ammo, and I hope to find a reasonably priced (read cheap) copper plated bullet that the conversion likes. I can't say for certain, but I think the copper plating will give leave less funk in the barrel for me to clean out. No matter what I plan to run 20-40 rounds of 5.56 down the pipe at the end of each .22lr session just to clean junk out.

I was on the fence WRT conversion kit or dedicated upper, and the cost factor pushed me towards the conversion (I look forward to putting the saved $ towards ammo). Brownells has an excellent return policy, so I figured if the CMMG kit didn't work out I could pursue other options.

gotm4 will be installing at least one (maybe two) of those RIS II rails tomorrow. You could always add yours to his assembly line; as of yesterday afternoon VA arms had one brown/one black RIS II rail left on the shelf - you know you want it