Range Report: AR-15 .22 Conversions - CMMG and Ceiner

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(Review of the CMMG conversion can be found here: http://ingunowners.com/forums/access...rsion_kit.html )

With a beautiful Saturday afternoon, and with a few hours to kill, lovemywoods and I spent some time informally testing out our .22 conversions for our AR-15s.

With the rising cost of ammo these days, talk of conversions has been a frequent hot topic here on INGO. lovemywoods has had his Ceiner kit for almost 2 years now, and my CMMG kit was recently purchased from Cwood @ Indiana Supply Depot.

Goals:

• Function test - looking for failure rates
• Ammo preference - looking for best performing ammo brand/type

Weapons:

• Bushmaster M4 1-9" twist w/Aimpoint 1x 2moa dot / CMMG .22 Conversion bolt
• Colt LE690 M4 1-7" twist w/Millett DMS-1 2x 1moa dot / Ceiner .22 Conversion bolt

Ammo:

1. Federal "Hi Power" copper plated HP - circa 1970 (old)
2. Federal Bulk Pack copper plated HP 36gr.
3. CCI Mini-Mag HP 36gr.
4. Winchester 36gr. plated HP
5. American Eagle 40gr. solid

Setup:

We shot down the length of the lake dam. Five targets were placed at 25 yards-- one target for each ammo brand. Rifles were shot from the bench in a rest. Groups are 25 rounds of each type of ammo. Conversions were only very lightly lubed.







Did I mention that fall in Brown County is awesome?



We started with me shooting my rifle (Bushmaster).





Results:

1. Federal "Hi Power" copper plated HP - circa 1970 (old)-- Although this was 40+ year-old ammo, it ran just like new. I did experience (1) axial stovepipe. Grouped the worst.
2. Federal Bulk Pack copper plated HP 36gr.-- No failures.
3. CCI Mini-Mag HP 36gr.-- No failures.
4. Winchester 36gr. plated HP-- Ammo seemed more "smokey" than the others. Experienced (1) deep-seated transversal stovepipe. Grouped the best.
5. American Eagle 40gr. solid-- No failures.

Total rounds fired: 200
Total failures: 3

Next, lovemywoods was up with his Colt.



Results:

6. Winchester 36gr. plated HP-- No failures.
7. CCI Mini-Mag HP 36gr.-- No failures.
8. Federal Bulk Pack copper plated HP 36gr.-- No failures. Grouped the worst.
9. Federal "Hi Power" copper plated HP - circa 1970 (old)-- No failures. Grouped the best.
10. American Eagle 40gr. solid-- No failures.

Total rounds fired: 200
Total failures: 0

The "endurance testing" was done by putting as much lead into the lake as possible in the shortest amount of time, a la "Rambo"! (zero failures)



Stop hitting me with brass!!


Conclusions:

• Shooting on a cool autumn afternoon is fun!
• We spent a total of $13.20 on ammo. It would've cost us $160 to do the same thing in 5.56.
• Conversions won't win any bullseye contests, but they are more than adequate for plinking or as an inexpensive training substitute.
• There ARE differences in ammo. However, there wasn't enough of a difference in this test to sway me to use one brand of ammo exclusively.
• When complimenting someone else on how well their target was shot out, make sure it is really THEIR target and not yours! (this makes you look like a pompous ***!)