Check it out:

http://www.tnwfirearms.com/product-p/asrx-cplt-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx.htm

Looks like asking does pay off:

http://10mm-firearms.com/10mm-rifles/tnw-aero-survival-rifle/msg43035/#msg43035

Thought I would post up my experience so far. Make sure you have some time I got interested in the 10mm version after reading this post.  I desired something which could fit in a small space but with enough oomph to handle large predators if called for. This would be a camper/4 wheeling backup gun.

At the time of purchase my only concern was getting some sort of high capacity mag to work with the 10mm barrel since Glock 15 round mags were the largest capacity available.  Plan "A" was to try and convert some of the cheap Korean 45ACP Glock mags (26rnd, $19/ea) to work with 10mm.  Plan "B" was to buy some Kriss 45ACP mag extensions (Approx $40 ea plus the cost of a Glock mag).  There is a YouTube video out there that shows the plan "B" conversion. More on the magazine experience later.

I ordered the ASR chambered in 10mm around mid March 2016 directly from TNWFirearms.  Based on the caliber conversion chart on TNW's website I also ordered a 45acp barrel and bolt head since it was only an additional $179. If you plan to only convert before heading to the range, the additional bolt head and barrel are all you need.  If you want to convert calibers at the range I would highly suggest you buy a bolt carrier, firing pin and firing pin retainer for each caliber so you don't have to pull a bolt head apart in the field to swap its guts over to the current bolt head you want to use.

Approx. 7 weeks later the gun arrived.  Initial impressions were good.  In it's taken down form the rifle and barrel fits into the same compact carry case I take my Kel-Tec Sub2k to the range with. On the exterior, the fit and finish were really nice on both the receiver and barrel assembly. I went with the FDE finish on the receiver/10mm barrel nut and black for the 45acp barrel nut to differentiate the calibers. Ergonomically I did not like the grip.  I have small/medium hands and the small grip put my finger too close to the trigger.  This would be the first gun that a larger grip made it more comfortable to pull the trigger. The stock is passable but I planned on putting a lightweight MFT on it anyways. The scope is a really cheap unit that has no place in this package.  The glass is blurry and it was near impossible for me to get a good sight picture due to its height and the small amount of eye relief it has. TNW should really offer this rifle with no optic as the included one just cheapens the package.  I will admit I have some bias against this scope after having one fall apart internally after two range trips on another .223 rifle.  My only other complaint was the 10 round Glock 20 magazine they included in the box.  I live in Arizona, send me a standard capacity version or at least offer it as an option.

Internally the machining on the bolt carrier and bolt head are not very inspiring.  There are noticeable tool marks everywhere. More on this later.
I had to wait a few days till the weekend to sight the new rifle in.  I installed an extra Lucid HD7 w/ 2x magnifier I had lying around for an optic, cleaned the ASR and lubed up the bolt carrier.  The ammo I was using looked to be the same TNW used for test firing – Sig 180gr FMJ.  I had modified a 26round KCI 45acp mag by bending the feed lips inward so they would retain a 10mm round.  I would test that magazine along with the 10 round Glock 20 magazine.  I had an additional unmodified 45acp KCI mag to try shooting 45 ACP with.

The first test session was pretty frustrating. Charging the first round into the chamber from the Glock mag resulted in the projectile getting set back into the case and the round lodged between the bolt face and feed ramp.  I cleared the jam and was able to rack one in the chamber and fire it but was met with another jam.  After an hour I had the ASR hitting paper but pretty much had to feed it a round at a time as the rounds were either plowing into the lower portion of the feed ramp (which jammed the projectile down into the case) or getting stuck diagonally between the bolt face and upper portion chamber on the barrel.  I'd say 80-90% of the feeds resulted in one of these two jams. I experienced the same situation with the modified KCI mag. I did not test the 45 ACP barrel that day. The other issue that cropped up was the barrel nut would work loose after a few fired rounds. There are no wrench flats on the barrel nut so hand tightening is the only possibility unless you have a strap wrench handy.

Like I mentioned before, the bolt face had some really heavy looking machining marks so I set about polishing that (also polished the 45acp bolt face). Next I polished the 10mm feed ramp which had a black oxide looking finish and was not slick at all.  The rifle seemed to feed better on the bench and I was able to rack a whole 10 rounds thru it in a row. While re-assembling the rifle I noticed the two receiver pins were not very tight. In fact you could shake the rifle and get the front pin to move a quarter of an inch with almost no effort.  I replaced both pins with some spring loaded ball detent pins I had in my parts pile. The next range session resulted in slightly better feeding but I was unable to get more than one or two shots from a mag before I was seeing the nosedive style jams. This occurred with both the Glock and KCI mag (the KCI mag was now sporting a Glock 10mm follower).  At this point I decided to give the 45 ACP setup a try. This is where I discovered the 45acp bolt head was just a shell and needed the internal parts transferred over from the 10mm bolt head. I managed to get the parts out of the 10mm bolt head but discovered the firing pin would not drop into the 45acp bolt head. I gave up and headed home.

On further examination I discovered a bunch of metal left over from the firing pin retainer cross hole was preventing the firing pin from dropping into its bore. I used a drill bit and small file to clean up the burr.  Now the firing pin dropped in freely but after mating the bolt carrier with the bolt head the firing pin retainer was not fully seating. It was at this point I noticed the alignment notch on the bolt head was not aligned with the same notch in the bolt carrier. I asked myself "Will this even drop into the receiver tube?". Tried that and no dice. The bolt head was getting caught on the alignment pin on the top of the receiver tube.  That pretty much confirmed my 45 ACP parts were not test fired.

At this point I was in contact with TNW who initially wanted just the 10mm barrel back and the 45acp bolt head. They felt the feed ramp on the 10mm barrel would need to be opened up a bit which I offered to do on a mill at my work. After some more back and forth they decided they wanted the whole rifle back and sent a call tag for it.  In my e-mails and phone conversations I mentioned a few times I would pay for the additional parts to make a complete drop in 45acp bolt head/bolt carrier assembly to make caliber conversions easier if they would just contact me before the rifle shipped back. That didn't happen. Out of the blue  I got a shipping notification which had the wrong return address (went to my FFL and not my work address as requested in a phone conversation).  Luckily my FFL didn't open the box as he realized he had transferred it to me a few weeks back and surmised it was a repair.

When I got home I went over the parts.  TNW installed some "better" retaining pins which seemed to have more retention force. The 10mm barrel now had some new machining marks down the center towards the bottom of the feed ramp (clearanced). The 45acp bolt head appeared to be a replacement unit. I was able to successfully build up the 45acp bolt head/carrier assembly and drop it into the rifle so the alignment issue was taken care of.

The next range trip I decided to try just the 45acp barrel.  The rifle was sighted at 25yds and I proceeded to go thru around 200 rounds of ammunition. I experienced the rounds nose diving into the feed ramp about 20% of the time however, since I did not have a factory Glock magazine on hand for the 45acp rounds so I am going to place the blame on the KCI mags for now.  I noticed the mag spring pressure on the KCI mags is very inconsistent.  At times it takes a ton of pressure to load a round and other times the spring seems to hang up allowing rounds to dribble out.  I checked for plastic flashing inside the mag body and saw nothing but smooth metal surfaces.  I suspect the springs are growing as they are compressed causing them to drag on the metal walls of the mag.  You can feel quite a bit of resistance by just sliding the loose spring up into the empty mag.  If I get a chance I want to try one of the Glock 18 magazine springs and see if it makes the KCI feed more consistently. I have been unable to locate an off the shelf option but if anyone has a suggestion I am all ears.

My final range trip was last weekend.  The ASR was setup to run 10mm and I had a Glock 10 round mag, 2 Glock 15 round mags and a KCI mag with a Glock 10mm follower.  All of the 10mm Glock mags fed the Sig ammo fine with no hiccups.  When that ran out I switched to my reloads with the same results.  The hi-cap KCI mags were still inconsistent.  The first one fed all 27 rounds of 10mm with no issues but upon reloading the spring seemed to jam up around the 7th round causing jams.  The second mag failed to work from the get go.  Again the spring appeared to hang up so the rounds kind of dribbled out causing jams.  I had one particular jam where the bolt face caught the middle of a round which split it open causing powder to fly, chalked that up to lack of spring pressure.

Unfortunately I forgot my paper target stand so all I could do was shoot at my steel plate.  I will say my groupings seemed pretty good at both 25 and 50 yards considering I was just kneeling and shooting fairly rapidly.  The red dot was still zeroed for the 230 gr 45acp ball but hit slightly high with the 10mm at 25 yds.  50 yards was hitting even higher so I had to aim at the bottom of the plate.  I may just figure the offset and put a sticker on the red dot for quick setup after changing calibers. No real plans to shoot this much beyond 50 yds. since I eventually want a small 1x optic on it.  Being a blowback design you feel a pretty healthy bump as the bolt carrier hits the buffer spring and bottoms out.  10mm is definitely more noticeable than the 45acp. Other than that it is relatively pleasant to shoot although you do have to kind of scrunch up. I do have a small vertical foregrip on the front (just forward of the magwell) as there is very little room for your hand to grab something that does not eventually get very warm to the touch.

Stuff to do before I feel this thing is reliable - I still have to pick up some Glock 45acp mags to wring out the 45 barrel.  I am confident the KCI mags are the problem based on my 10mm experience. I would like to do some more 10mm shooting on paper at 50 yds to get a feel for the accuracy but my initial impressions are positive. I have 2 of the Kriss 45acp mag extensions on order to modify for use with my 10mm Glock mags.  The barrel nut still works loose after a mags worth of rounds thru the gun.  I am going to try putting Teflon tape on the threads and then snug it using a 3/8" dowel pin inserted into one of the speed holes on the barrel nut. I haven't asked TNW about this issue yet but plan to when I get a chance.

Would I buy this again?  I am on the fence. A simple test firing of my extra caliber conversion would have caught the out of spec bolt head and eliminated most of my 45 ACP issues. I am also a little puzzled why they don't just clearance the 10mm feed ramps more aggressively from the get go and polish them as well.  Even after the trip back to TNW my 10mm barrel will not feed snap caps from the Glock mags.  The 10mm snap caps plow right into the feed ramp and jam so I am not 100% sure the feeding issues are resolved yet.  FWIW the snap caps have a truncated cone nose, similar to the SIG ammo but the SIG projectiles have a little more radius.

Considering this is an $800 rifle I would be inclined to punt it if it weren't for these factors –
I am a mechanical engineer that likes to tinker.
I am a big fan of the 10mm cartridge and have been reloading it for a while.
I still desire a compact take-down rifles chambered in a powerful enough cartridge to discourage large predators when out enjoying the outdoors.

I would not fault anyone for avoiding these rifles based on my experience.  That said I don't think it would take much to make these rifles work well.  If it were my product I would ditch the scope and use the cost savings for an extra 30 minutes of QC on each rifle shipped.  This step alone would catch many of the issues I had. These have been out long enough you'd think the feed ramp issues would be pretty well sorted but at the very least make sure it can feed a mag of snap caps before it leaves the factory.

More to come.....


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Azrckcrawler, Welcome to the forum!  For a first post here that was a good read about your experience with this carbine and the various magazines and conversions.  I had thoughts of getting one of these but I am on the fence and cash flow isn't what it used to be...Thank to the "Unaffordable-Lack of Care Act"!

Quote from: The_Shadow on May 18 2016 02:19:16 PM MDT
Azrckcrawler, Welcome to the forum!  For a first post here that was a good read about your experience with this carbine and the various magazines and conversions.  I had thoughts of getting one of these but I am on the fence and cash flow isn't what it used to be...Thank to the "Unaffordable-Lack of Care Act"!

Thanks. Been meaning to post up my experience but have been busy with work and home projects. I am really hoping I can get the KCI mags to work since they go on sale for $10 from time to time.  The 9mm versions run fine in my Kel-Tec Sub2k, I should steal one of those springs....

Quote from: 10-7 leo on May 18 2016 06:21:42 PM MDT
Concerning the barrel nut working loose, there is a small hex head screw that you can tighten to put more pressure on the detent, which holds the barrel nut in place.

I found that the barrel likes heavier bullets. As noted above, 155gr XTPs were not very acurate. 180gr XTPs were somewhat better. I have some 200gr XTPs worked up for my next range trip.

A note of caution: DO NOT USE Titegroup for loading. I was loading 180gr Hornady XTP bullets over Titegroup, using CCI large pistol primers, with overall length of 1.260". I stated with 5.4 grains of powder and was working up to 6.0 grains. The charges were weighed on two different scales and the scales agreed as to the charge weight of each round.

Your experience matches mine.  The place I work at has designed a few pieces of automation for the reloading industry and I inherited some leftover powders after the tools shipped.  One of the powders was Titegroup and while I knew it wasn't optimum I figured I'd give it a go since I ended up with upwards of 20lbs of the stuff. After some load development I gave up on it for 10mm, way to fast buring. Been using Longshot almost exclusively although when #9 became available again last year I worked up a few loads with a lb of that powder.  My ASR seemed plenty accurate with 180gr FMJ's and 165 gr FMJ's, wish I had not forgot my target stands last weekend.

I attached a picture from the 45acp shooting session.  230gr FMJ's over 6.3gr of BE-86 at 25yds standing. Was shooting a touch low but I was more after how well it would group.

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I'm sure you could sell the Titegroup to IDPA & USPSA shooters, or trade it for something slower.

The action shooters love that stuff.

Discovered the firing pin is sticking in it's bore after another range session today.  Only occurred on the last shot where there is no round to knock the bolt back hard against the buffer tube and dislodge the firing pin.  This caused a jam when racking the first round in with the next mag.  I caught it right away and found it occurring with every reload.  I could get it unstuck by pulling the bolt back and releasing it a few times with no mag in the gun. When I got home I polished the inside of the bolt but could still get the firing pin to stick.  I then polished the firing pin with some fine grit sand paper and it doesn't stick anymore when I push it forward by hand. I am thinking this issues was the source of a lot of jams in previous range sessions but I never noticed it.

Back to the range session.  The gun seems to function well with the Glock magazines in the 10mm config and I experienced no jams if I made sure the firing pin was back before charging the gun.  I set a paper target out at 50yds and started to sight in the rifle using some SIG 180gr FMJ ammo. The Lucid H7 was way off but I was still amazed at the first group. 4 real close, one flier.



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I could not repeat the initial grouping with the SIG ammo. Here's the final group with the POA still being the center.

I let the barrel cool down for about 20 minutes and shot some of my reloads. Second picture shows groupings for some 170gr Precision Coated Projectiles over 12.7gr of AA #9 (aiming for the head) and some 180gr Bayou Coated Projectiles over 12.3gr of AA #9 aiming at the center of mass.  shooting any of these loads at close 20yds resulted in softball sized group on my steel plate.

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As far as the mags, I tried two configs today after getting some accuracy testing in with the factory Glock mags. To recap I have been trying to find a way to get the inexpensive KCI 26round Glock mags to work with 10mm ammo.  The first step is to bend the feed lips in slightly so the mag will retain a 10mm round.  I used a vice and squeezed the feed lips together until the gap matched a Glock 20 mag.

Mag #1 was 26 round KCI Glock 45 ACP mag with a Glock 10mm follower and a spring from a 33 round 9mm KCI mag.  This allowed for 30 rounds of 10mm in the mag.  The 9mm spring is much narrower than the 45 spring but also shorter so spring tension is pretty light until you get about ten rounds loaded.  This config worked pretty good with slow fire.  I made it thru one mag with no issues.  I reloaded and tried some rapid fire and got a jam about 10 rounds in.  Nothing scientific but I just don't think the spring pressure can keep up.

Mag #2 was a 26 round KCI Glock 45 ACP mag with a few coils cut off the spring it came with. The stock length KCI spring seems to jam up when you get close to capacity so on a whim I decided to cut it down to keep it from wadding up too much in the mag.   This one surprised me in that it worked for both slow fire and fast fire but I did get 2 misfeeds.  I realized when I got home I forgot to swap in a 10mm follower so the misfeeds occurred with a KCI 45acp follower.  I need to test this setup again with a 10mm follower.

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Here is a friendly suggestion...While the feed ramp may need polishing you may want to consider the bolt face as well for fine polishing to allow the rear of the case rim to slide upward easier as the nose tips into the chamber...

10-7, what distance were you shooting? The polishing on the bolt face helped on my rifle. I also broke the sharp edges on the extractor claw.

Thanks for the tip on the spring plunger. They really need to add that to the manual.

Quote from: 10-7 leo on May 27 2016 04:02:39 AM MDT
I was going out to 100 yards.

Ok, that was my assumption.  I just wanted to try and correlate my groupings @ 50yds. My initial 5 shots would extrapolate out to a 3-4" grouping at 100 yds if you drop the one flier. It's too bad I could not repeat that.  The rest I got would be 7-12" at 100yds but I think I can do better if I shoot from a more stable position (was kneeling w/ a sandbag on a plastic table).

Target at 25yds, all OAL's are 1.25"

#1 Upper Left - Bayou Coated RNFP 180 Gr projectile over 12.3gr AA#9 - Avg'd 1485 fps
#2 Upper Right - Pulled 165gr FMJ over 13.2gr AA#9 -  - Avg'd 1495 fps
#3 Lower Left - Berry's 165gr HBFN over 9.0gr Longshot - Avg'd 1365fps
#4 Lower Right - 180gr Montana Lead RN over 8.8gr Longshot - Did not chrono
#5 Middle - Pulled RNFP 180gr FMJ over 8.3gr BE-86 - Avg'd 1413 fps

Not my best shooting but I got some data after struggling with the Labradar chrono. It would appear my carbine likes the 165gr projectiles.  The lead 180gr rn projectiles were terrible both from the ASR and the pistol I was shooting. The center 180gr FMJ's were not bad. The "pulled" FMJ's I picked up from American Reloading for about 4cents/ea shipped in a mixed batch sale they ran a while back.  They all have slight pull marks on the cones but appear to be plenty accurate.



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Here's a target from the previous week, same load as above for the Bayou 180gr RNFP coated projectiles.

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