Believe it or not, this was a plain Ruger 10/22 Carbine not long ago...

Believe it or not, this was a plain Ruger 10/22 Carbine not long ago…

This week we’re going to invest in plastic surgery. No Kardashians will be involved, I promise.

While many might argue that I myself need it, I’m going to direct this decidedly non-medical procedure at a plain Ruger 10/22 Carbine . The Ruger 10/22 Carbine is the basic model, with wood stock that usually sells for a street price of less than $250.

I’m going to turn it into… exactly the same rifle it was before. It will have the same functionally, but with a few cosmetic and usability improvements. You know, the kind of changes that turn a rifle into an assault weapon, whatever that is. It will have the same operating system. It will have the same magazine capacity. It will have the same caliber. It will not fire grenades. But it will look exceptionally cool. It will be easier to handle. It will be adjustable to fit shooters of different sizes and statures. It will probably make Michael Bloomberg apoplectic for no good reason at all.

What is it?

I’m talking about the ATI Ruger® 10/22® AR-22 Stock System with 8-Sided Forend. This complete stock replacement kit turns your vanilla Ruger into a tactical beast. Yeah, it’s really cool looking and incredibly fun to shoot.

Yes, some of the features are purely cosmetic, like the forward assist, safety lever, charging handle and bolt release. That’s OK, because the way the system is designed, those functions (barring the forward assist) are all covered by the existing buttons and levers on the Ruger 10/22 receiver. The idea is to provide a look and feel alike rifle to a standard AR type – great for practice and training at much lower cost to shoot.

What makes the ATI kit useful for your Ruger 10/22 are the functions that it adds. For example, the six position stock. Like a real AR-type rifle, the stock is adjustable from short to long length of pull along a faux buffer tube made of aluminum. The stock has a nice (and soft) butt pad to absorb whatever recoil your .22LR load of choice has. More importantly, the butt pad serves to provide solid placement on your shoulder so the rifle doesn’t move around when you’re emptying a 25 round magazine at a platoon of hubbard squash. The warts on that stuff are creepy.

While we’re talking about the stock improvements, an even more important feature is the adjustable cheek rest. You can raise and lower this using a screwdriver. Got low scope rings? No problem. Got a high mount just like your .223 Remington / 5.56mm AR? No problem. Adjust away. Oh, and the cheek rest has a soft rubber pad on top to protect your jawbone from the earth-shattering recoil of the .22LR.

The kit also adds a pistol grip, so if you want to use cheap (in comparison to .223 / 5.56mm) rounds for practice, it will feel somewhat like your AR type rifle. As a nice extra, the pistol grip has a textured rubber back strap and feels great during extended shooting sessions.

 

Read the rest at OutdoorHub!

 
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The Rookie's Guide to Guns and Shooting, Handgun Edition

The Rookie’s Guide to Guns and Shooting, Handgun Edition