I waited over 6 months and paid hundreds of dollars for a dedicated .22 upper from CMMG.

FINALLY receive it, get it set up and head to the range to zero it. Shot reliably for 34 rounds.

On the 35th round, the damn charging handle broke at the tip. That was one hell of a jam to clear, getting the front chunk of charging handle unstuck from the two halves of the .22 bolt.

So pissed off right now. Upper felt like good quality, but I said to myself, "Man, this charging handle feels like plastic". Don't know if it's actually plastic, but I think it is. 35 rounds.

Will call CMMG on Monday, but does anyone know if the charging handle for their .22 uppers is just a standard 5.56 charging handle? If so, I've got plenty of real charging handles laying around to get the gun up and running again.

Not sure if the charging handles are the same, but I don't think it would hurt to try it. I'd try to compare them first, and test it dry before firing.

Also, give CMMG CS a chance. They took good care of me when the ejector pin on my 9mm RBD bolt broke. They sent me a new one, along with some spares and a weight kit to tune the BCG (which is a totally separate product), all for free. I handled the whole thing through e-mail, and they were very responsive. I was pretty impressed.

Sh** happens sometimes even on good stuff from good vendors. Sorry for that. CMMG has been very good to me in the past so I'm guessing they will also do the same for you. Now if you have another charging handle around it would be about a 1 minute project to see if it fits. But in any case to save you the hassle on that I dragged out both my CMMG .22lr uppers and swapped a bunch of different normal AR charging handles into them and they work fine. Including some of the odd gas busting and aftermarket ones.
Hope that helps.

Their customer service was good to me, sent out a replacement part for my 22 conversion. They were prompt and courteous.

If memory serves me, I have a Spikes setup, but IIRC it's the same thing. I filled the hollow of the handle (where the gas key would run) with JB Weld or PC whatever number, but I'm trying to remember why? lmao Not just to make a flimsy handle stronger, filled the void reduced jection related jams? I think. Worked well. I think. lol

My .22 TacSol dedicated upper has a normal sized charging handle, but the hole for the gas tube is missing from the barrel end, just solid aluminum there. It also has a lighter spring on the latch, because the buffer spring is weaker than a regular AR and can allow a full strength latch spring to prevent complete bolt closure.

Thanks, all.

Threw a Radian charging handle in it and headed back to the range. Put about 250 rounds of mixed type (Mini Mags, Winchester bulk stuff and Remington sub sonics) and functioned about 100%. Checked the charging handle a few times for obvious signs of wear/stress and it looks fine.

Had one light strike, which I'll call an ammo failure and not the gun. Had two failures to eject where the spent case got lodged vertically between the charging handle and the bolt. Needed pliers or a screwdriver to clear, but cleared easily enough.

So two failures is less than a 1% failure rate, which is quite acceptable for a .22 autoloader. Gun functioned equally well suppressed and unsuppressed.

Will see what CMMG says, but otherwise the upper seems to be working fine.