valour-it

Soup It Up For Soldiers Step 5: Optics – Add The Right Riflescope

July 31, 2012 By Tom 2 Comments

After much crying, whining, gnashing of teeth, a few injuries, but no lost parts, we’ve reached the finish line with Step 5 of the Ruger 10/22 Soup it up for Soldiers Custom Ruger 10/22 build.

Ruger Custom 10/22 Project Step 5: Add A Sweet Riflescope

Nikon ProStaff Rimfire 4x32 scope on Ruger 10/22

The Nikon ProStaff Rimfire scope makes a perfect complement to the custom Ruger 1022

The generous folks at Brownells have donated a sweet optic for our project Ruger 10/22 – a Nikon ProStaff Rimfire 4×32 Riflescope. They also sent a set of Burris Signature ZEE rings so we could mount the Nikon on the rail included with the stock Ruger 10/22

The Nikon ProStaff is a 4x fixed power scope – perfect for plinking and small game hunting. It’s nitrogen filled so it won’t fog in humid or rainy conditions. We know this for a fact as the rifle was zeroed in South Cackalackee’s 90/90/90 weather conditions. To the uninitiated, that’s 90 degrees, 90 percent humidity, and 90 times as hot as should be legal.

We really like the windage and elevation adjustment design on this scope. Under the protective turret caps are hand operated knobs that provide 1/4” adjustment per click at 50 yards. Nice and simple and no tools are required to zero the scope. We zeroed the scope at 50 yards as this scope is designed to be parallax free at that distance.

At the range we found the scope to be bright and clear. The reticle is the Nikoplex Duplex design. This is a fancy description that means the crosshairs are fine in the center with heavy posts closer to the circumference. This design naturally directs your eye to the center of the scope.

The Burris Signature ZEE rings are medium height and matte black finished. These rings include self centering synthetic inserts. This accomplishes two things. First, as you mount and tighten the scope, the inserts automatically adjust to align the scope with the rings. The scope bases are concave on the interior which allows the inserts to move freely as the scope is placed in the rings. Second, the inserts help to protect the scope from dings and bending.

Let’s get started!

	The Nikon ProStaff Rimfire scope comes with elastic mounted lens covers, instruction book, and Torx wrench.
	Remove the top half of the rings completely using the included Torx wrench. The Burris Signature ZEE scope rings will slide over the end of the rail. Just remove the bolt and slide each bottom ring over the rail. Now re-insert the bolt so that it is set in one of the rail slots. Tighten it up.
	Drop half of one of the included synthetic inserts into the base of each ring. Note that the inserts are designed to fit together in a specific way. You’ll see a small cutout notch on one side of the insert. Line that up for top and bottom halves of the insert.
	Rest the scope in place and install the top inserts, followed by the top half of the rings. Do not tighten anything at this point. Now pick up the (unloaded) rifle and mount it to your shoulder in a normal shooting position. Slide the scope back and forth until you have clear visibility through the scope with no shadowing around the edges. When it’s perfectly positioned, tighten the top halves of the rings. Not too much! Time saving tip: be sure that the crosshairs are perfectly aligned vertically before tightening.
	Now it’s off to the range to zero this bad boy. Using your preferred .22 ammo, set up on some sandbags and remove the windage and elevation adjustment covers. You can easily adjust both using the exposed knobs. We recommend setting the zero at a distance of 50 yards as that distance is parallax free with this particular scope. Once you’re happy with the zero, raise each knob vertically. This will disengage the cap from the adjustments so you can rotate the knob to read zero. Push the cap back down and you’re done. You’ll see a zero line for each adjustment just underneath the knob at the back.
	We tried a variety of .22 ammo in the rifle and had the best overall success with CCI Mini Mag. .22 ammo is notoriously finicky with semi-autos, so try a few types to see what your gun likes. We’ve not had good success with the Winchester white box bulk packs in a number of semi-auto rifles and pistols. The other brands we tried all worked completely reliably in this gun.
	Being total idiots, we dashed off to the range to zero this scope without our sandbags. Using a shooting bag as an impromptu rest, we were still able to get some fantastic groups with this rifle. The photo here shows 4 shots in one large hole at 50 yards. The 5th was a result of a poor rest combined with aging eyes and a spastic trigger finger. This group was shot with Eley Practice ammo. The CCI Mini Mag load performed just as well. Measured center to center, the four shot group measured .443 inches. Nice!

Now that we’re finished, we’re packing up this rifle and sending it to Ruger to be photographed and placed for auction on Ruger’s GunBroker.com page. Of course, all original parts from the Ruger 10/22 Carbine will be included in the auction.

Remember, all proceeds from the auction go directly to Project Valour-IT of Soldiers Angels! So bid generously! We’ll post a notification and link to the auction as soon as it goes live.

You can review the complete Soup it up for Soldiers series with detailed commentary on each step here.

Filed Under: Gun Maintenance & Customization, Shooting Tips, Soup It Up For Soldiers Tagged With: brownells, custom, plinking, review, Ruger, scope review, scope rings, soldiers angels, valour-it

Soup It Up For Soldiers – Step 1: Ruger 10/22 Stock Upgrade

April 20, 2012 By Tom 12 Comments

The Mission: Customize a Ruger 10/22 Carbine

We’re building a custom Ruger 10/22 rifle. For education and charity. And fun.

We’ve always thought that the Ruger 10/22 rifle is one of the classic customizable platforms out there. It’s so popular, and so extensible, that an entire supporting industry has sprung out out of the (gun) works – so to speak – offering replacement parts, custom options, and various enhancements. That people would build entire companies around Ruger 10/22 customization speaks volumes about the quality, longevity, and flexibility of the rifle platform.

Earlier this year, while jawing with the Brownells folks at the 2012 SHOT Show, we got to talking about all the things one could do with a Ruger 10/22. Dave Bennetts, GunTech Team leader at Brownells even bragged that eventually you could replace every single part on a Ruger 10/22. So we took him up on that claim.

It was actually hard to start taking the 10/22 Carbine apart. It’s a sweet handling gun right out of the box!

Over the next 6 weeks or so, we’re going to customize the dickens out of this rifle – just to see what’s possible. And we’re going to document the process here so you can learn how to do it yourself.

With parts and expertise donated by Brownells, a 10/22 Carbine donated by Ruger, and assembly by our fearless gunsmith-wannabe team, we’ll end up with one heck of a rifle at the end. And we’re going to auction it on GunBroker.com so 100% of the proceeds will be donated to Project Valour-IT of Soldiers Angels.

Step 1 Objectives

Replace the factory stock on the Ruger 10/22 Carbine with the new Revolution Extreme stock.
Do NOT call the Brownells GunTech Team whimpering and begging for technical assistance.
Do NOT send a bag of parts to the Brownells GunTech Team with a note asking if they can ‘fix it’.
Make sure that the rifle still shoots (preferably in a forward direction) after this step is complete.

The Ruger 10/22 and Custom Stock Parts

Ruger 10/22 Carbine

We’ve got a stock Ruger 10/22 Carbine equipped as follows:

Wooden stock with metal buttplate
10 round rotary magazine
Removable scope base adapter
Iron sights adjustable for windage and elevation (gold bead on the front sight)
18.5” barrel

Keystone Sporting Arms Revolution Extreme Stock

The Revolution Extreme stock is just plain racy…

Contoured palm swells
Vertical thumbhole grip
Rubber buttplate
Cutouts in the forend and stock to reduce weight

How To Install A Custom Stock On A Ruger 10/22

Well, here goes nuthin.

The Revolution Stocks people must know us well – especially our habit of ripping open packages and tossing the instructions. Directions for changing the stock are printed right on the back of the package. We suppose it can’t be too hard then.

	Make sure the gun is unloaded! Remove the rotary magazine, open the bolt and lock it in the open position.
	Check again to make sure the gun is unloaded and be sure there’s not a stray cartridge in the chamber!
	Now remove the barrel band. This is techno-gun-speak for that round metal thing near the front of the stock. First, loosen the screw on the bottom of the band. You don’t need to remove it entirely – just enough for the barrel band to slide off the front of the rifle. If you want to be professional about this and not butch up the screws, use a gunsmith screwdriver set like this one available at Brownells. It makes a huge difference. Since we are donating this gun, we’re using all the correct tools!
	Now simply slide the barrel band off the front of the rifle. It should pass right over the front sight.
	Next, loosen the takedown screw. This is located on the bottom of the stock just in front of the rotary magazine.
	Gently lift up on the front of the barrel, making sure that the safety button is positioned in the middle – halfway between on and off. Be careful with this step as the safety can catch on the inside of the wood stock if it’s not centered. Also, there is a notch on the back of the receiver so be sure to remove the barrel end first. We want to keep this nice little stock for a future use after all.
	Position the receiver and barrel into the new stock, receiver end first, so that the notch in the receiver fits over the corresponding protrusion in the stock. Lower the barrel into place.
	Using the takedown screw from the original stock, fasten the new stock to the action. The front barrel band is not required with the Revolution Extreme stock so store that away.
	Go shooting!

Next Steps…

Admittedly, the stock replacement step was a piece of cake. We’ll consider it a warm up exercise for the barrel swap, which we’ve not done before, so if you hear explosions originating from the southeastern US we might know something about that. We’re going to call the folks at the Brownells GunTech Team to get some advice for the proper one for this rifle and some tips on how to do this without breaking too many parts. We’ll cover that next week.

Stay tuned!

Filed Under: Gun Maintenance & Customization, Shooting Tips, Soup It Up For Soldiers Tagged With: brownells, Ruger, soldiers angels, soup it up for soldiers, valour-it

Soup It Up For Soldiers: You Can Get The Ultimate Custom Ruger 10/22 and Benefit Project Valour-IT

April 4, 2012 By Tom 3 Comments

We’re going to have some fun, learn some things about home gunsmithing, melt the phone lines to the the Brownells GunTech Team, and hopefully not butcher a perfectly good Ruger 10/22 Carbine in the process. And all for a great cause.

At SHOT Show 2012, we got to talking to GunTech Team Leader Dave Bennetts. That alone can be a dangerous thing to do, but we persevered. Somehow we got on the topic of the Ruger 10/22 and what a fantastic platform it is. And we mean platform in the true sense.

Plat ・form [plat fawrm]

The basic technology of a guns design, parts, specifications and operating systems. A platform defines what other components may be used interchangeably or to accentuate the primary function of the gun.

OK, maybe we fudged the Webster’s definition a bit, but in plain English, the Ruger 10/22 is so extensible and ubiquitous (that’s our $.50 word of the day so we can claim to be bona-fide journalists) that an entire industry has evolved to provide quality accessories, replacement parts, and components that are optimized for specific purpose. In fact Dave bragged that Brownells carried so many aftermarket parts for the Ruger 10/22 that if we kept customizing we would eventually replace every single piece on the original gun. And he said that “regular” folks would be able to do this on their own. Yes, that’s people like us. And we’re not certified gunsmiths. In fact, we’re not certified in much of anything except making Twinkies disappear.

So we took him up on that claim.

We’re going to document the transformation process in a series of episodes. Brownells is donating the parts, Ruger is donating the 10/22 Carbine, and our staff is donating the labor and coverage. We’re going to photograph and document each step along the way and post articles here on exactly what we’re doing, why we’re doing it, and how it worked out. We think it’s going to take about 5 episodes from start to finish. If we’re still posting stories on this in a year or so, that simply means that the Brownells GunTech Team stopped taking our phone calls.

The best part of the deal is that when we’re finished, we’re going to Auction the newly customized Rifle on Ruger’s Auction Site, hosted by GunBroker.com. You’ll have a chance to bid on this fabulous rifle and make it your very own.

And to top that off, you can bid freely knowing that 100% of the auction proceeds are going to Project Valour-IT.

Project Valour-IT is affiliated with Soldiers Angels and helps provide voice-controlled/adaptive laptop computers and other technology to support Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines recovering from hand wounds and other severe injuries. It’s a great idea and a great cause. Check out the link to see what they’re all about.

So sit back, enjoy the series, and get ready to bid generously knowing that your money will go to a great cause – and you’ll get a sick rifle out of the deal. “Sick” is what our kids say when something is beyond awesome. Apparently it’s a really good thing.