Range Report!
I'd been promising myself a range trip for a while now, and was packing my guns when the new prototypes arrived for testing. So along they came. The guns I used are a pair of 15-22's one mostly stock and the other very modified. Both receivers and the barrel and BCG are the only stock parts on that one. The ammo I used was Rem Golden Bullet and Federal Automatch. I had a fresh brick of the Rem and about 100 rounds of the Federal. Both guns were relatively clean at least when I started. I corrected that.
When I got to the range I I put one of the flat shields on the modified 15-22 since it still had the flat mount on it. I fired one magazine slowly and had one bounceback which was an improvement over the old version. I tried another magazine firing quickly and had 2 bouncebacks. I mounted the other flat shield and had pretty much the same results. One with slow fire and 3 with fast. I wasn't really optimistic about the flat shields so I didn't take much time with them. I've always believed having the brass hit an angled shield was the key here.
I took both guns out and put the 25 degree mount and shield on the stock one and the 45 degree mount and shield in the modified one. I took the stock gun and slow fired a 32 round magazine and not a hint of a problem. I then fired 2 more magazines through it as fast as I could pull the trigger. Not a single problem. I gave that gun a rest and loaded up a magazine into the modified one. The first dozen or so rounds slowly them finished the magazine as fast as I could pull the trigger. Perfect. At that point I decided to give it the real test. I released the pin on my Slidefire and dumped 4 magazines downrange. One misfeed but that was the fault of a magazine I'd already tagged as possibly having problems. No bouncebacks whatsoever. I set that gun down to cool and proceeded to play with an AR I bought a few months back and have been itching to get some trigger time on.
I went back to the stock 15-22 and put 4 more magazines through it at varying speeds. 3 magazines were Rem ammo and one was Federal. No bounceback issues at all. I put another magazine through the modified one using the Slidefire and then 3 more shooting normally with no bouncebacks. I consider both angled versions a success. I'm supposed to be back at the range tomorrow for something else but plan to shoot both 15-22's again. I'll switch the deflectors around so the 25 degree gets tried with the Slidefire.
The 45 degree lets the brass land 2 to 4 feet directly out the ejection post while the 25 degree holds it a little closer. I had someone who was curious standing next to me while I fired one of the magazines through the modified gun and he was amazed that he wasn't getting showered with my brass. I pointed him to the SWS website after explaining that I was testing prototypes and they weren't out just yet.
I did notice it was a bit hard to put my chamber flags in at the end of the session but it was possible. That's good enough for me.
Overall I'm calling both angled shields a success. I'll post more tomorrow especially if that changed but I don't think it will.
PS I hope you don't want them back.
