Should I give up on my Lage .22 upper?

[DistalRadius]

.22LR was designed 136 years ago and is absolutely terrible by modern standards. Was never even intended for use in autoloaders, (let alone machineguns) it should be thoroughly obsolete. Only reason we still use it at all is the institutional inertia from all the .22LR guns out there. Same problem we have with shotgun ammo, the design just plain blows.

 

[Gaujo]

I messed with one of these once. By far the hardest to run upper I have ever owned. I realized since I had to run minimags I was close enough to the cost of 9mm to just let it go. You can sell it for enough to get a Large mac-11/15 so don't beat yourself up if you choose to just let er go.

 

[Gaujo]

.22LR was designed 136 years ago and is absolutely terrible by modern standards. Was never even intended for use in autoloaders, (let alone machineguns) it should be thoroughly obsolete. Only reason we still use it at all is the institutional inertia from all the .22LR guns out there. Same problem we have with shotgun ammo, the design just plain blows.

I get the issue with rimfire, but what's wrong with shotgun shells?

 

[KickStand]

There’s a few threads on here about getting your 22 kit to run. I’d check them out, if you haven’t. My personal opinion on the matter is your kit will run great, need a little work (mags, rim lock, springs, upper, mag catch, extractor) or it really won’t ever work right (not necessarily lages 22 conversion fault).

My Lage 22 kit is the best thing since sliced bread. It’ll run anything except the new post Covid AutoMatch (post Covid automatch is pathetic). I’m starting to get worried about how much longer my kit will run for. I’ve got tens of thousands of rounds through it.

 

[Gaujo]

There’s a few threads on here about getting your 22 kit to run. I’d check them out, if you haven’t. My personal opinion on the matter is your kit will run great, need a little work (mags, springs, upper, mag catch, extractor) or it really won’t ever work right (not necessarily lages 22 conversion fault).

My Lage 22 kit is the best thing since sliced bread. It’ll run anything except the new post Covid AutoMatch (post Covid automatch is pathetic). I’m starting to get worried about how much longer my kit will run for. I’ve got tens of thousands of rounds through it.

This setup is prob worth more than a m11/9 a few years ago. A real unicorn party!

 

[skullsoldier]

This setup is prob worth more than a m11/9 a few years ago. A real unicorn party!

I ordered one in advance of getting my M11. Kind of an impulse purchase. Took it to the range and it ran 100% with CCI Mini Mags. I’ve probably got 3000 rounds through it and no obvious wear. My believe is that most failures are due to mag over-insertion or poor mag loading. If the bolt moves freely and is lubed, there should be little to worry about, but rimlock will cause a total failure.

 

[pmf]

I gave up on mine. And my GI 22 conversion kit for my uzi. Never got either to run consistently. Lage was nice enough to tune mine years back, but it made no difference. I think bottom line is that these subguns are not designed to shoot tiny 22 ammo. There's a good market out there for them. You won't have any trouble getting rid of it.

 

[DistalRadius]

I get the issue with rimfire, but what's wrong with shotgun shells?

They're a pretty awful design in general for anything that isn't a break-action. For one thing I don't believe there is even a SAAMI standard for plastic shotshells, the dimensions are all over the place. Plastic hulls deform pretty easily so it's poor tolerances are understandable. The case head dimensions and height vary quite a bit as well as overall shell length and crimp type. With reference to feeding, the square nose profile is kinda terrible, pretty much any kind of taper would be helpful. A rebated rim would help tremendously with magazine feeding especially with double-stacks. Add in the incredible variety of payloads, wads, buffer, and powder charges and it's no wonder why everybody running a self-loader has to figure out which ammo their gun "likes".

There was some company a few years back that was trying to introduce an updated 12 gauge cartridge with essentially those changes, even had a hard plastic ogive, but of course it was a hopeless proposal due to the previously mentioned institutional inertia of traditional 12 gauge.

 

[Gaujo]

What was the company?

 

[Doobis]

I just got mine out Thursday and ran over 500 rounds almost flawlessly. A few solid rim hits but no bang I blame the ammo and 1 situation of one rim jumping over the other. I knew when I loaded the mag it felt wrong. From my experience the best way to get them to run well....

1. Use a suppressor. For sure increases reliability.
2. Ammo choice. I use Federal bulk pack from wal-mart 36 grain, copper plated 7cpr and its available everywhere. The Aguila super extra works ok but man what a cloud of funk that comes out.
3. When you are done loading hit the back of the magazine gently against a table or something hard. It seems to prevent rim lock.
4. Dont get greedy and load up to the 40 round capacity. I usually load 30 and get great reliability. Yea Id love a 275 round drum but the stick mags do work.
5. Mcfadden lighting loader. The only way I'm willing to load the mags and it wont give rim lock. Don't pull the loading trigger more than enough to seat the bullet in the magazine. Then you hit the back of the mag to seat the bullets.
6. Clean the mags but dont lube them. Clean them every time you take it out.
7. Something I'm experimenting with now per recommendation of this forum is dry lube. Use graphite powder not wet lube. Normally after a range session its nasty when the oil gets caked with carbon. The graphite this past Thursday seemed to work out great.

This is pretty much the formula for me.

 

[3154tm]

so i didn't have to foul my 22lr suppressor i made a booster out of one of those fake suppressors. works great. besides i like to hear the noise it makes!

 

[Novagunner]

Doobis has the right idea on for this. The McFadden loader when barely inserting each round is fantastic. There is a good thread here on it.

Target sport has mini-mag target for about 8 cpr. I have had great luck with those in 3 different versions of the Lage 22 conversion without suppressor/booster.

The mini-mags give me very close to 100%, the Aguila SE 40gr round nose are not far behind and a little better than the 36gr HP. I load about 35 in a mag.

 

[DistalRadius]

What was the company?

Intrepid Tactical Solutions and their RAS-12 shotgun with proprietary shells. https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog...trepid-tactical-solutions-ras-12-shotgun/amp/
Probably doomed to failure from inception despite being a pretty good improvement over traditional shells.

 

[Gaujo]

Interesting read. Wonder why they didn't just use 50 bmg cases