Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Rimfires 10/22?

Jim,
I have a 10/22 TGT I bought new in 1995 or 1996. It's been pretty customized in that all the bone-stock hardware has been massaged. Action now hangs on a bedded, slightly shortened TGT barrel, stock has been chopped and channelled, trigger is scary good now, but all parts got massaged at some point, mostly careful stoning and smoothing.
You can build a sleeper out of a bone-stock carbine with an aftermarket barrel, the actions and triggers all start out pretty much the same. Maybe buy the "super" Ruger trigger pack, I forget what it's called but they are pretty good. Still semi triggers but not AWFUL like most carbines. A decent trigger is pretty important to have if you want a 10/22 to actually shoot.

Overall, if you're a mechanical type farmer, you can slick up a Ruger 10/22 anything just fine without getting too spendy. I'd probably want to have one made prior to 2010 or so, with a METAL trigger pack housing. New ones are plastic. If you find a real beater real cheap, buy that, clean it up like it deserves, give it a chance to shoot, maybe move on to a good barrel.

A while back a Thompson Center TCR-22 caught my attention in the used gun rack locally. I didn’t end up buying it, but I would if I see another one. It looks like a very good alternative to a 10/22. Reviews spoke pretty highly of it.

Cheers Dave.

Everyone else too.

Ive got a sporter weight fluted GM barrel and it shoots as good if not better than my kidd.

The ruger bx is a "decent" trigger.

Good suggestions. I also prefer the metal trigger housings. As do all of my friends. The guys trying to convince you the plastic ones are just as good, are smoking something. There is a following for the metal ones. With that being said, the nice thing about the 10-22 is they are so easy to upgrade, but I always check the accuracy of the factory barrel first before replacing it. Sometimes they can surprise you and shoot damn well. I'm not going to say they all shoot 1/2" like some azz hats proclaim, but some will. Most shoot 1"+ at 50 yards. Got into an argument last year with a club member right before a rimfire shoot. He was bragging, saying most out of the box ruger 10-22's will shoot 1/2" groups. I called BS. We shoot targets for score and it's 10 shots on paper. I told him to shoot 1/2" with his 10-22. His was sporting a heavy azz big barrel, he couldn't. Its a shame, someone else won that event with his savage. Ha ha.. Buying a used 10-22 is a great idea. You can still find them out there for less than $250.00. The one I bought last year was in excellent condition and that's what it cost me. It also had the metal trigger housing. Something no one has brought up in this thread is the bolt. Those can be fine tuned for better accuracy. You can reduce the headspace on them, which helps to minimize fliers and get more consistent accuracy. You can radius and polish the back of the bolt for smoother cycling and upgrade the extractor. Or, for a little over $100.00, you can get a precision bolt that is optimized for better accuracy. It will also be ground and radiused for better cycling, pinned firing pin to minimize slop for more consistent ignition, and a stronger extractor for better extraction. The one I use is made by JWH precision. I do that work to my own bolt and it works just as well and that is also an option to get the most out of your 10-22 on the cheap. Other tricks like glass bedding also helps to improve accuracy. With a lot of these accurizing tricks done, you can shoot most ammo in to tiny clusters with a good barrel. Even the cheap stuff. However with real cheap ammo, you will never get away from the occasional flier. That is where true match grade ammo comes into play.

Dropped a Volq hammer into a pristine '85 action.
GM heavy taper 19" bbl, Victor Titan stock.
12X AO scope.

Std V ammo didnt cut it.
Most HV didnt either.

CCI blazer was the best of the " reg " ammo.

Tried 4 types of match ammo and SK rifle match got it under .50" at 50 yards.

Yeah, out of the box 10/22..... Best i ever had was an old factory checkered sporter '67. It with just a hammer swap was under .75 at 50 yds. With Blazer.

Just a bit too nice to take hunting.

Got a beater fingergroove after that and tried various tweaks, worst fuggin 1022 I ever had. No blued 20" GM sporter bbls to be had, for months. Pizzed me off so went bye bye.

A copy of the old fingergroove stock, in black synth w checkering. A stainless 20" sporter bbl and itd be perfect.
Good looks, feel, light hunter rifle.

But nooooo, their " anniversary " model was some awful looking new wave POS.

Good post. I agree. Although, they do make a nice stainless walnut Deluxe model with 20" barrel. I damn near bought one of those a few times, before I found my stainless carbine that I put the Kidd barrel on. That rifle with its factory barrel shot like this with federal automatch:

I wanted to check it for function and accuracy before I sold it on ebay. If it did not shoot in an acceptable manner, I would have tossed it. I'm sure that factory barrel would have shot some ammo better/more accurately.

I then bought a 20" stainless sporter weight GM, and it shot a little better. Maybe 3/4" 10 shot groups at best. The reason I sold it and bought a Kidd. I am very happy with the Kidd barrel and you aren't rolling the dice with them. Green mountain makes some good barrels. I have friends that use them, but they don't all shoot well. That's where you have to ask yourself if you feel lucky punk. By comparison, here's how the Kidd shoots el cheapo ammo:


That Kidd barrel will drive tack on command. The last know your limits shoot I was at, I let one of my buddies shoot it because he was having issues with his old Winchester. Needless to say, the SOB started whipping all of our azzes with remington golden bullets. I think the other club members were pissed I let him shoot it. Then he kept bugging me about selling it to him. His $700.00 offer was good enough, as I only have $450.00 into it, sans scope of course.

Best advice given.

I'm a fan of Magnum Research.

The blued Talo edition of the LVT (model no 31166)can be had for around 350-400 bucks at a few places online if you scrounge around. I have one but haven't shot it yet. Seems like a nice model to me; I don't plan on doing anything to it unless the accuracy sucks.

my main lgs has been having these in stock, just wish the stocks were walnut. I'd have one if so.

Nice!

IMO to get a decent shooting 10/22 on a budget, start with an older used 10/22 for the receiver. For a better trigger get the Ruger BX trigger (the KIDD is better but - - - $ and can wait for later). Get a heavy barrel (I'm very partial to the FJ Feddersen barrels 16.5" or 18"). Add a Kidd bolt as it has a pinned firing pin that will give better more consistent ignition. The stock is whatever suits your needs or tickles your fancy.

Adding a heavy barrel to the aluminum Ruger receiver can pose some problems. Barrel droop can be an issue and the weight of the barrel can put stress on the receiver if the barrel is free-floated. There are upgraded/heavier duty V Blocks that will help, or, one can try to bed or support the barrel.

My take on the 10/22 - With the assumption that this is going to be a ranch firearm not a competition firearm which would require a lot of $$$ upgrades.

1 - buy a new or used one - whichever you find for the best price.
2 - buy the Magpul stock since that is what you indicate that you desire
3 - buy a BX trigger for it
4 - go shoot it and have fun

Most of the 10/22's I have owned will out of the box shoot 5 shots into an inch at 50 yards with a couple doing better and a couple slightly worse.There is no point in going overboard with upgrading one for general use, they will work and group well enough to put a smile on the faces of your kids and you. After all how many hundreds of dollars do you want to spend to make it into a 1/2 inch gun rather than a one inch gun. Keep it fun and spend the dollars on ammo - you will need a lot of it with your kids shooting it.

My current 10/22 is a Deluxe which I bought new in the box a couple of years ago for $200 it is a keeper. I have done no mods whatever to it and it will shoot 5 shot groups into 3/4 inch at 50 yards with mostly vertical stringing. I am pretty sure that if I upgraded the trigger pull from over 5 lbs to something more tolerable it would likely get rid of the vertical.

drover

I used a foam earplug towards the end for my heavy barrel kidd. Worked great. I've also pillared and bedded the front of the action and vblock area, and about an inch forward of the vblock too. I wished I still had that barrel, I went the ultralite route and it doesn't shoot as good as the heavy.

Reeds has the black ones right now. $379

Another service that CPC provides is to thread the receiver and barrel to eliminate the V-Block and alleviate any barrel droop issues.

If you're interested in the Ruger American style stocks with the interchangeable LOP and comb height modules S&P Outfitters in Fort Worth, TX, has some of the short LOP low comb youth stocks in black listed on their site for $84.99..

I've got a couple 10/22 rifles. They are so popular and so much aftermarket support that you can build them into pretty much anything imaginable.

But, they do have an achilles heel. It's the scope mounting screws are only anchored in soft aluminum, that is easily stripped if you are not very careful when installing. And those screws have to be fairly short so they don't make contact with the bolt. Overall it's a weak/compromised connection.

I'm seriously thinking of replacing my receivers with something like this, with a milled in picatinny rail on top.

https://www.tacticalinc.com/catalog/category/432/437

One of the reasons I love the Magnum Research so much.

Way more value than I'd originally thought it would be.