Smith & Wesson M&P15-22

Had it at the range for the first time yesterday, and here's how things went.
Out of 175 rounds of Winchester Xpert .22lr bulk pack ammo, there were 3 failures to fire. Not bad at all for bulk .22lr. There were no failures to feed or eject, as long as you make sure to stagger the rounds in the mag (as seen here) there should be minimal feed issues.

Informal accuracy tests (monopoding off the magazine from the bench... forgot the sandbag) resulted in about 1 1/2" 5 shot groups at 50 yards. I expect some decent optics and a real rest should cut that down a little, but it is more than acceptable for carbine training and general plinking purposes.

The similarity in controls between a full size AR and the little made for simple immediate action when the gun failed to go bang.



Shooting buddy Will liked it as well. I foresee this little gun breaking in a few new shooters in the coming years. Light weight, manageable, and intuitive. No scary BANG! or hard recoil.



On that note, as far as the weight and the recoil go, at first the extreme light weight of the little rifle seem like it may be an issue. It feels about 1/3 the weight of Sigtyr, and switching from the Smith back to the "real" AR made you feel like you were hefting a howitzer or something.
I can see how some people would see this as a problem as far as training goes. It is a little snappier switching from target to target, especially with the AFG on there.

Light gun is light-


However I think the light weight makes the recoil a bit more noticeable. You could add weight inside the buffer tube and possibly under the handguard and beef it up a little, but that would reduce felt recoil, and if it were similar in weight to a 5.56 mid-length, I doubt there would be much, if any, felt recoil. While this could be ideal for new shooters, for a training tool, I'd rather have a bit of muzzle jump and notable recoil. Plus at it's current setup you can feel the difference between a regular shot, and bolt lock, much like you can on a full size AR.

That's right, I said bolt lock. Some people I've talked to still don't know that the M&P15-22 does in fact lock open on an empty mag and has a fully functional ping-pong paddle in roughly the same place as a standard AR. I say "roughly" as it is a little farther forward than normal, a little under 1/4" maybe, which isn't noticeable until you try to mount a Magpul B.A.D. lever. That requires some material removal from the front of the trigger housing. Worth doing in my case, as I have a B.A.D. lever on my full-size carbine, so reloading my little one is identical, and as pictured above, remedial actions are quite similar. However if you're not running a bolt assist lever of some sort, most operations will be the same as your AR out of the box. Like pretty much all .22lr ARs out there, there is no forward assist. Fine by me, I rarely use them anyway, and, in my opinion, they would be a potential hazard on a rimfire. (can you say out-of-battery detonation?)

Overall, I'm quite pleased with the little rifle. So far it seems more reliable than the GSG5 (way to curse it...) and a much more viable training option than my 10/22. Smith & Wesson definitely have a winner in this little carbine.

Now back to daydreams of cans...