Well… the God awful price of 5.56mm has finally drove me to it. I finally bought a Ciener .22 conversion kit. I took a while, but thanks to BDM (Black Dog Machining) out in Idaho, who started making full bodied 30 rd magazines for these conversion’s that were priced reasonably ($35 ea.)
So I sold my trusty Duck skiff to fund the project.
After everything arrived, I followed the advice I had read on another forum. I Gave the conversion bolt assembly a bath in CLP and hand cycled the action about 500-1000 times to help smooth over the parkerized rough spots.
So it’s off to the range.
heres the kit along with 4 of the BDM mags and the OEM 10 rd Ciener mag that comes with the kit.
So I load up the OEM 10 rd kit and slow fire standing at a 5 yd target,aiming for Center mass to see how far off my ACOG will be…
Not to shabby I think…so I run the first 30 rd BDM mag (Note there actually 27 rds max, not 30) and the first 3 shots cycle fine, the 4th shot the bolt fails to go in to battery completely and does not fire.
The other 3 mags do the same thing.
So I lube the bolt some more, but I get quite a few failure to fire because the bolt will not go all the way forward.It stops about 1/16" short of going into battery.
I have read that guys are replacing the OEM recoil spring that comes with the Ciener unit with one from Lakeside guns (The fun guys from Northern Wisconsin who make F/A belt fed .22s).
I may try that.
The 10 rd Ciener mag worked every time I used it. The problem only shows up on the BDM mags. I suspect there is a greater amount of upward spring tension that requires the bolt to overcome when it is stripping a round from the mag. Just my theory. As the afternoon progresses, the bolt seemed to break in and I was able to shoot a few mags without and malfunctions.
I ran a 500 rd box of Remington .22s thru the gun and they seem to work alright. I may try a few other brands to see if that corrects the problem.
So now I want to see how these are for accuracy… so I spy a clean NRA small bore pistol target left up on the 50 yd line. So I proceed to fire a full mag off the bench using the mag as a monopod, slowfire with my 3.5X TA 11.
To my surprise, the ACOG was right on the money…
Now this is out a 16" 1/9 twist Bushmaster HBAR that is about 13 yrs old and has 14K rd count thru it… works for me… Now I know there are some dedicated uppers that use a 1/16" twist that are more accurate… but this will work fine with me. plus I do not need to alter my ACO’s zero.
Finally , I run some close in drills and here are the results…
Overall, I am extremely happy with the kit and the mags… I will have to make another range trip after I work on smoothing out the moving parts with a dremel and some flitz to see if this corrects the problem. if not, then I am getting one of the stronger recoils springs and try that.
As for the mags, they come in Black , clear and smoke and these full size mags will fit in most ammo pouches. they also fit in my Eagle FB pouch as well. Notice that Magpuls also fit on them and will help to keep them from getting to beat up when they hit the deck.
Cieners does make 30 rd OEM mags for his kit, but they are $79 a pop… and they don’t fit in any pouches… no thanks.
These BDM mags are also designed to be disassembled which I think is pretty cool.
The one thing I would like to see is a design similar to Buckmark and Ruger .22 pistol mags. A small knob that runs down a track that you can use your thumb to compress the spring and follower down as you load. These get pretty stiff after 20 rds… if not that, then some kind of loading device… cause you can shoot these a lot faster then you can reload them…
This will allow me to get out and shoot alot more then I have and it is cheap fun.