#1 22 TCM site on the web

- Sat Apr 23, 2016 8:43 pm #5940 I do 9mm conversions on the TCM action so have had my hands on a fair number of them.
Posting observations some may find useful and others may see as sacrilege.

Directed to this forum by a TCM owner unhappy with his barrel so I will start there.

Most of the barrels I have taken off appear fine to eyeball examination.
Today I cleaned seven barrels recently removed from current production rifles.
One was clearly rough with tool chatter marks the full length of the bore.
One more seems to have a double edge to the rifling.
I do not have access to a bore scope that will fit down a .22 bore but I was able to use one for a look from each end.
I did find one of the "Good" barrels to have some odd pits in the bore near the chamber.
I would conclude that Armscor barrel quality still varies so suggest that if you are staying in
.22 TCM you may want to examine the bore before taking delivery if possible.
Not an issue for me as I replace the barrel anyway.
I do resell the takeoff's for only $50.00 shipped in the lower 48 states.
Can also cut them shorter and thread the muzzle 1/2-28 or 5/8-24.
I will be getting my own bore scope soon for close examination before reselling more barrels.

Magazine release.
I find that I have to polish the casting line of the magazine release fairly often so that it will move freely.

Stock.
Beware trying to refinish the stock!
It seems most of the color of the stock is in the varnish used.
If you sand through it the wood is very nearly stark white and impossible to match to the original color.

Extractor.
Extractors may have burrs or heavy tool marks which can cause them to bind in the bolt.
Remove and lap as needed.

The 9mm conversion has been fairly popular and makes the best possible silencer host as it eliminates the action noise of a semi-auto.
If you get tired of issues in .22 TCM I can convert yours to 9mm/.40 SW//10mm.
.40/10mm will lose some magazine capacity.



My 9mm conversion page, http://www.specialinterestarms.com/index.php?page=novem

- Sat Apr 23, 2016 11:07 pm #5944 $50 for tomato stakes?? Jay-Zus!!!! (LOL)

- Mon Apr 25, 2016 2:34 am #5976 The 9mm conversion reminds me of the old surplus Spanish bolt action rifles in 9mm that they imported and sold here in the USA many years ago. They were used but the ones I looked at worked well. I think the police carried them a lot but never used them much, if any. I wished I had kept mine, but I sold it and regretted it like usual.

Anyway that seems like a good way to go on converting some of the rifles to 9mm of course. It should work really well too. I did have the Spanish 9mm carbine years ago and a Marlin 9mm, .45 camp carbines and they all were great fun to shoot.

I was thinking that if my rifle doesn't work out with .22 TCM, I may go with getting a better barrel for it instead and get the better barrel chambered in .22 TCM. I haven't had time to do anything with mine yet though, so I can't say if it is accurate or not so far.

One thought that I had was with the small case, was whether small variations in the powder charge would affect accuracy or not. Say a tenth of a grain or less. I was thinking that the factory likely just has a powder measure unit that throws a charge and it could vary some from round to round as they load the cases up. With the small case a small variation in the powder charge could cause a significant muzzle velocity different from shot to shot. If my rifle works OK for accuracy I was going to try some reloads with more accurate powder charge measurements to see how that worked or not.

- Sun Aug 07, 2016 6:51 pm #8095 Worst rounds I have observed for load variation are Russian 7.62x39!
And they do not even have particularly small cases.

Independently produced video of one of my 9mm conversions in action.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0g9f6tqehs

- Sun Aug 07, 2016 10:58 pm #8097 Years ago I had both the Marlin 9mm and 45ACP Camp Carbines and those were a lot of fun. I regret selling them too. I wanted to get one of those surplus Spanish bolt action 9mm carbines back when they first started selling them, but I wound up being too late. everyone beat me to it.

- Thu Jan 12, 2017 8:51 pm #12071 More observations.
Be VERY careful of your TCM carbine.
It seems that Armscor is not supplying ANY spare parts.
If a part is not eligible for warranty you may not be able to get it replaced.
With over 8000 TCM's (and more each month) now in circulation I consider this a very short sighted policy.
Guns get dropped, small parts disappear during cleaning, stocks get broken during shipment, or on the way to the range.
People like to tinker with their guns, stock bedding is common.
Armscor will not supply replacement parts for modified or customized guns.
I may begin making some of the small parts.
Considering doing custom stocks but with such low volume the price would be a bit high.
I see tons of accessory items for Ruger 10-22 but with a couple million out there the customer base is much larger than for the TCM.
Not sure how many would consider the TCM a suitable base for customizing like the 10-22.

- Sat Feb 11, 2017 8:07 am #12542 Well, I'm $230.00 lighter but the new bore scope is ordered.
So in a few days I will be able to examine my stack of TCM rifle barrels one by one.
I will sort the "Tomato stakes" from the high-grade for resale.

- Wed Apr 26, 2017 9:20 am #14072 More observations.
This morning I assembled three more TCM based conversions.
Two were fine but one had a too stiff bolt handle movement.
Checked that none of the stock or trigger action screws were too long to bind the bolt.
Verified that head-space was correct, set to the tight side of spec but fine.
Removed the bolt and tried to unlock the firing pin by hand as was easy to do on the other actions, AH-HA!
Stiffness was in the bolt.
Dismantled the bolt and found some very small burrs on a few of the parts.
Used a small Craytex wheel on a dremel tool to polish them away.
Also found the cut of the bolt handle cam that keeps the firing pin cocked to be a little deeper than normal.
Polished the peak of that cam-cut down just a fraction and reassembled the bolt.
Now works much smoother without binding.
So before assuming that your hard to manipulate bolt is too tight in the action check for burrs on the bolt assembly components.
WARNING! Do not get too carried away with polishing the pin that holds the bolt assembly together, or remove the small protrusion from the face of the small black (Blued) cup at the chamber end of the cocking indicator!
If you go too far your bolt assembly may let the retaining pin drop out.

I have found the most common reason for bolt binding to be a too long rear stock screw.
Usually only a fraction of a thread in length needs to be ground off.