Front barrel band on 10/22

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  • Notalentbum

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    At last Saturday's RR event, I noticed a few 10/22s with the barrel band removed. I started wondering if sling tension was enough to pull the barrel off line with the band. The ones I noticed had sling posts set in the wood stock whereas mine has it mounted via the screw that holds the barrel band. Would this be a worthwhile mod????

    Thanks, Matt
     

    bocefus78

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    Each rifle is different. Simply remove it, and bench test it each way...with and without the band. If accuracy improves, mount front stud in stock. (Do both ways on the same day, using same ammo etc...probably common sense, but I'll say it anyway). Good luck sir!
     

    natdscott

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    It is. Plain as I can put that.

    Floating those relatively light sporter 10/22 barrels off the front of the rectangular action may/should work okay, provided you have plenty of clearance milled into the barrel channel so that if you bend the stock under tension, it will still not contact the barrel.

    That being said, the 10/22 stock, from factory, is not exactly beefy, and if you remove a lot of material, it could absolutely be broken under a heavy amount of sling tension. Were I limited to the use of a factory 10/22, I would do what I am saying above, and I'd install with Devcon a piece of steel rod or key stock down the bottom of the barrel channel. I'd drill and tap the key stock before hand, and thread my sling stud into it once everything was cured and cleaned up.

    It's not a position rifle meant for slinging into hard, and the trouble with that is that NOT doing so (to prevent real or theoretical damage to the rifle) will teach the shooter bad habits. Like, uh...using the arm muscles to hold up the rifle instead of ACTUALLY relaxing into the sling.

    -Nate
     

    yellowhousejake

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    If you have a good position your sling must only hold the weight of your relaxed body, which a small child could do. If you are slinging up so tight that you are breaking or bending stocks, you are not using your sling for a support aid, you are using it to force your body and the rifle where they do not want to go.

    I use the sling with a tension I would describe as "supportive." My arm will not go to sleep and I can keep my position without discomfort. When you first learn to build your position I recommend you do it with a loose sling. Find the right position for your arm and hands that is steady and requires little if any muscle. Then tighten the sling only enough to stabilize your position, "remove the wiggle." Build a good position first, learn it, memorize it, make it part of your shooting habit.

    My wife's 10-22 with a factory barrel will shoot 2MOA all day long, when I do my part. It has the barrel band installed and it has JB Weld the full length of the barrel channel. I added the JB Weld after I hogged out the stock to free float the barrel and discovered it made no difference. When that rifle was my primary loaner it was used to shoot many expert scores by lots of people. I have never had to remove a barrel band to get a student's scores up to expert.

    DAve
     

    natdscott

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    Hmm.

    Well Jake, I'm an admittedly big guy, so maybe that's my problem with breaking handstops and bending wood stocks. That being said, I can hold pretty hard in prone, so I'll just keep doin what I'm a doin. That includes categorically disagreeing with the advice you just gave. ;)

    With a "supportive" sling, how are you shooting? Is the support arm FULLY relaxed all the way to your neck?

    If it's not, then you are missing some of your potential, and tapping that potential is done most often by slinging up harder. That is, unless we want to bust open the discussion of match rifle stocks.


    -Nate
     

    TJ Kackowski

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    Natdscott ... I think you're confusing the goals of Revere's Riders with those of the type of rifle shooting you espouse. Please take a moment and read what tbhausen wrote here ... https://www.indianagunowners.com/fo...362-potential-concerns-questions-answers.html

    4 MOA is our level of accuracy. The people we instruct consist of a lot of first time rifle shooters. People who have no idea what you're talking about. They just want to learn to shoot their rifles safely and accurately. Both of which they learn at a RR event. When they want to go beyond what we teach, they are encouraged to look up the sort of shooting you do.

    However, if you want to contribute to the discussions in the Revere's Riders forum, please keep your answers to an appropriate level, and please try not to be so defensive and combative in your responses. What DAve wrote is as valid as what you wrote. His comments, however, were more appropriate for the audience of the forum.

    Perhaps you can have a separate forum created here on INGO to discuss the sort of shooting you do and the equipment modifications that are necessary? I'm sure that you're not the only person who wants to discuss wringing out every last bit of accuracy that can be found in a rifle. That's just not what Revere's Riders is all about.
     

    Tactically Fat

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    As far as the barrel band is concerned:

    It MAY be an issue depending on stock configuration/length and barrel length.

    I presume that it's certainly possible for there to be just the right combination of tension/pressure at just the wrong point with a barrel band to cause an issue - but I admit that I don't know this for sure.

    But the .22lr is a relatively puny cartridge and even the factory "pencil" barrels are quite stout in comparison.
     

    ol' Huff

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    TJ probably doesn't need to go even that far. Gary Anderson is a guy who held/holds pretty hard in prone and he teaches sling use almost verbatim as YHJ stated. The sling needs to be tight enough to support the weight of the rifle.

    When end I see threads like this I always wonder "How much?" How tight are notalentbums groups consistently hitting right now? What is the absolute accuracy of the stock 10-22 barrel and how much closer is free floating or reinforcing a stock going to get you to that? How much does personal preference play into the argument? How much would better trigger control affect group size? How much of an effect has YHJs methodology had on the shooting community as a teacher? How many effective rifle shooters exist because of his tutelage? 200? 300? More?

    4moa is a good standard. We should all be trying to improve on wherever we are at. If you are at 4 you should be working on 3moa and so on. Sling tension is something that is continually debated and yet it is 100% dependent upon the ability of the shooter to effectively define their level of tension. Dave and Nate could be talking about the same level of tension. How would you ever know unless you could read minds or weigh the tension?
     

    natdscott

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    Thank you for your input TJ, and I apologize if I come across as defensive in my post above. You would be very correct if you were to state that I take positional rifle shooting very seriously and that I am about first improving the SHOOTER, not blaming the rifle. If I ever come across as a jerk, please know that it's only from the ferocity of my beliefs in what this kind of shooting can do for it's students and for it's teachers alike.

    Whether a shooter can hold 1/4 Minute or 4 Minutes in sling prone, if they are not fully relaxing the support arm and letting the sling do the work, they are not shooting as well as they could. Can they shoot 4 MOA and do so without using the sling properly? Sure...many, with good geometry, could shoot 4 MOA with no sling at all. I make no apologies for pushing on every single shooter I coach--at ALL skill levels--to push forward on their boundaries and improve what they think is "acceptable".

    Wouldn't you agree that almost all the shooters on the line that are holding 4 Minutes would be THRILLED to cut that to the 2 MOA that Jake quotes, especially if it is as simple a change as I suggest? Wouldn't a 2 MOA shooter be more "field" effective than one at 4 MOA...especially since what I am talking about adds nothing to the complexity of the prone position more than you already teach?

    Heck TJ, Jake and I could be entirely on the same page and just call it a different thing. His "supportive" may be my "heavy tension"....I don't know without watching him shoot and analyzing his position from the targets, the hold, the geometry, and how it reacts under recoil.

    My basic point, in direct response to the OP, was that while there is no doubt that most 10/22 rifles will hold 2 MOA with decent ammo off a bench with a decent shooter, due to the design of the rifle, it is not well suited to a good sling prone as it comes from the box. It, as many of you all have figgered, can be MADE to shoot much better in position, and along the same lines, ya'll have figgered pretty well that it will shoot TERRIBLY from sling prone if you sling up against the band. So I proposed a solution to that (which, from other sources, I have more-or-less ascertained was repeating what many of you already knew) problem, while at the same time trying to convey that prone needs to be pretty tight, and that the barrel channel, if not relieved appropriately, could still bend to contact the rifle's barrel.

    I have SEEN this and I have DONE this, and it can be very frustrating for an inexperienced shooter to vary between 1 MOA and 8 MOA with the same rifle and loads, and have no way to know why. When that happens, most shooters default to either "My rifle is crap." or "I am crap.", when usually neither one are true.

    Thoughts on that, TJ?

    -Nate
     
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    natdscott

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    Whoops...sorry huff. You were posting as I was typing. I type kinda slow, and get interrupted often. :):

    Good post though. Anderson certainly does know a thing or two.


    Tactically Fat, you're looking at the wrong thing. If we were discussing prone being fired from BARREL support on a rest, you'd be right there, butthe effects we are discussing have patently nothing to do with the cartridge being fired through the rifle. An M16A2 slung from the barrel sees the same problems in a hard prone as does a 10/22 slung from the barrel band, and it is about the barrel actually being physically deflected in the direction of the sling's pull...if the shooter can't duplicate that tension +/- a few nths of a pound from shot to shot, then the groups go to pieces and you'd be better to just shoot without the sling. Since almost no shooter alive can duplicate tension that closely, we float the barrels and pull from the stocks.

    -Nate
     
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    ol' Huff

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    Well we ARE talking about the same thing, that's why I referenced the A2. We are talking about how much a barrel band flexing a barrel changes group size. I want to know how much. YHJ isn't putting up 2moa with a bench and good ammo. He is doing it with a 1907 sling, stock trigger, and CCI ammo. Because I know that is possible I want to know if notalentbum is that tight yet. If not, he need not jimmy his setup yet. He merely needs more time and skill work. If he is shooting 2 moa with his bone stock setup, as jake is, then I want to know how much floating the barrel and rodding the forend is going to shave off of his group with that bone stock setup.
     

    natdscott

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    Tell you what.

    Ya'll just send me one of your rifles UNfloated, and 100 rounds of the ammunition you've been shooting the best scores with.

    I will make you a good deal on a Devcon/keystock modification of the the forend, and I'll toss in a before/after evaluation for free.

    :D

    -Nate
     

    ol' Huff

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    Okay, I'll think about it, but first I would like to hear an answer to a question. My 10-22 will do 2 MOA with a sling and CCI standard velocity. It is stock in every way except it's got a different buffer spring and Tech Sights TSR100s. How much improvement in my group size should I expect to see if I float the barrel and rod the stock?

    The only evaluation of my rifles that ever matters is the group size they are capable of producing. Right now, with that ammo, a couple days practice without the ruptured disks giving me too much trouble, it's a 2 moa rifle slung up. How much will floating it and rodding it take off?
     

    natdscott

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    Shoot, buddy...I have no freakin idea. I'm just a shooter that has smithed a decent amount of his own stuff and it worked out pretty well most of the time.

    I hate 10/22's. But my offer still stands. :)

    -Nate
     

    TJ Kackowski

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    At last Saturday's RR event, I noticed a few 10/22s with the barrel band removed. I started wondering if sling tension was enough to pull the barrel off line with the band. The ones I noticed had sling posts set in the wood stock whereas mine has it mounted via the screw that holds the barrel band. Would this be a worthwhile mod????

    Thanks, Matt
    Matt, if you can make it out to the Crawfordsville Revere's Riders event, I'll have a standard 10/22 stock with sling swivel studs installed that you can try on you rifle to see if you notice a difference.
     

    Notalentbum

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    I'm thinking that if Gander or Dicks has a sling swivel stud, I'll pick one up and ditch the barrel band. It's a cheap simple way to compare.
    I told YHJ in a PM that some of my searching for accuracy is due to the groups I shoot off the bench with a cheap bipod with my Savage .223 bolt gun. These groups at 100yds are generally a bit smaller than the groups I'm shooting with my 10/22 sling prone at 25 meters.
    I'm looking at improving accuracy all around, both via my skills and improving the rifle with minimal expense. The best rifle improvement was tech sights and second was a Ruger BX trigger. At this point I can't see new barrels or anything of that nature.
    I was just concerned about the barrel band after seeing a few with them removed and knowing that I had a pretty good bench zero on my rifle before I showed up and then when I shot that first 13rd bell target from slung prone and everything was low POI. After the event I began analyzing my targets and adjustments I made and sling tension pulling the barrel down was the only thing I could come up with that might have caused it. I also recall a very similar situation last October when I did the Appleseed KD at Atterbury.


    Thanks, Matt
     

    DRob

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    Assuming you have a wood stock on your 10/22, take a look at the front of the barrel channel. You will likely find Ruger left a small pad there for the barrel to rest upon. The 10/22 barrel is hung on an aluminum receiver by two bolts. It needs support somewhere in front of that. Further, the barreled action is only mounted with one screw giving it the potential for a rocking motion. Bedding the barrel for several inches immediately ahead of the receiver, rather than floating it, has been a common practice among the gurus on rimfire central. That said, the barrel band can cause problems if it directly contacts the barrel. None of mine ever did but I also never use a sling.
     

    308jake

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    I have barrel bands on 6 of 8 10/22s and I've personally never had an issue with them. Do they look pretty? NO! But the good folks at Ruger put them there and I've never had a need to remove them. Matt I will let you shoot my best one at Crawfordsville and we can evaluate from there. Now I am not saying my 10/22s the best, nor am I the best shot, but they have scored well enough to patch.

    In in response to earlier posts, Reveres Riders is not about teaching people to become the next Chris Kyles or Carlos Hathcocks. We are about teaching Americans basic rifle marksmanship and civic responsibility. We have kids as young as 8 on the line so teaching safety and fundamentals are paramount. We give people the tools to become Marksmen, and from there they can train independently to become more. It is not a competition to see who the best shot is. It is training to give shooters a basic platform to start from that can be built upon. I witnessed a new female shooter score "Rifleman" with an old lever action gun with iron sights and a zip tie holding the sling on. She came to the event with an open mind, listened and followed instruction. I've seen plenty of builds not even come close to patching. We can all whip out our big guns and see which one is the best, but the truth is, it would be a waste of time. The shooter makes the gun. Not the other way around.
     
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