.22 AR Barrel Profile for Weight Savings

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  • Bertfish

    Throw bread on me
    Mar 13, 2013
    17,606
    White Marsh, MD
    Have a dedicated .22 CMMG upper for one of my ARs. It's the wife's go to gun. Barrel is a standard M4 profile. Does it make sense to seek out a .22 pencil barrel or is it feasible to have the barrel OD turned down and recoated to shave weight off?
     

    alucard0822

    For great Justice
    Oct 29, 2007
    17,643
    PA
    "go to" for what use? targets, squirrels etc? Figure the M4 profile weighs 29oz, the pencil weighs 24oz, not a ton of weight savings, and turning the barrel down would likely cost more than a replacement. The 4.5" barrel weighs 8oz, building a braced pistol with a short handguard would shave a couple lbs off the front end, and is really fun to shoot, especially suppressed.
     

    Bertfish

    Throw bread on me
    Mar 13, 2013
    17,606
    White Marsh, MD
    Just target shooting. She isn't big on the upper body strength. I thought about doing a pistol build for sure as I could build something incredibly light
     

    photoracer

    Competition Shooter
    Oct 22, 2010
    3,318
    West Virginia
    An alloy or carbon fiber sleeved barrel can be 1/2 the weight of a stock AR barrel 30 oz. vs. 15 oz., plus there are short barrels with pinned alloy sleeves that can be as light as 11-12 oz. Makes the rifle very much lighter in front as its quicker to swing from target to target, so they are favored by speed shooters.
    I have an ultralight AR-22 that weighs around 3 lbs.
     

    Bertfish

    Throw bread on me
    Mar 13, 2013
    17,606
    White Marsh, MD
    An alloy or carbon fiber sleeved barrel can be 1/2 the weight of a stock AR barrel 30 oz. vs. 15 oz., plus there are short barrels with pinned alloy sleeves that can be as light as 11-12 oz. Makes the rifle very much lighter in front as its quicker to swing from target to target, so they are favored by speed shooters.
    I have an ultralight AR-22 that weighs around 3 lbs.

    Spec sheet and/or pictures?
     

    Bertfish

    Throw bread on me
    Mar 13, 2013
    17,606
    White Marsh, MD
    Can I use a standard upper receiver with a .22 bolt assembly? My cmmg I have now uses one of the 9mm receivers with the brass deflector and cut down dust door
     

    GunBum

    Active Member
    Feb 21, 2018
    751
    SW Missouri
    The shorter ejection port and brass deflector help ensure that the brass is actually deflected. No big deal for a right handed shooter, but nice to have for lefties.
     

    alucard0822

    For great Justice
    Oct 29, 2007
    17,643
    PA
    Wonder why cmmg used the 9mm one on the upper I bought

    Doesn't need a full length ejection port, but probably won't notice a difference till you suppress it. It's blowback, and there is a fair amount of gas coming back when shooting fast. For 22 and 9, the "brass deflector" really isn't, it's a gas deflector.
     

    photoracer

    Competition Shooter
    Oct 22, 2010
    3,318
    West Virginia
    Taccom alloy shrouded AR-22 barrel (unthreaded), shortened Taccom carbon fiber pencil stock, no handguard just neoprene cycle grip tubing on the barrel, stripped upper receiver, lower receiver either Magtech magnesium alloy or NFA polymer, trigger of choice, hand grip, and LPA, CMMG 22 bolt assembly w/Taccom titanium firing pin, Taccom alloy barrel nut. Add sights depending on what kind of shooting you are doing. If you need to run irons then add 1.8"D Taccom carbon fiber hand guard to their barrel nut (fits over cycle grip) but this will push you over 3 lbs verses a mini red dot on the rail.
    I built most of this into a rifle in 2014/2015 so some of these parts are no longer available as the makers like Taccom have moved onto other disciplines like PCC, but there are substitutes. I can't post pics from here as I am at work and the USG firewalls restrict some activities. Its funny I can post pictures to my astronomy forum but can't do any to MDS at this time, not can I do a quoted reply.
     

    photoracer

    Competition Shooter
    Oct 22, 2010
    3,318
    West Virginia
    On that note the lightest barrels these days are steel shrouded ones with 5-5.5" actual rifled barrels. Biggest proponent of this is Wiland barrels. Before them for instance the lightest 10/22 barrels were VQ carbon fiber and Tac Sol alloy at 14-15 ozs. Then Taccom pioneered barrels with 5.5" steel barrels with pinned alloy sleeves to 16" at around 13 ozs. Now Wiland has created all steel barrels with 5" rifled sections and thin walled steel shrouds with ports on the end at 16" that are in the 10.5-11 ozs. range for both .22 and PCC centerfire calibers. As long as you are shooting speed events under 50 yards they are the best to use.
     

    lazarus

    Ultimate Member
    Jun 23, 2015
    13,678
    Having never used a rifle THAT light, I still find the lighter I go, the less accurate I am off hand. At least so long as the rifle is within a weight I can hold steady to start with.

    Now if you asked me to hold a 10lb Garand presented in a firing position for 5 minutes and take a shot vs a 5lb M1 carbine I think we can guess which I’d be more accurate with then. But in general lighter for me is less accurate.

    Of course what your individual strength is is going to determine what that weight max is. For me it’s about an 11lb rifle with optic if it has good ergos for a short shooting stint. About 8lbs if I am shooting for awhile. Get down around 5lbs and I really start noticing the lack of dampening the extra weight adds.
     

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