Decided to buy a dedicated .22lr for Steel Challenge.

The S&W 15-22 is a go to for AR pattern .22lr, but I saw lots of people saying how good the Tippman M4-22 was.



My first thought was "really? The paintball gun company?" Apparently, yes. The Tippman M4-22 gets a lot of great feedback and has a few benefits over a 15-22 so I decided to pick one up and try it out.

The 15-22 is mostly polymer, but the Tippman has cast aluminum receivers and a metal buffer tube with an actual spring/buffer in it, so it has a full length ejection port with a dust cover. The magazines are proprietary, but look similar to the 15-22 mags under the dust cover.



Theoretically, all furniture and controls on the Tippman should be replaceable with any standard AR stuff so it should be easy to clone a .22 trainer of your preferred 5.56 AR.

I went ahead and put on the same stock/pistol grip that most of my ARs use on mine. I also swapped out the birdcage flashhider for a Tandem Kross compensator. The .22lr doesnt need a comp, but the timers at steel matches sometimes struggle to pick up .22 rifles so adding the comp is more for accurate scoring than any other benefit.



Trigger is okay, like a good mil spec trigger. But I'm a trigger snob so its getting swapped out and so is the safety for an ambi safety to match my other ARs.

I put 125 rounds through it today and thought yall might like seeing another good .22 option. Ill update as I shoot it in matches this summer on how its running, but so far I am impressed with it.

It ran well suppressed too.

I've had a Tippman elite with folding stock for a few years. Seriously fun and , like you said, all metal parts.

Only issue I've had is light strikes when gunk builds up under the little lip on the bolt face. Took me a while to figure that out. Just brushing the bolt face didn't quite do it…but running a pick under the lip makes quick work of the problem.

That is a great tip, thank you!

Huh. I've seen those and just assumed it was a coincidence. Tippmanns (98 Custom and A5) were the dominant rental/starter gun back when I was heavily into paintball 2005-2010ish.

Also, I dropped a larue trigger in and it was extra badass, but would also have some light strikes. I had sent it back to tippman for something and they were super cool and wanted to investigate the trigger to understand what was happening. Turns out the hammer specs are just a fraction different. But they were texting me throughout their trials letting me know what they were observing. I put the OG trigger back in and all is good.

Bonus, while they had it they offered to upgrade the stock folder from the old plastic version to the new metal one for free. Great customer service in my experience.

Man this thing would be a really fun application for a can and a rare breed forced reset trigger if it could be made to work with one.

Are they different in function / better than the rimfire bolt carrier groups you can get to convert a normal AR-15 upper?

Blast with a can. Very reliable (as long as the bolt face is clean).

Roger350 said:

---

Are they different in function / better than the rimfire bolt carrier groups you can get to convert a normal AR-15 upper?

---

The biggest pros you get from a dedicated .22 is better accuracy, and not having to really deep clean your normal AR, because .22 is dirty and can absolutely gunk up your barrel/gas system.

MyNameIsJeff said:

---

Huh. I've seen those and just assumed it was a coincidence. Tippmanns (98 Custom and A5) were the dominant rental/starter gun back when I was heavily into paintball 2005-2010ish.

---

Me too.

I have an old ProLite somewhere that I should have sold 15+ years ago.

Drundel said:

---

MyNameIsJeff said:

---

Huh. I've seen those and just assumed it was a coincidence. Tippmanns (98 Custom and A5) were the dominant rental/starter gun back when I was heavily into paintball 2005-2010ish.

---

Me too.

I have an old ProLite somewhere that I should have sold 15+ years ago.

---

I have a Tippman ProLite also. Used to play paintball in the mid 90's all the time. I need to find that thing and see if it still works.

BenderRodriguez said:

---

Roger350 said:

---

Are they different in function / better than the rimfire bolt carrier groups you can get to convert a normal AR-15 upper?

---

The biggest pros you get from a dedicated .22 is better accuracy, and not having to really deep clean your normal AR, because .22 is dirty and can absolutely gunk up your barrel/gas system.

---

Thanks, I keep thinking I'd like to jump into a .22 AR for cheap practice and if they repeal the suppression of suppressors, I'll have to go all in I think.

Updates: installed Hiperfire Trigger and Ergo ambi safety.

Both are big upgrades, especially the trigger. Kind of insane to buy a trigger that costs half as much as the gun, but it makes speed so much easier for steel challenge.

Speaking of that, shot my first match with the tippman last night. 5 stages, so another 125+ rounds. Zero issues, shot three 75% and two 74% stages so I should be adding RFRO to my list of A classifications soon.

The real star last night though was the Tippman mag loader. Worth every penny.

Finally got a little bit of match footage with the Tippman.

I had one failure to eject somewhere around the 350 round mark during the match, but shot another stage after with zero issues.

Went ahead and cleaned the gun and it was getting a little gunked up, but 1 FTE out of 400ish rounds so far...not too shabby for a .22 semiauto.

I'll keep updating as I keep shooting it.

Also took a quick gopro video using the Tippman Speedloader.

Huge fan of this thing so far, makes loading mags between stages so, so, much easier.

I had a Tippmann 98 back in the day. Anyone remember the Hellhound? Thirteen year old me wanted one so bad.

I'm at 74.88% (75.00% hits A) in RFRO so I've been working on getting irons set up for RFRI next.

It came with decent little flip up bius, but I wanted to see if anyone had a fiber optic front sight on a picatinny mount, which was surprisingly hard to find.

Picked up this little fold down ghost ring rear and fiber optic front sight combo from Striplin Arms. Adjusting the sights is pretty rudimentary, but considering the size and distance of steel challenge targets, more than sufficient for my accuracy needs.

Hit A in RFRO, I've shot one match in RFRI and am currently at 73% (B). One or two more matches should get my irons score up to A as well.

The Tippman continues to shoot well. Like most 22s it needs a little extra cleaning after a couple hundred rounds, but the magazines have fed very well, I love the hiperfire trigger in it, and its continuing to be a great little competition gun.

Hardly ever post our firearms but the subject matter is hard to resist.

https://www.facebook.com/share/r/18DCGnPi2m/?mibextid=wwXIfr