My First 10/22 Range Report

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Well...my first post after lurking for a while.

After finally getting around to getting my PAL, I decided that an enjoyable and cheap way to make use of it would be a rimfire. Building on and improving a rifle on piece at a time appeals to me, so I decided to start with a 10/22 "all weather" model.

Right now it's bone stock except for a Bushnell red dot sight (and the associated mount) and a Butler Creek steel lips mag. I'm well aware that a red dot isn't ideal for target work, but I wanted to simplify the firearms experience as much as possible for my girlfriend - this will be her first ever time pulling the trigger. I'd like to make it as easy as possible for her to have a 100% positive experience. Putting some rounds on target without having to worry about eye relief or aligning sights may just help with that :dancingbanana:

At the range today, it comfortably chewed through 350 rounds of Winchester Super-X with one stovepipe and two failures to feed properly. I've got a hunch that the feed failures were related to round positioning in the Steel Lips mag, as they were back-to-back. Given that it's been almost ten years since I've been shooting regularly, I'd say that the 2-3" groups I was shooting at 25 yards weren't too bad.

The first thing that I noticed is that the factory stock is a very poor fit for me. I think I'll be changing it out just as soon as I can decide what to put on. Right now, I'm thinking that this rifle will end up as a "plinker" as opposed to a true tack driver. The fibreforce stocks from MarStar have caught my eye.

I'm also considering a Butler Creek "carbon fibre" type barrel - but the 16.5" model that keeps the same taper as the factory model. This rifle isn't likely to be used at ranges much over 50 yards, and I'm thinking that I'll probably end up with a .17HMR bolt gun (maybe a Savage) as my "Tack driver". :rockOn:

What I'm hoping for is suggestions about a relatively quick and inexpensive way to improve the factory :puke: trigger, and feedback from anyone that has used the fiberforce stocks or the BC 16.5" barrels.

Hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to let you know how my girlfriend and I fared with her introduction to shooting.
 
Order a bolt buffer and Volquartsen hammer from www.rimfiresports.com or www.hawktecharms.com. It'll reduce your trigger pull down to a couple of pounds. Rather than getting a Butler Creek carbon fiber barrel, have a look at a Green Mountain instead.
 
Butler Creek stuff is pretty low quality. Green mountain barrels kick ass and are reasonably priced.
I have a power custom sear/hammer set that I'm pretty happy with. They are fun guns, and fun to upgrade.
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I've learned one thing about the 10/22 - all the factory ruger parts are ####. I found the gun to be very nearly useless as it was out of the box.

However, you CAN greatly improve the trigger with a few hours work. Firstly, take the gun all apart, and polish every little piece inside until they're all mirror shiny. Then, on the hammer you can very slightly reduce the angle and depth of the notch that interfaces with the sear. Go very slowly, you can ruin it if you remove too much material (no big deal if you do though, there are tons of aftermarket hammers out there).

Drill and tap a little hole in the trigger itself and fit a set screw into it to give yourself some control over the amount of overtravel

Add a longer radius to the back of the bolt on a bench grinder, then smooth it up with a file & polish. Maybe a 1/4 to 3/8" radius would be sufficient and will greatly improve feeding.

Polish the inside of the receiver to a shine as well. Compress the main-spring and polish the op-rod, too. This -along with the bolt radius- will immensely improve cycling and feeding.

While it's all apart, you can re-shape the hole in the bolt release to get yourself an auto-bolt release. Nice-to-have, but hardly essential.

Before you re-assemble everything, replace the ####ty factory extractor with an aftermarket one, again this will offer a moderate improvement to feeding and extraction.

This would also be a good time to install a bolt buffer to quiet the cycling as well.

Also, while you're re-assembling the gun, bed it with some epoxy for a huge accuracy boost.

I'd also recommend threading the holes in the trigger assembly and finding some machine screws to hold it into the frame as opposed to using the loose-fitting pins that come from the factory

Re-assemble, and you'll have a MUCH slicker gun with a hugely improved trigger and satisfactory feeding and extraction on most types of ammo, for well under $50 (more like $20 if you keep your old hammer)

You'll probably still find that -although the action is far far superior than it was- accuracy will still blow goats. Now would be a good time to replace that factory tube, if you need better accuracy (my factory tube was good for ~3" accuracy at 50 depending on the ammo; my lilja sporter-weight will do 1/2"-3/4").

Before I performed these modifications, my gun would consistently jam or fail to eject as frequently as every shot with some types of ammo.

Overall, I'm NOT AT ALL impressed by the 10/22. In my books, a gun shouldn't need much tuning to perform decently out of the box, whereas my 10/22 needed some fairly major open-heart surgery to perform at all.
 
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Good info Prosper, I think we have all done pretty well all those things and a few more, like pinning the firing pin to eliminate first shot flyers. Pillar bedding along with floating the barrel. They sure are fun to fiddle around with, I have an Adams and Bennet barrel with a Bentz style match grade chamber and the thing shoots like a poor man's outhose, a one holer. LOL:)
 
As mentioned stay away from the Butler Creek "Carbon Fiber" Barrels. Do yourself some research here and on www.rimfirecentral.com and you'll hear nothing but bad things on those barrels.Also HawktechArms is a great site to deal with when it comes to ordering parts, they ship free to Canada. Just my $.02
 
Do any of you actually own a Carbon fibre barrel w/ the factory taper? I have one on my 10/22, and its great. Its very light - went well with my Choate Dragunov stock, and quite accurate.

The Fibreforce stocks are so so - but if you want a Dragunov stock Choate is the way to go. Its better looking, and much tougher. Look on ebay - I got mine fairly cheap.
 
I also have a butler creek "carbon fiber" (actually a polymer) and it's freak'n awesome. Had it for years, no problems and shoots very well. :D
 
Update:

My girlfriend had a very positive experience at the range. :bigHug: She was intially quite nervous, having never fired a firearm before. The light recoil and low noise level of the .22 (very important on an indoor range) made it easy for her to concentrate on keeping the crosshairs on target...which she proved able to do. She put every round onto the target, and by the end of the session, had no problem with a 3" 10 round group at 25 meters. Not too bad for her first day ever.Especially since the limit of my marksmanship instruction to her was "Put the red dot on the bullseye, and then squeeze the trigger". I thought that keeping it fun was more important than the fastest possible progression to "expert marksman".

She told me last night that she wants to go back and shoot at a target that's a little further out next time. If I play my cards right here, I may just be able to turn her into a shooter. Who woulda thunk it :eek:

Thank you for all the good information, guys.

I will be staying away from the BC carbon fiber barrels after hearing how many people have had negative experiences. Not to discount any of the positive things that I've read from posters like Nine, but there do seem to be a lot of folks that have gotten burned by that specific type of barrel.

In lieu of that, I'm considering either a VQ 16" stainless muzzle weighted or a 16" green mountain SS fluted sporter. As you can obviously see, I'm leaning towards a short, light barrel that will fit in a standard profile stock. I particularly like the idea of the light weight fiberforce "Dragunov" style stocks that Marstar carries.

I am thinking that given my limited machining/gunsmithing experience, I may be better served by going ahead and ordering a drop-in trigger group from Hornet Products. $100 US + Shipping is not that huge a price to pay for the combination of a trigger that makes me happy and the enjoyment I will get from working on the now "surplus" stock trigger group without fear of botching it. Even more so when I consider that the price also includes the auto bolt catch release and extended mag release.

A new buffer pin makes a LOT of sense to me. I know that it's "only" a .22, but having the bolt smack up against a metal pin at the end of it's recoil travel just doesn't seem 100% right to me.

A bedding kit is a no-brainer as well...after disassembling the rifle for cleaning a few times, I can easily see how a consistent mating between barrel and stock is important.

I think that pinning the firing pin, polishing the op rod, replacing the extractor, and other bolt work will come a little bit later. So far, the rifle seems quite reliable with either the factory or BC Steel Lips mags. I think I'll start with the moderately priced improvements that will make big improvements, and then later move on to the finishing touches. :cool:
 
Mykhaylo said:
Do any of you actually own a Carbon fibre barrel w/ the factory taper? I have one on my 10/22, and its great. Its very light - went well with my Choate Dragunov stock, and quite accurate.

The Fibreforce stocks are so so - but if you want a Dragunov stock Choate is the way to go. Its better looking, and much tougher. Look on ebay - I got mine fairly cheap.
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Sure....Great...Thanks. I go and make up my mind about what I want, and then I get first-hand information that makes me think again :runaway: So confused. The upside to the butler creek CF sporter profile barrel is that Wholesale Sports has five of them in stock, less than fifteen minutes from my place.

I took a look at Ebay, but no Choate Dragunov stocks available there at the moment. Does anyone know if there's a Canadian distributor for those?


I had the browser window open to reply at the back of my desktop for quite a while (as you can tell from the post timestamps), and I didn't see the previous three posts before I hit "submit".
 
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The BC CF barrel is not carbon fiber which is why it gets such a bad rap. It's plastic and it droops when the barrel gets warm... It's just too flexible to be considered a good barrel. There are other true CF barrels out there that are great and very light that would be a much better option.
 
good choice on your first gun. Me too I started with a 10/22 as my first gun and I never regreted. for the barrel I think the GM has the best performance/price ratio out there. With the right ammo, the 10/22 below regularly beats Savage MK2 BV.

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ert said:
It's plastic and it droops when the barrel gets warm... It's just too flexible to be considered a good barrel.
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Whaaaaaaaat? :confused:

Do you own one, or is this more "internet knowledge"?

I have owned and shot one for several years, regularly shoot hundreds of rounds per range session... no droopage. (and the barrel is fine too.)
 
yoyo said:
good choice on your first gun. Me too I started with a 10/22 as my first gun and I never regreted. for the barrel I think the GM has the best performance/price ratio out there. With the right ammo, the 10/22 below regularly beats Savage MK2 BV.

DSC02278.jpg
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Nice looking rifle. Where did you get your stock?
 
Nine said:
Whaaaaaaaat? :confused:

Do you own one, or is this more "internet knowledge"?

I have owned and shot one for several years, regularly shoot hundreds of rounds per range session... no droopage. (and the barrel is fine too.)
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You know what, Nine? I took my cue from the fact that both people here that had first-hand knowledge of the BC barrels liked them.:dancingbanana: I bought the 16" Sporter taper model. It's short, super light, and looks better than the factory barrel.

After my first range session with it, I can confidently say that the barrel is a nice improvement. With the front end on a sandbag, I got far better results with the BC barrel than with the factory barrel. When I was able to do my part (not easy, since the crapola factory stock doesn't fit me at all), my five shot groups were a little over 1 MOA. I think that something other than the factory trigger will make a huge improvement in that.

I pumped 300 rounds through that barrel during my last range session, and if anything, the groups tightened up towards the end (although I attribute that to me getting back in the groove)

My intention here is not to make a super-accurate tack driver, but to build a lightweight, quick handling carbine that is as user-friendly as possible, and still shoots close to 1 MOA at 50 yards. That red dot scope is going right back on now that I have made sure that the barrel is not a problem.

Pics to follow when the build is complete :shotgun:

Odds are that there will be either a full-on custom 10/22 or a tack driving rimfire bolt gun in my future...but given that this is my first foray into the 10/22 world, I thought that I'd start with something a little less specialized.
 
Here's a BC "plastic" barrel tip. Grab some double sized mounting tape at walmart (looks weather stripping, about 1/2 wide, 10ft roll or something. Cut a small piece that will fit into the front lip of the barrel channel. It stops vibration, especially in synthetic stocks. Here's a crappy pic.

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I think I know the stuff you mean, Nine. It has a "foam" consistency and adhesive on both sides. I assume that you are suggesting that I stick it to the stock, and allow the barrel to ride on the backside of the tape (with the backing stil on)?

I am thinking that I might try the same trick with double-sided tape from good 'ol Ukranian Tire. I have purchased double-sided tape there that I used to re-attach the molding on the side of my VW. It has a dense, rubbery texture for the center part, and has pretty durable adhesive on it.
 
A couple of years ago I bought a used 10-22 and put a GM barrel on it with the Hogue overmolded stock, got a Vq trigger kit installed.
A Leupold M8 12x is sitting on top.

This is the result with CCI Standard Velocity, 10rnds/50yds
The bottom one was shot first and used has an aiming point.
 
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