Here begins the Story of my .22LR AR15

It is a V22 .22LR AR15, a dedicated .22LR Upper, It was actually sourced from Oberland Arms in Germany, where they had used a Rock River Arms lower and stamped their Oberland marks on it. It came unthreaded and very standard.

Before I took ownership, HSLD had threaded it for ½” UNF and polished the trigger, the trigger is superb, and although the RRA 2-stage would be nicer, it is an excellent trigger for the standard single stage. He also added a dedicated mount on the gas block which was for a Soviet Bazaar laser designator.

The rifle when it first arrived is shown below:  Here you see the crappy Parker Hale Silencer, standard A2 buttstock and pistol grip, free float fore-end etc.

Also shown on the Rifle is the Quick Detach 1” Scope mount Sid at HSLD made, which was excellent whilst I was using a scope.

Then, as I didn’t like the A2 buttstock, I got a CAR-15 collapsible fitted and replaced the PH silencer with a Logun Rimfire one. You can also see in this picture, the 25rd Southern Gun Magazine. It is still fairly standard at this point.

As you may have noticed, the standard magazine for the V22 system is a 10rd, small block and it looks totally out of place on the AR system. HSLD milled down a 10rd Mag, did some work to make it feed accurately and fitted it inside a cutdown SA80 Magazine.

As I use my rifle for primarily rabbit and vermin shooting, I was finding the Logun Silencer unwieldy, so I had made a dedicated Reflex type silencer with Aluminium baffles, it was designed for fairly serious use and as such was very effective on my rifle. The picture was taken for a topic subject on ar15.com hence the strange items in the following pic..

It was after using the rifle for a while that I decided that high velocity rounds were the way to go for my rifle, as for general rabbit killing they performed far better than subsonic’s, as V22’s have a tendency to short stroke when using subsonic rounds. Because of this I had no need for a moderator and I decided I had also had enough of using a 6x42 Schmidt Und Bender on a rabbit rifle, and that I wanted to try out an Aimpoint or an Eotech. Having seen all of the M4 clones on AR15.com I also decided I wanted one of those. So I sent the rifle back to HSLD.

At this time Sid was also working on his own V22 and starting to change that, with a view to a completely customised weapons system.

Work then done on my rifle was to remove the barrel and turn it down into the M4 profile, shorten it by 2” and re-cut for 1/28tpi to accept a flash hider.

Then a flash hider and foresight were fitted, A2 standard parts.

Then a DPMS fore-end was made to fit, as the V22 isn’t standard AR15, being a dedicated receiver, this needed some work, but it was fitted and the rifle then resembled an M4.

Shown in the picture it is the top rifle with the Aimpoint.

Sid’s rifle also underwent changes, such as a new stock, magazine conversion, trigger polishing and he turned up a dedicated flash hider (to accept a moderator at a later date).

Here you see the configuration it stayed in the longest, new style M4 stock, Hogue Grip and Eotech, this has proved an excellent vermin control tool and I am/was VERY happy with it. As you can see, it completely resembles a standard M4 issue rifle.

 This year, I have been hunting a lot in one particular place, and now the rabbits have got very wary of people during daylight hours, and they have finally realised that lights and truck, or lights and man means death. So I needed a more effective way of culling the rabbits. I decided to try the Eotech as a day and night sight, after all, that is what it is designed for. So I contacted HSLD for some night vision and for some advice and the way the system needed to go to accommodate this. We decided on a weapon mounted NV set-up and a free float rail fore-end for the Eotech. I then ordered a Samson MRFS rail and sent it and the Rifle up to be worked on..

Sid has now mounted the Samson, it does not fit perfectly as the V22 has odd shaped sections for the locking lugs, and these needed to be machined to fit. It does however, fit perfectly enough for the weapons system in mind and as you can see on the picture the Eotech is now mounted on the free float section.

The rifle then changed again when due to the friendships developed on www.ar15.com, I was sent a TangoDown pistol grip and foregrip for use with my Rifle. This has a double advantage in that the pistol grip can store CR123A batteries inside as spares, or AA's for the Eotech. I also obtained an Infra Red illuminator which mounts on the quad rail, although that is not shown in this picture.

HSLD are also currently machining a complete new free float fore-end with rails, which as far as I know, no-one else in the UK has yet done. Right now it is only in development stages but here is a picture.

In conslusion, If you want something machined, any kind of work done on any kind of .22LR, then Sid at HSLD is the man to speak to. He can be contacted on Sid762 [AT] gmail.com