recycling 10/22 barrels

[toysoldier]

I have accumulated several 10/22 barrels from yard sales and auctions. All of them have front and rear sights. Does anyone make an inexpensive single-shot receiver to which one of these barrels could be attached?

 

[9x19]

There is a reason they earned the nick-name "tent stake" about a decade ago.

There are any number of them laying around after being replaced, and yet nobody has ever really found a good use for them... Randy at CPC will set them back and re-chamber with a tigher chamber, and that can do wonders for their accuracy potential, but most folks seem to prefer replacing them with a fatter profile.

I suspect producing a single shot receiver would cost as much or more as a 10/22 receiver, so that might be a factor

 

[contender]

I read an article a while back where a gun writer had one custom cut to make a LONG barrel Single-Six!
I think it was John Taffin.

 

[9x19]

I wonder if the steel would be useful as a blade... seems there is a custom knife maker behind every other bush these days... maybe the barrels could be re-purposed in that arena.

 

[Mobuck]

I'd say it would be difficult to get the barrel forged w/o having inclusions unless one used the "canister" method which adds several levels of difficulty in itself.

 

[AJGUNNER]

I sold 4 or 5 to a local (Portland area) guy that was turning them down and pressing them into aluminum sleeves to make "custom Lite-weight" barrels out of them. If I remember right he gave me 20 or 25 bucks each for them.

 

[Busterswoodshop]

Clamp them to a 2x4 for the next gun buy back..

 

[DeletedMember275]

A gunsmith that I know of used/uses them to make bedding pillars for bolt guns. That or a tomato stake is about the best use for them, IMHO.

 

[Uncle Howie]

I read an article a while back where a gun writer had one custom cut to make a LONG barrel Single-Six!
I think it was John Taffin.

I saw that somewhere, too.

Just ridiculous enough, that I really liked it! :mrgreen:

 

[Uncle Howie]

Someone over on RFC made a wind chime out of a bunch of old 10/22 barrels, maybe 10-15 years ago.

IIRC, they trimmed them to different lengths, to get different tones.

I don’t care for wind chimes, but if I were FORCED to have one... :mrgreen:

 

[Mobuck]

It is too bad because those barrels will shoot as good or better than 90% of the users.

 

[JStacy]

for several years I worked with a FFL doing gun shows in San Antonio and he bought up some standard 10/22's and we added a GM 18" fluted barrel, Boyd's Barracuda stock , Power custom trigger parts and a Weaver rail with multiple cross cuts. The guns shot well , I glass bedded the 1 1/2" or so inches where the barrel rested in the channel around the take down screw, and the people who bought them were happy with their guns. I was left with six factory barrels and decided to do a little test, turned out to be an all afternoon job, where I installed each barrel on my sporter stocked gun . Of the six barrels , I cleaned them thoroughly before I shot groups with them, a couple of the barrels shot groups at 50 yards , 1/2", that rivaled the GM barrels. At least two of the barrels shot pretty lousy 3-4" groups at 50 yards, all barrel were shot with CCI SV. Two of the barrels shot 1" or so groups . I guess they shot the perfect bell shaped curve distribution. I was surprised by the 1/2" barrels and the 3-4" barrels the 1" barrels were what I expected . I sold them at the gun show for 25.00 for the good shooters , 20.00 for the average and 10.00 for the poor shooters with full disclosure that barrels , 10.00 one, had not shot well for me. When you are retired you have time for stuff like that !!

 

[Dan in MI]

I read an article a while back where a gun writer had one custom cut to make a LONG barrel Single-Six!
I think it was John Taffin.

That's funny. I am contemplating a very similar project with a MK-II. (where's that crazy emoticon when you need it?)

 

[SGW Gunsmith]

I've used quite a few 10/22 "take-off" barrels for customers who have Ruger Chargers. Cut those suckers off to various lengths for these guys and gals, even threaded a couple, and made one with "barrel fins" that looked like the Thompson machine gun barrel:

Had one customer where I got involved with his project of blowing the 11° crown myth to smithereens, as I cut the muzzle crown from 8° to 15° on a 12-inch long 10/22 take-off barrel for his Charger, and accuracy didn't change one iota through the whole range of 8 different angles. Go figure.

 

[Snake45]

for several years I worked with a FFL doing gun shows in San Antonio and he bought up some standard 10/22's and we added a GM 18" fluted barrel, Boyd's Barracuda stock , Power custom trigger parts and a Weaver rail with multiple cross cuts. The guns shot well , I glass bedded the 1 1/2" or so inches where the barrel rested in the channel around the take down screw, and the people who bought them were happy with their guns. I was left with six factory barrels and decided to do a little test, turned out to be an all afternoon job, where I installed each barrel on my sporter stocked gun . Of the six barrels , I cleaned them thoroughly before I shot groups with them, a couple of the barrels shot groups at 50 yards , 1/2", that rivaled the GM barrels. At least two of the barrels shot pretty lousy 3-4" groups at 50 yards, all barrel were shot with CCI SV. Two of the barrels shot 1" or so groups . I guess they shot the perfect bell shaped curve distribution. I was surprised by the 1/2" barrels and the 3-4" barrels the 1" barrels were what I expected . I sold them at the gun show for 25.00 for the good shooters , 20.00 for the average and 10.00 for the poor shooters with full disclosure that barrels , 10.00 one, had not shot well for me. When you are retired you have time for stuff like that !!

VERY interesting post, thanks for sharing it!

In my experience, both personal and reading the adventures of dozens of others a while back on Rimfire Central, a straight OOB 10/22 can be expected to group somewhere between 1 1/4" and 1 3/4" at 50 yards. A bit of tuning and some good ammo can get most of them under 1". If you're lucky, you can get to 3/4". If you're really lucky, you can get down to 1/2" or thereabouts, but you can't count on it and if that's what you're looking for, you're better off taking a different path of some sort.

 

[JStacy]

a simple fix , if you want better accuracy IMHO, is to get a GM factory contour barrel. I have two and they shoot great and mounted on a sporter stock or finger groove make an excellent field gun.

 

[Highstandardguy]

Or you could do like General U. S. Grant and make a fence out of them.

 

[mac66]

I used to buy take off 10/22 bbls off of ebay cheap back in the day. I probably have at least half a dozen. I've since cut several of them down to use on charger type pistols or compact/youth rifles. Brownell's makes a BRN22 receiver for under $100.



A concept gun