Wanting to make an Uber accurate squrriel getter 10-22

[SGW Gunsmith]

I have this frankenruger. It has a Kidd barrel, bx trigger, and the At-one stock with a Bushnell Forge scope. Very accurate at 200 yards.
View attachment 998620

I like the analogy concerning "threading the needle" , and then hearing that solid "THUMP" as Rocky hits terra firma. You rifle is what my nephew would declare as..............AWESOME! Gets me thinking about another winter project.
It was mentioned above about any remaining squirrels skedaddling after their compadre expired to the first shot, we are NOT supposed to hunt with the aide of a suppressor in this state. I did set-up a 10/22 specifically to be like little children, "seen but not heard". This 10/22 has a Fedderson threaded barrel, with suppressor attached and a Volquartsen "Firefly" bolt that weighs less than half of the Ruger steel bolt. This combination cycles CCI Quiet at 710 FPS perfectly whereby the only sounds made are from the bolt clicking and me giggling.
There is a farm 1 ½ miles from my place through the woods along highway 53. He's a milk/cow farmer who also raises cats of the lowest class for any "cat show" there might be locally. These cats seem to wander through our woods preying on song birds, breeding indiscriminately, and then using the wifes flower beds for a latrine. When she digs up a cat turd in her flower bed, her language and tone of voice will make one shiver. So, the suppressed 10/22 during any illegal border crossings, will sometimes dispatch two at a time, before any reaction from other trespassing invaders figure things out:

 

[SGW Gunsmith]

That looks familiar!

For me, it’s about threading the needle, not going long...
View attachment 998843
Almost have “leaf-out”, but the springs been cold this year. There’s five or six here. But I’m hunting steel today.

Beautiful day today!

Yah, you got it. That photo surely could have been taken here just a s well.

 

[ms6852]

I like the analogy concerning "threading the needle" , and then hearing that solid "THUMP" as Rocky hits terra firma. You rifle is what my nephew would declare as..............AWESOME! Gets me thinking about another winter project.
It was mentioned above about any remaining squirrels skedaddling after their compadre expired to the first shot, we are NOT supposed to hunt with the aide of a suppressor in this state. I did set-up a 10/22 specifically to be like little children, "seen but not heard". This 10/22 has a Fedderson threaded barrel, with suppressor attached and a Volquartsen "Firefly" bolt that weighs less than half of the Ruger steel bolt. This combination cycles CCI Quiet at 710 FPS perfectly whereby the only sounds made are from the bolt clicking and me giggling.
There is a farm 1 ½ miles from my place through the woods along highway 53. He's a milk/cow farmer who also raises cats of the lowest class for any "cat show" there might be locally. These cats seem to wander through our woods preying on song birds, breeding indiscriminately, and then using the wifes flower beds for a latrine. When she digs up a cat turd in her flower bed, her language and tone of voice will make one shiver. So, the suppressed 10/22 during any illegal border crossings, will sometimes dispatch two at a time, before any reaction from other trespassing invaders figure things out:

View attachment 998871

That is a beautiful rifle, and love the rifle stock. I have been thinking of getting the firefly bolt so that I could shoot the CCI quiets. A friend told me to polish the bolt first and get it slick so I went that route and used 2000 and 4000 grit and the rifle will cycle subsonic ammo consistently except the wolf target and match extra. Still a work in progress and enjoying the process. Not in a rush as I use my 513T and 52C both with 26" and 27" barrels respectively with the cci quiet and they are quieter than my gamo air rifle. I am thinking of ordering a 26" barrel for another 10/22 I have to see if it will work well with the cci quiet. Again a very beautiful rifle you have there.

 

[SGW Gunsmith]

During the early advent of Volquartsen's 10/22 FireFly bolt, the only CCI Quiet that was available was the 710 FPS variety. I have seen the box velocity, at least, move up to 735, then 835 and finally 1020 FPS. Seems that many others with semi-auto pistols and rifles were also having function issues with the slowest version.
I know exactly of what you write concerning your longer barrel .22 bolt rifles and how the round sorta "whispers" when firing, my first .22 rifle is a Winchester 67A, which I still have but now sporting an optic so I can see the target betta, with the 27-inch barrel. Don't even need to wear muffs when shooting those rounds in it, and that's a 'good thing' for an old fart trying to save what's left of his hearing:

 

[CraigC]

With the 10/22, everything begins and ends with the barrel. Buy a good barrel and a harmonious outcome is almost guaranteed. For a field gun, I absolutely abhor a steel bull barrel. Learned that lesson the hard way, 25yrs ago. You can get all the accuracy without the weight with a sporter, varmint contour or semi-lightweight aluminum/carbon tensioned barrel. I say "semi" because some of them are too light. KIDD has a mid-weight aluminum .870" barrel that's equivalent to the Clark mid-weight steel barrel. For me, these are a perfect. Slightly heavier than a sporter weight but much lighter than a steel bull.

Building off a factory Ruger allows you do it incrementally. Were I to do this, I'd start with a deluxe walnut sporter, swap the barrel and put a $40 VQ target hammer in it.

 

[CraigC]

I have to similar rifles. I've since put a Shilen sporter weight 20" barrel on this one.



Then I combined this factory deluxe sporter stock:



With this barreled action, consisting of a Nodak receiver, Clark mid-weight barrel and KIDD two stage trigger. Along with a new Leupold rimfire 3-9x.

 

[doubleh]

This is my carry around 10/22. It doesn't weigh much even with the fairly large scope. It will do 1/2" groups at 50 with Wolf Target regularly but I don't know if it will "get" a squirrel. The little critters don't live anywhere close to me.

 

[Spats McGee]

I have to similar rifles. I've since put a Shilen sporter weight 20" barrel on this one.

View attachment 999525

....

That's some gorgeous wood.

 

[Picher]

Hope you have a good steel "tenderizer", cause steel is kinda hard to chew. Been shootin' steel with handguns over the years, but am out of all kinds of competition shooting. Haven't done it all, but did enough to satisfy myself...Handgun, Rifle, Shotgun Turkey Shoots, Running Deer, NRA Pistol, Police Combat, Handgun Metallic Silhouette (rimfire/centerfire), Skeet, Trap, Archery.

These days...in my mid-70s, I'm out of competition and just enjoy shooting targets and hunting birds, deer, and varmints. And oh, yeah shot a nice bull moose a few years ago, almost 300 yards with one shot from a handloaded .270 Win round.

 

[CraigC]

That's some gorgeous wood.

It's French walnut from a TALO distributor exclusive from about 10yrs ago. Bought it from Altamont on Ebay, cost more than the rifle did originally but it was worth it!

 

[Picher]

View attachment 998546 Would y’all consider this good Ammo?

What I learned from being into Rimfire Benchrest is that all ammo brands/types/batches vary in accuracy in particular rifles. We used to test various brands/types/lot numbers to find the best for OUR particular rifle, then attempt to buy as much of it as we could get (or afford). You could test a brand/type/lot number and call the distributor that day and they could be OUT of it, just a few days after you received it for testing.

 

[Picher]

Personally I'd go BX trigger and save the hassle of sending out the factory one to be modded. Actually, I'd shoot the snot out of it 1st and let the trigger smooth itself out and then decide.

Rhetorical question,
It's just a squirrel.... unless you're looking for head shots at 100+ yards to preserve the meat, how accurate does it need to be? Some folks are a little "over the top" about the accuracy they can achieve with their rimfire rifles, whether they're into competition or not. I might have been guilty of it at some point.





I'm not really disagreeing with you as it all a personal choice of what to mod or just replace.

I can't find it now but Brimstone had on their website for a few years that they feel the plastic trigger is better for them to mod because Ruger held tighter tolerances on the plastic triggers and the end result was better on the plastic trigger.

 

[danez71]

@Picher said

Some folks are a little "over the top" about the accuracy they can achieve with their rimfire rifles, whether they're into competition or not. I might have been guilty of it at some point.

Im not one to feverishly chase the '1 ragged hole' dragon but I certainly respect that and do admire whether done competitively or not.

But it's a squirrel... Actually, if your fun is picking which squirrel eye to shoot out, I get it.

 

[horsemen61]

I think I’m going to buy a new barrel to start thanks guys!

 

[SGW Gunsmith]

Well, going with the original "theme" as posted by the OP, I'm thinking an "UBER accurate" .22 rifle is much more precise than "minute of garbage can" at 50 to 75 yards.
So, if the preference is indeed to "put one through the eye" of a lowly squirrel, and that is the only spot visible, then why not? That's what I look for and want to hit, mainly because that's what it's lookin at me with.

 

[bamajoey]

My stock 1965 10/22 with a Barska 4x rimfire scope shoots dime-sized 10 shot groups with Blazer bulk at 80yds.

Dime sized groups you say, Blazer bulk you say, at 80 yards, You better hang on to that one.

 

[Picher]

Yeah, I suppose you don't lose much meat if you pop a squirrel in the eye.

 

[Picher]

My B.I.L. bought a used stainless 10-22 at a Maine gun show and wanted to have it shoot as well as mine, so I tried my "special tricks" on it and it still wouldn't group worth sh-t, so I picked-up an after-market stainless bull-barrel at Cabelas and installed it and SHAZAM!!!. Suddenly, it was just as good as any I've accurized. It's amazing what a great barrel can do for a 10-22, especially if other concerns are adequately corrected.

 

[danez71]

Are there any drop in replacement non-bull barrels that lean to the inexpensive side of the price range?

Id be interested in updating/upgrading a mid 80s basic model using a factory contoured barrel or midsized that would require little or no forend mods. But not interested enough to spend more on the barrel than the gun is worth new.

 

[Picher]

There are gunsmiths that will cut a bit off the rear of the barrel and re-chamber it. Then, it might be best to clean and epoxy it into the receiver. Re-crowning might also be considered. People had pretty good luck with that, years ago. You might get some information about that in the reference section of RimfireCentral.com. I haven't done any work on 10-22s for a long time, so haven't kept up with the latest workings.

 

[SGW Gunsmith]

I have to similar rifles. I've since put a Shilen sporter weight 20" barrel on this one.

View attachment 999525

L@@KS like you won the "wood lottery" with that beauty!

 

[SGW Gunsmith]

My B.I.L. bought a used stainless 10-22 at a Maine gun show and wanted to have it shoot as well as mine, so I tried my "special tricks" on it and it still wouldn't group worth sh-t, so I picked-up an after-market stainless bull-barrel at Cabelas and installed it and SHAZAM!!!. Suddenly, it was just as good as any I've accurized. It's amazing what a great barrel can do for a 10-22, especially if other concerns are adequately corrected.

The "heart" of any .22 rimfire rifle, as many have found, lies with the barrel and how it's bored and chambered. And that's an issue with some of the "cold hammer forged" factory barrels on Ruger 10/22 rifles, like you found.
Seems that when the softer steel .22 rimfire barrels are "normalized" after the gun-drilling process to provide a hole for the "mandrill", that roll-forms the rifling is done, then the metal during the hammer forging process is less "springy", providing some areas in the bore that become slightly more open, enough to let gas "blow by".
Those areas can be found in any .22 rimfire barrel if one were to slug the bore:
I haven't found a better way to slug .22 rimfire bores, other than using a lead .22 rimfire pulled bullet:

Pushing one of these bullets through the bore of any .22 rimfire barrel will soon find any "open" areas, if they exist, in said barrel. And when you find that the bore at the very end of the barrel (muzzle) is the tightest.............I'll bet you have a real shooter on your hands.
I've always seemed to have much better luck with "button-rifled" barrels.

 

[CraigC]

L@@KS like you won the "wood lottery" with that beauty!

Definitely. I wanted one of those TALO rifles when they were first announced but never found Gunbroker listings where they had pics of the particular one you were bidding on. So 10yrs later I found that stock from Altamont on Ebay. Not cheap but well worth it!

 

[SGW Gunsmith]

^^^They do that on some of those Gunbroker auctions. When I was lookin' for a CZ 457 MTR, I was checking prices on GB of that model. Every single auction had the factory picture of a CZ 457 MTR with some magnificent wood on the rifle. I'm OK with the stock that arrived with the metal parts, and it should be pretty stable:

Soon as I finish up a few jobs on my rack here, I need to do some shootin'

 

[SGW Gunsmith]

yYeah, I suppose you don't lose much meat if you pop a squirrel in the eye.