10-22 upgrades

The 10/22's can really become an addiction. I started out buying a 10/22 Target. I worked the trigger, pillar bedded the stock and bedded he first couple of inches under the barrel in front of the V-block. It shoots some really nice groups. I then acquired a old beater gun from a pawn shop and completely refurbished it. I stripped the action and trigger group housing and refinished it. I worked the trigger, did the bolt release mod, installed an extended mag release, refinished the stock, installed an ultralight 16.5" barrel, pillar bedded the action, glass bedded the barrel and a few other things. I gave it to my father in law as a gift. He has ordered a scope for it and is awaiting it's delivery. I can't want to see how it shoots. In the meantime I have acquired another old tired 10/22 from the pawnshop and I'm going to do a similar build for myself. I just can't get enough of these things.

Well, you have a bunch of options. You could find and old beater in a pawn shop or gun show and do a full rebuild. You could start with a bare aftermarket receiver and build the whole thing or you could buy a new one and just do some upgrades to it. I all depends on what you are wanting the end result to be. If you just want a walking around gun to hunt tree rats and small game you may just want to start off with a base model gun. The first thing I would do after than is either work the trigger or buy an aftermarket hammer. The trigger pull on the stock Ruger's is horrible but with an aftermarket hammer you can get it to 2.75-3.0 lbs. After that the sky is the limit. A lot of guys have bolt work down, firing pin pinned down, rear of bolt radiused, aftermarket or worked extractor, headspace adjusted, etc. There is a guy over on Rimfire Central that does all of this for $30 and his work is well worth the money. He is a sponsor on that site and uses the screen name of Que.

The barrels on the standard 10/22s can be a crap shoot. Sometimes you will get a good one sometimes you don't. Most of the time the ones that don't shoot have a crown issue. You can recrown and have the chamber set back and reamed to tighten it up and they will usually shoot really well. There are several guys doing this work pretty cheap such as CPC and Dearborn Guns. Of course you could just buy an aftermarket barrel install it yourself, which is super easy. Like I said the sky is the limit. The 10/22 is one of the most customized guns in the world and can be a lot of fun to tinker with. If you want to learn all there is to know about them go over to www.rimfirecentral.com and do some reading. There's a ton of info there and some customized rifles shooting some awesome groups.

Hit the pawn shops and guns shows. You can usually find some older guns you can pick up for around $100 if you don't mind doing a little work on them. If you think you might want to refinished and keep the original stock try and find one that is walnut. Ruger used birch on a lot of them but there are some walnut versions still out there. I rebuilt and old gun a little while ago and used the original stock. I cut it off at the barrel band and recontoured the front of the fore end. I opened the barrel channel up and installed an ultralight bull barrel. It turned out quite nice but the birch stock could have been a little better. I have another one now I haven't even started on yet. It has a walnut stock that is in nice shape with just a few minor dents and dings I will have to steam up. It has some really nice grain to it. It needs a good refinish job but once it's done I think it will be a beauty. Good luck on your search.