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After a year of tinkering with my 10/22 in its old school Hogue stock, experimenting with bedding, pressure pads, rear receiver anchor, adjustable cheek riser, and DIY tuner projects, it was time to retire it. I had included a sneak peek pic of my "new" stock back in May, when I posted my adjustable Kydex cheek riser project. It had gathered dust in my garage for 18 years, purchased unfinished and very rough from Midway in a closeout sale for about $40, until I decided it was about time to sand it down and apply a TruOil+Armorall finish. I ended up re-doing it a couple of times because I didn’t want the finish too shiny, and the second time because when I finally test fit the action, I found the area around the receiver needed to be shaped and the comb was way too high and needed to be sanded down about 1/4” over the entire radius. After about 30 coats, I put in in the closet to cure/harden.
On New Year’s eve, I decided it was time to prepare the Fajen Silhouette stock as the new home for the barreled action. I started by fabricating a pillar from a 1/8" brass pipe fitting and bedding it. Next I inlet the area behind the receiver with a chisel for the rear anchor (project I posted a few months ago) and bedded it. Lastly I bedded the front takedown tang. This morning I crossed my fingers, and popped out the action; whew, it came out; and pops in and out with nice “clack”. I have a couple of small voids to fill to make it perfect, but as it is now, I can press down on the barrel, without the action screw in place, and no movement. The rear anchor, bedding, and stiff laminate stock are doing their job as a solid base for free floating the barrel.
Here are a few initial pics. I'll probably shoot it for the first time in the next two weeks, but have hopes that it will have a noticeable improvement over the flexy Hogue stock. I had managed to tune the old setup to shoot consistent sub-half inch groups (~0.4: average) at 50 yards and MOA at 100 with most of the ammo shown in the pics (the Aguila really struggles to get to 1/2", and has some pretty wild flyers at least once every 15 shots or so).
Specs:
Stock: Fajen Silhouette - Woodland Camo; sanded, shaped and finished by me
Barrel: Green Mountain 18" - Stainless non-fluted
Receiver and action: Ruger
Non-Ruger Parts: no-name metal extended mag; oversized trigger, sear, and hammer pins, Volquartsen extractor
Mods:
My Mods:
Optics: Weaver T-36; Weaver medium windage adjustable rings; Volquartsen extended rail (shortened and polished by me)
Total invested as it sits, less optics, and including the bolt work and original rifle, is about $250-$300, plus my time, so I'd call it a budget build. I still need to add a front rail to mount my bipod on, so that will happen sometime later this month.
I'd like to get to consistent 3/8" groups at 50 this year with some more tweaking with my DIY tuner project, but I may need to go up a level on the ammo to do it. That and more trigger time.
On New Year’s eve, I decided it was time to prepare the Fajen Silhouette stock as the new home for the barreled action. I started by fabricating a pillar from a 1/8" brass pipe fitting and bedding it. Next I inlet the area behind the receiver with a chisel for the rear anchor (project I posted a few months ago) and bedded it. Lastly I bedded the front takedown tang. This morning I crossed my fingers, and popped out the action; whew, it came out; and pops in and out with nice “clack”. I have a couple of small voids to fill to make it perfect, but as it is now, I can press down on the barrel, without the action screw in place, and no movement. The rear anchor, bedding, and stiff laminate stock are doing their job as a solid base for free floating the barrel.
Here are a few initial pics. I'll probably shoot it for the first time in the next two weeks, but have hopes that it will have a noticeable improvement over the flexy Hogue stock. I had managed to tune the old setup to shoot consistent sub-half inch groups (~0.4: average) at 50 yards and MOA at 100 with most of the ammo shown in the pics (the Aguila really struggles to get to 1/2", and has some pretty wild flyers at least once every 15 shots or so).
Specs:
Stock: Fajen Silhouette - Woodland Camo; sanded, shaped and finished by me
Barrel: Green Mountain 18" - Stainless non-fluted
Receiver and action: Ruger
Non-Ruger Parts: no-name metal extended mag; oversized trigger, sear, and hammer pins, Volquartsen extractor
Mods:
- Bolt - radiused and headspaced, firing pin shaped and pinned by Que
My Mods:
- Trigger - hammer, sear, disconnector, triger plunger polished, JB Weld mod on sear to remove take-up, sear and hammer surfaces stoned to remove creep and reduce pull to 1lb 15oz
- Rear anchor fabricated and added to receiver
- Pillar fabrication, rear anchor and action bedding
- Misc - auto bolt release mod, internal receiver polishing, extended bolt handle, DIY bolt buffer, barrel tuner
Optics: Weaver T-36; Weaver medium windage adjustable rings; Volquartsen extended rail (shortened and polished by me)
Total invested as it sits, less optics, and including the bolt work and original rifle, is about $250-$300, plus my time, so I'd call it a budget build. I still need to add a front rail to mount my bipod on, so that will happen sometime later this month.
I'd like to get to consistent 3/8" groups at 50 this year with some more tweaking with my DIY tuner project, but I may need to go up a level on the ammo to do it. That and more trigger time.
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