I e-filed my form 1 3 months ago, so I figured I'd better get going on sending my barrel out and getting the receiver engraved. I had my Tacticool tool set still sitting in the box for almost as long.

After reading the threads here, I expected to be able to easily get the barrel off. Not so.

I put the barrel wrench in and put the barrel in the in the clamps and then into the vise. Tightened the vice and put the wrench on the barrel wrench.

The barrel spun in the clamps. Ouch.

Tightened it more.

Barrel spun. Double ouch. The barrel is now scratched.

Tighten more. Spin again. It's really scratched now. Oh well, that part is going to get sawed off, right?

This time, I get out the hammer and bang on the vise handle. Still spins.

Do it again. Still spinning. ***.

Hammer the vise handle more. Still spinning...Holy...The barrel is now all white around the clamps from spinning...No going back now...

One more time, hammer the vise handle. Finally, it budged. Jeepers. How could that thing have been so tight up against the plastic?

I bought the gun new and it only has about 500 rounds threw it, so it wasn't bunged up with years of crud.

So at least the barrel is off now. No damage to the plastic parts it seems.

After all the posts of loose barrel nuts, I figured this would be easy.

Wow..

So now that the barrel is off, I have a couple questions.

How did you guys ship the barrel without damaging the ejector?

I would like to leave the hand guards as they are, as they are the nice camo'd factory guards. I see a few other SBR projects have done similar, so how did you get the barrel nut back on when the barrel no longer extended beyond the hand guard so there was no way to clamp it?

Will the hand guard be too weak without the end plastic ring supporting it? I don't want the sling attachment to pull too hard on it and snap it.

Ouch!!

The hand guard will be strong enough without the front cap; your good.

Something I was told to try was put some shipping paper in between the jaws and the barrel. Then sprinkle some rosin on the jaws and barrel. It worked for a stubborn fouled up flash hider I was trying to remove from a 15-22.

I know it doesn't help now but might come in handy in the future.

S&W sometimes sends them out with the barrel nut too tight & sometimes too loose. The tight ones are where folks have broken off the tabs by not clamping the barrel. I put a few strips of rubbery material between the barrel & the vise to stop the slippage. Also, once clamped, a single hard smack usually works better than continuous pressure to break a nut loose. I found doing so does not allow the barrel to slip much, if any.

With the short barrel, you will have nothing to clamp... and that is fine. I just hold onto the gun & tighten a bit, so that it comes loose with little effort. I suggest you check the tightness after each shooting & soon you will know what is tight enough. I've never shot & come back with a loose barrel nut. There is just not a lot of forces exerted when shooting 22lr.

When I shipped my barrel off, I cut off most of the unneeded length. No need in shipping something long when it will come back short. Then I padded the snot around the ejector. Much easier to keep everything snug if you are packaging a short barrel as opposed to to 16" one.

As stated, the end cap is decorative. It doesn't touch the barrel & provides no support. If anything, it can cause accuracy issues if it were to touch.

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Wow, sorta guess this is your first time gunsmithing. I wrapped the barrel in old leather in the vise. Mine slso was tight but it came lose with a good knock.
What length are you cutting the barrel to?
As for shipping I found an aluminum pipe but a pvc pipe would work.
Atleast this way everything is protected. I bubble wrapped the barrel and forced it down the pipe.
Ducktaped the end and paper wrapped the pipe for shipping.
Simple.

I cut my barrel down to ~6" before sending it off, and have the stub at home if I ever need to test something on 1/2-28 threads.

When I shipped it, I used a piece of PVC. I chose a scrap small enough that I cut a small groove in the end for tab on the ejector to slide into. It wasn't moving anywhere.

And as Jim stated, just snug it afterwards, and check it more often than you probably did before. I kept the factory handguard, cut just enough off the end so I could grab my suppressor, and ditched the end cap.

THIS

I also used a 1" PVC T connector,when I sent it to ADCO, they even attached it back on when shipping it back. I didn't cut mine down before sending it though. they did it to 4.5"

Thanks for the info. I was going to try something between the barrel and the Aluminum, but I had it really tight by hand, and by the time it slipped, the finish was already damaged anyways. I wasn't upset as that part was going to get cut off anyways.

I was just surprised that there was any slippage at all. After the experience, I'm wondering if something like Delrin wouldn't be a better material to use over Aluminum for this tool. It would be a bit softer so it might grab better and likely do less damage to the barrel should it slip.

How reliable has your 4.5" length been? I've read through all of RedNeck Jim's issues with anything less than 10".

I'd like to go down to 6", then the length of the Sparrow would add 5", so I'd be just beyond the length of the handguard.

I originally thought about 10.5", so the barrel would be beyond then length of the handguards, so I can safely shoot it with the stock handguards without the Sparrow. But after thinking about it, I'm likely to never want to shoot it without the Sparrow again.

This is why I don't like the aluminum barrel clamps. Two short pieces of 2x4 clamped together with a 5/8" hole drilled thru their "joint" works really well.

bicycle inner tube is what i use. slip on/off, grips like a gator.

really don't know yet. waiting on my sparrow in jail, should be about a week or two yet


I did assemble it and had 3-4 failures to eject, on 1 mag. it was very cold out, bolt was dirty and or the ammo, not sure what was loaded in the mag. Going to try some CCI this weekend. But really waiting on the suppressor before I shave the bolt if needed.

The Sparrow should help with this issue, as long as you use HV ammo, as the suppressor increases back pressure to help with the cycling of the action. My issue, was that I couldn't get subsonic ammo to cycle properly with such a short barrel and I was not alone in this experience. Some may say no big deal because with such a short barrel, even HV ammo stays subsonic. This is true but even though the bullet is not causing a sonic crack, the ammo (bang) is much louder than true subsonic ammo. This is much more noticeable when shooting suppressed.

If I'm gonna shoot suppressed, I want the gun to be as quiet as possible & to function properly. For me, that means shooting subsonic ammo & that required, for me, a bit longer barrel. Plus on top of that, I personally was not happy with the look & feel of such a short gun. I personally prefer the look, balance & feel of a 16" carbine and that is what I have with an 11" barrel with 5" Sparrow attached.

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Mine is also 4.5". Yet to have a single issue. I do mainly shoot bulk pack. I leave the Gemtech subsonic for my bolt gun. It runs everything I have, both with 25rd mags and 50rd drums...whether I'm shooting it or my 9YO son.



Personally, for me, I couldn't imagine spending the money and going through all the effort and leaving the barrel longer than 5".

Great news, got the call my stamps was approved and picked it up today.

Just got it installled on my 4.5 and CCI Standard V 1200fps, shot 25 rounds without an issue. Need to get some subs and see what those do.

Congrats! FYI, CCI SV is subsonic & is 1070 fps, not 1200.

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what length are you going do to ?



Did some more testing on my 4.5 with sparrow

CCI Quite-22 (no full cycle of bolt in 4.5 or 16in rifles or wather P22) These are 710ft/s
CCI mini Mag (100% no supersonic)(75 rounds)
Federal Game Shock (100% most went supersonic though)(75 rounds)

Have 2 or 3 other brands to try this weekend, federal match/golden