The Start of a Dyslexic Gunsmith

Yesterday my wife and I had to give our husky Bella back to the rescue. It was very hard, painful, but we both knew it was the right choice. I've had a hard time not thinking about her and wanted to stay busy. This is what I did.


DISCLAIMER: NEVER WORK ON LOADED FIREARMS. DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME. PLEASE FOLLOW FIREARM SAFETY AND NRA RULES.

This is what I started out with, a stock target version Ruger 10/22 Rifle. This version comes with a bull barrel (.920 barrel)

The barrel alone is very heavy which puts all the weight in the front making it tiresome. I wanted to go with the British "Bullpup" type stock to center the weight making it easy to use. The brand I picked was "MazzelLite" which turned out to be really nice.

Here what I got.

The new design caused issues with the factory designed parts. There were two parts I upgraded to make the rifle easier to use.

Left: Charging Handle (Extended Model)

Right: Magazine Release (Extended Model)

Up close photo of the Magazine Release

Up close photo of the Charging Handle 

So now that I have everything I need. I will start on the conversion. First I will remove the old magazine release but first here is a photo of the factory action.

Factory Action

The red circle you see is the only pin holding the magazine release in the trigger housing. I took a metal punch and tapped that pin out and the factory magazine release dropped out.

This is what the factory magazine looks like. It's a very small part, size of a quarter maybe a little bigger.

As you can see the new magazine release has a huge pedal on it for speed reloads. I dropped this part in the trigger house and lined up the holes and tapped the pin back in the housing. 

Next you have to remove the bolt/action from the trigger housing. There are only two pins holding this in place. The same process occurs, just tap the pins out of the housing with the metal punch. 

This is the inside of the action, the silver part is the bolt. The charging handle is under that. You can see the spring on the left of the bolt. I pulled back on the handle moving the bolt to the rear until it stopped. I then held the spring back with one hand and pulled the bolt out with the other. The bolt pulls out from right to left. The spring/handle falls out after the bolt is removed. 

Now I put the new charging handle in. I put the new one it the same position the old one was. I pulled the handle all the way back and dropped in the bolt left to the right this time until it locked. 

You can see the huge size difference between the factory and the performance parts. Now that is done, just had to put those two pins back in.

This is what the upgraded action looks like, after I was done. Now I started on the stock which is a bigger job. The manual stated that if you have the bigger "bull barrel" you would have to make small modifications. THEY LIED!!!!!!!!!!!

Here is one of my issues with the barrel not fitting in the stock. The factory  Ruger 10/22 regular barrel works without modification. The piece doesn't allow the bull barrel. 

This is after 30 minutes of trimming with a razor blade. Needless to say, it did not work. It was not enough material removed. 

The red circle is the factory hole where the barrel comes out of the stock. The white paper to the right of that is the actual size of the barrel.... HUGE difference. This is another entire issue to fix.

I had to use a grinder to remove a lot of material from the stock so the bull barrel would float inside this housing. This was several hours later. Here is what the stock looked like after I was done re-fitting it.

The action and barrel now, finally drop in the stock without any issues. There is a bar that connects the two triggers to make it fire. 

There are several bolts that connect the two piece stock together. The final product looks like this.

All my hard work paid off. The gun works flawlessly and looks great!

The bumps in the road

The Girls

On the journey of life everyone has times when they have to make hard decisions as an adult. The tough decisions have started for my wife and I. We currently have three dogs, all are rescues, in addition,  they are all girls! The last addition was our purebred husky, Bella. 

(Bella is sooo pretty!)

Bella was rescued by a fireman after her first owner left her for dead. She stayed at a rescue until we found her. She was so sweet and pretty. Sadly we tried our friends and family but no one can take her. We are going to most likely have to give her back to the husky rescue. Its going to be really difficult to let her go but three dogs and a baby is to much right now for our family. 

Next is Autumn which is my wife's dog. 

(Autumn has a lot of Lab in her but is still a mix.)

She was scheduled to be killed when a lady saved the whole litter. Lauren picked her out and Autumn become Lauren's first dog as an adult. I will never forget the ride home. I was holding her (she was a puppy) and she peed on my chest and all over me. Autumn also has the most nicknames out of all our dogs. I call her "fatty more that any other name" mainly because she eats literally everything... this would include TV remotes, window seals, and anything in her reach. The fun thing is Autumn looks like at twin of our oldest dog Krisie. 

Krisie is the sweetest dog and oldest dog we have. 

(We don't know what she is mixed with but she looks a lot like "Fatty")

Krisie was owned by a guy in the military. I didn't know it till after we had her for awhile that he would hit her with is military boots. My friend one day came over wearing military boots and she freaked out and ran away. My wife calls Krissie "Peanut" and the mother of all the girls. She really is a sweet heart. 

We plan to keep Krisie and Autumn. They literally do everything together. They are sisters from another mother. We just hope we will be able to rent a home that will allow them. 

Dogs aren't just man's best-friend, they are so much more! They give you so much love and joy, life wouldn't be to same without them.