Right Reason on Second Amendment Rights
Springfield, Illinois
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Sangamon
County Rifle Association Right Reason on Second Amendment Rights Springfield, Illinois |
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 The
versatile Ruger 10-22
Phil Davis SCRA'S Annual Christmas
Party
December 12, 2005 January 2006 GunNews For the Christmas Party fund raiser, Jim Butler donated a Ruger model 10-22 rifle, the international version with a full-length wood stock and a stainless steel barrel. Phil Davis gave a short talk on the history, variety, and versatility of this model. Everyone remembers John Moses Browning and other gun makers. According to Davis, in the future we will look back and think of Bill Ruger as one of the great designers of firearms, too. When you say Bill Ruger there are two guns that come to mind almost instantly, the standard model semi-automatic pistol and the Ruger model 10-22 rifle. The rifle is named after it's 10-shot rotary magazine and it's caliber. It came out in 1964 so it had its fortieth anniversary last year. Davis said it is the most versatile, customized and accessorized rifle anywhere. From 1964 to about 1998 10-22-s were available in the standard carbine version with an 18 1/2 inch barrel, and a birch wood or walnut stock and the rifle version with a 20 inch barrel with a walnut stock. A deluxe carbine version had a walnut stock with cut checkering in it. They also had the European-design International version with a Mannlincher stock with an end cap on it - a very graceful very smooth, very classy looking rifle. Recently, Ruger has added a .22 magnum to the line. The Ruger 10-22 rifle has become the standard by which almost all other .22 rifles are judged. Why is it so good? It's utterly reliable 10 shot rotary magazine may be the main reason. Rounds do not fail to feed because of variable spring tension in the magazine; with Ruger's rotary design, the first round you put in that magazine or the last round you put in that magazine, the spring tension is always the same. That makes for a very reliable rifle. It is also very easy to change magazines. You can put four or five of these in your pocket when you go hunting. You don't have to carry around a box of .22s rattling around in your pocket. The rifle is also very user friendly. If you want to lock the bolt back there's a tab for this right in front of the trigger guard. That was one of the major failings of a lot of the earlier semi-automatics; there was no easy way to lock the bolt back. You had to fiddle around trying to wedge something in there or push in on the lever. The 10-22's bolt locks back very easily so you can see if it is unloaded and for cleaning. The rifle features a very simple design - a straight blow back, very reliable and very accurate, straight from the factory. All of them now come drilled and tapped on the top for scope mounts. The first semi-automatic firearm Davis ever owned was a Ruger 10-22 his dad bought for him from the True Value Store in Auburn. He got a special deal on it for $62.00 because they had lost the magazine somewhere. So for the first year Davis had it he had a Ruger 10-22 single shot. He said it wasn't a whole lot of fun. He'd fire a shot, lock the bolt back and stick a bullet in there, then lower the bolt again. Davis said it taught him to slow down and learn to shoot right. Then Davis went to the New Berlin gun show where he saw an entire table full of stuff that you could put on a Ruger 10-22. Davis had been saving his money up all summer long. This was the November gun show, the one during deer season where on Saturday morning if you have twenty guys walking around in there you're lucky because everyone else is out deer hunting. Well he took his entire summer savings and thought "Oh my gosh, folding stocks, barrel mounts, scope mounts, all kinds of stuff." Then he bought two twenty-five round magazines for that rifle and he thought by gosh he was going to town. He had something that looked like a cross between a German Schmeisser and a space gun out of Star Wars. He could go out and instead of going "pop", he could go through a brick a of 500 rounds. This didn't make his dad to happy since he was the one who had to help Davis pay for all that ammunition. The Ruger 10-22 has been the first gun for a lot of young men and young ladies. One reason why everyone likes it is it doesn't gum up. Davis says he has owned his for twenty-five years and it has been stripped and cleaned one time. He sprays out it with gun scrubber and runs a patch down the bore. He doesn't believe he has ever had a jam out of it and he knows he has fired at least 100,000 rounds of ammunition through that gun. All the accessories that Davis mentioned, that was back in the 80's. That was nothing compared to what is available for a Ruger 10-22 now. A man named Chief AJ in Tuscola, Il is world renowned for customizing the Ruger 10-22. He can take a standard Ruger 10-22 and do such phenomenal things with it that it doesn't even look like a Ruger 10-22 when he's done but it will shoot quarter inch groups at a 100 yards. A Ruger 10-22 can be easily taken apart. There is one bolt that holds the barrel on. When you take that one bolt out you can pull the barrel out and put a variety of different barrels on it. Davis says he has seen up to a 24-inch tapered sporting barrel, as well as 20 and 22 inch .92 inch diameter barrels that are hammered forged target barrels. You can get carbon fiber barrels that have a steel liner in them that weigh just ounces. So this gun, which isn't heavy to start with, with a composite stock can be taken down to where it weighs almost nothing. All kinds of after market stocks are available for the Ruger 10-22. Davis never changed the barrel on his. It still has the standard 18 1/2 inch carbine barrel and he got rid of all the other stuff he put on it. He says it is sitting in his gun safe right now, original, birch wood stock, barrel down and a ten-shot magazine in it. Davis then took time to answer questions about the gun. After his talk, he held a very spirited fun-filled auction to sell the gun.  Carl Anders was the top bidder and is now the proud owner of the gun. Phil Davis Index Return to SCRA home page |