What twist rate do you prefer for .22 long rifle?

OregonPlinker · Jul 1, 2012

Im gonna bull barrel my 10/22 and am seeing 1 in 9" and 1 in 16" twist rates on the barrels Im looking at. Im just wondering if anyone has experience with this and what their preference is in this department.

Also any other mods you would do to your 10/22. Im trying to make it kinda match my Remington 700 bull. Just for fun. So it will be blacked out with a harris bipod and target turret scope... :s0155:

PDXSparky · Jul 1, 2012

The only reason you'd want a 1:9 twist 22LR barrel would be to shoot heavy grain ammo such as Aguila .22 LR 60-gr. Subsonic. You need that fast of a twist rate to stabilize a bullet heavy, just like in an AR with a twist rate of 1:9.

You want a 1:16 twist for your 10/22 if you planning on shooting a more standard 36 gr or 40 gr bullet.

I'd going to start with the assumption that you haven't done anything to your 10/22 yet and that you'd want to start with the easy, inexpensive mods first.

New bolt buffer <broken link removed> from ebay. This has to be better than to bolt slamming back into that steel rod. Or you could spend $2 more and get the KIDD bolt buffer KIDD makes very high quality 10/22 upgrades.

New Guide rod and spring kit for $12.95. Makes for smoother bold cycling.

You could replace the bolt, or just have a gunsmith tune it for you. I sent my bolt to Que's custom bolt work for a $35 tune up. I didn't spend the extra $ for the fancy jeweled look. I don't have my bolt back yet, but his work comes highly recommended on rimfirecentral.com

Do you like the pull weight of your trigger? I didn't, so I sent the trigger group to Brimstone Gunsmithing for a trigger job. He offers 3 different levels of service, starting at $35. I'd also consider sending my other trigger group to <broken link removed> His starting price is $50, but it includes more. Both of these guys get excellent reviews on rimfirecentral as well.

Of course you could replace any or all of the trigger group with KIDD or Volquartsen products and spend lots more $ as well.

OregonPlinker · Jul 1, 2012

I was wondering what I was gonna do about the trigger. Thanks for the info! Didnt really want to drop 200 bucks on the whole trigger group. I just bought the 10/22 build video from AGI. I'm waiting for that to come in the mail to see what I can do myself. Gonna start on a couple 10/22s and then do a 1911 for my first builds. We'll see where it go's from there... Thanks again

dmancornell · Jul 1, 2012

PDXSparky said:
Do you like the pull weight of your trigger? I didn't, so I sent the trigger group to Brimstone Gunsmithing for a trigger job. He offers 2 different levels of service, starting at $35. I'd also consider sending my other trigger group to <broken link removed> His starting price is $50, but it includes more. Both of these guys get excellent reviews on rimfirecentral as well.

Thanks for the links, I shot my 10/22 takedown today and couldn't stand the trigger at all. Gonna send it off for upgrades.

PDXSparky · Jul 2, 2012

I got my bolt back from Que today. Really fast turn around. It doesn't look a lot different than before I sent it to him, but I can tell where he did the tuning. I can't wait to try it out. I might just put it into my other 10/22 for a trial.

dmancornell · Jul 2, 2012

PDXSparky said:
I got my bolt back from Que today. Really fast turn around. It doesn't look a lot different than before I sent it to him, but I can tell where he did the tuning. I can't wait to try it out. I might just put it into my other 10/22 for a trial.

Just mailed mine out today for a tuneup, blackening and the VQ extractor. I was getting 3 inch groups at 50 yards with iron sights and federal bulk, hopefully this work will tighten them up.

tac · Jul 3, 2012

We are getting under 3/4" ten-shot groups @100m with an ordinary OTS heavy-barrelled 10/22 with standard Lapua Target - the stuff in a 500 round can. Changing to my basic GECO 45gr stuff makes little discernible difference.

Harris bipod and a back-bag is all it takes, and gentle trigger use.

Gun, as I stated, is otherwise totally as it came.

Over here, you can get South Yorkshire Guns to build you something that is what WE call a gallery or 1500 comp race gun for about $2000-equivalent, and very nice it looks, but most folks I know can't see dropping that sort of money on a gun that costs you guys less than $500.

tac