Originally Posted by
Frederick303
The expensive .22 cal uppers are intended for practice on the National Match course of fire, not plinking.
I have one of the .22 cal match AR-15 service configurations uppers which I have on a fully tuned lower with match trigger, weights etc. Fired with the wolf “extra” match ammunition or S&K Match, it very closely simulates the weight and feel of the full up match tuned AR15. The scores I fire with it are compatible with those scores I used to fire in the full course of fire (I have been inactive the past few years).
There are three reasons for buying one of these rifles if you are a serious NM service rifle competitor:
1) Expense: The mid level ammunition that allows equivalent accuracy at 50/100 yards to the full 5.56 caliber rifle is a lot less money per shot, less than half actually (reloads). 5,000 rounds of wolf extra match is around 670 dollars or ~13.4 cents per shot, 5.56 match using sierra 77 grain match bullets (excluding the price of brass and reloading equipment) is about 29 cents per shot. With brass, wastage, lube, cleaning media and test loadings the real cost per practice/match round fired is well over 30 cents a round. If you compare firing 3,000 rounds of full bore ammunition against 1,500 rounds of full bore and 2,000 of .22 caliber ammunition you will end up saving a bit of money, which will pay for the upper in less than 4 years of use. If you shoot some cheaper ammunition at 25 yard and 50 ft ranges where the added expense of .22 rimfire match ammunition is not required, you can pay for itself in less then 3 years of use.
2) Ability to shoot more: There are two aspects to this. First is the fact that I can shoot in my backyard and not disturb anyone with standard velocity ammunition, I could not do that with full caliber ammunition. Even if you cannot do that if your neighbors are too close, there are many small bore winter leagues and places you can go shoot small bore that you cannot shot full bore, especially in the dark of winter.
Second most competitive riflemen load their own ammunition and are quite anal about it. Much of the winter’s months are spent doing this. The time to load 1500 to 2,000 rounds of top quality ammunition each year becomes a real pain and takes a lot of time, if one includes the load development and quality testing required. The less ammunition you have to load, the more you can go during those winter months and work on your shooting.
3) Superior training tool (most important). Most competitive shooters do not have a personnel coach to help us train. We must do it all. Without the .22 upper, we have two training tools: a) dryfire and b) firing live ammunition. Most competitive riflemen do both, with many having a ration of dry fired rounds to real rounds at around 2/1. I used to say that the matches were where I tested the techniques I learned in dry fire.
Unfortunately dry fire has its limits. One of the biggest during the winter months is the inability to keep training with the same degree of attention that one brings to bear when actually shooting. That is where the .22 cal rifle comes in. It adds a third intermediary tool, as most riflemen will tell you that the .22 cal rifle is harder to fire well then the full bore rifle. This is primarily due to the longer barrel time, which is about 2.7 to 2.8 times longer then with the full caliber 5.56 rifle. Small errors of follow through that will barely show up with the full bore rifle most definitely show up with the .22 caliber rifle. This means it is very useful practice to use the small bore rifle, to let the shooter detect errors that will not be discovered in either dry fire or fullbore practice. Having this third training tool is of great value to the shooter who is trying to figure out those last errors which make the difference between shooting a 490 and a 495.
In my case I found two areas to improve that I had not detected in years of practice: offhand follow through and consistency of butt placement in my shoulder in the prone stage. While the time required to break down my position and figure out what small errors were causing me to put shots out beyond my call was very frustrating, I was rewarded with ultimately higher scores in real matches.
Though I have not done it I am told by fellows that shoot these conversions at 200 yard matches that the 200 yard matches are close to equivalent to something like shooting at 700 to 800 yards with the full bore rife in terms of having to watch the wind.
Finally, you will not wear out a .22 cal match rifle in 10,000 or even 30,000 rounds of ammunition firing RWA, S&K, Wolf or other brands used by service rifle shooters. The rifles will outlast most owners, or at least their service rifle careers. A well maintained upper would not only same the shooter money, but can be sold to another competitive shooter when done for at least 2/3 of the purchase price.