Projects: Target Rifle

Introduction
It's been my dream for quite some time to build an ultra-accurate target rifle. Such a rifle can take several incarnations, ranging from a diminutive .22 plinker to a monstrous 50-cal behemoth. Considering that match grade 50 BMG rounds can cost at least five bucks a shot, you should be able to easily guess which side of the spectrum I'm going to be leaning towards.

This last month has been incredibly exhausting, as I've been basically running directly home from work, sleeping, and repeating the process over again. Ever since the latest crunch, even weekends have fallen into the same pattern. Living in a small apartment in a small college town greatly limits the hobbies one can indulge in.

Even the one small hobby store College Station had closed down. Back in Indiana, carpentry, computers, and potato cannons were all valid diversions. In Texas, there isn't room for woodworking, Steelsnowflake.com is now hosted elsewhere, and potato cannons are illegal. (Texas, interestingly, is the only state in the union that considers them as such. Pansy ass Texans.)

Reasoning
The reason building a custom target rifle then, is fairly obvious. Non only is it an interesting engineering proposition, it doesn't take much space and the end result is something you can use.

Firearms in general are alluring for men in general. Pretty much anything that makes noise and is dangerous grabs the interest of guys. As you'll see however, the rifle I'm going to build is a purpose-made tool that does one thing, and does it well: punch little holes in paper. Anti-gun individuals needn't worry, it's a nothing but a long-range holepunch.

Beyond the obvious banal attraction, I find it a fascinating combination of physics and engineering that enables accurate precision shooting. With the rig I'm about to describe, it's more than possible to shoot a 1-inch diameter group of shots at 100 meters. And, just as importantly, it can be done at a price manageable by someone such as myself.

Starting Out
As I mentioned earlier, a .22 LR plinker is pretty much the most inexpensive caliber one can construct a reasonably accurate target rifle with. The .22 caliber "Long Rifle" or "22 LR" is fairly precise choice of ammunition out to 100 meters. Beyond that, the light bullet will drop and wobble significantly due to quickly decreasing velocity.

Generally speaking, the 22LR doesn't have remarkable ballistic behavior. It's main draw for the target and/or recreational shooter is it's price. A "brick" of 500 rounds is usually purchased for around ten dollars, and a box of 50 precision target rounds can be had for about the same price.

The rifles themselves can be as inexpensive or as tricked out as one's heart desires. My rifle had a target (heh heh) price of less than $500, so you can use my example as a framework (should you desire) for your own rifle.

The Ruger 10/22
I started with Ruger's excellent 10/22 .22 LR rifle. The main draw of Ruger's offering is that it's fairly inexpensive (I got mine for $186 new at a local gun store.) It also has a staggering plethora of aftermarket parts available for it.

Ruger makes an off-the-shelf target version, but the problem is that you'll probably end up overpaying and you definitely won't have the pleasure of building your own.

The Ruger 10/22 is a magazine-fed, recoil-operated .22-caliber firearm capable of semiautomatic fire. Its firing mechanism is quite simple and sturdy, and is an excellent choice for those just starting out with target shooting, or those who have price constraints. There are several variants of the 10/22, the 10/22 magnum, which fires the slightly-superior (and significantly more expensive) 22 WMR Magnum cartridge, and the 10/17 which fires the diminutive and highly-accurate (due to it's flat trajectory) .17 HMR or HMR2.

Legal Considerations
There are a dizzying number of laws concerning firearms. Some make sense, some don't. One of the great things that the Constitution of the United States grants us is the right to bear firearms. In a practical sense this means that just about any individual over eighteen (barring convicted criminals, and a few other classes of people) can walk into a gun store and buy a rifle and walk out with it the same day. (Handguns are another matter, but that's a story for later.)

Gun laws do vary somewhat from state to state, especially from "red" to "blue" states. The Wikipedia is a great place to start out, esp. the section on [gun laws by state].

Note that all of the modifications I'm going to cover in this project are completely legal. We aren't making some sort of fully-automatic machine gun here, we'll be changing out factory pieces with precision aftermarket replacements, and tightening up the interactions between the remaining stock mechanical components.

General Technical Notes
When building a target rifle, there are several aspects of accuracy one needs to keep in mind:

1. Barrel
It's obvious that the stiffer the barrel, the more consistent the performance of the rifle will be. In target shooting, consistency is key. The majority of 10/22 target barrels are 0.920" in diameter, and come in a dizzying array of lengths, materials, styles, and weights.

I went with the [Green Mountain] 18" fluted barrel, P/N 901505. This precision barrel came drilled and tapped for a Volquartzen barrel-mounted scope rail. I was able to save some money by buying a barrel/mount/rings combo from [Hornet Products].

2. Stock
Because behind every target rifle is a target shooter, the interface between the rifle and the user is crucial. Finding a comfortable, well-proportioned and high-quality stock cannot be done without a great deal of thought. In a best case scenario, you should be able to personally try a dozen or so stocks until you find one that just "seems to fit" your personal physique.

My personal choice was the [Fajen] Legacy Series non-adjustable stock, P/N 577898 from [Midway USA]. I took a chance on mail-ordering this stock without first testing it for three reasons: 1. I didn't have enough money to buy the adjustable version, 2. It got good reviews, including one who said that it fit his large hands (I have big hands too), and 3, it looked cool.

3. Trigger Group
Like the stock, having a price trigger group (meaning the actual firing mechanism) is crucial. Most stock rifles have a heavy trigger pull (the stock Ruger 10/22 has a 5-6lb. pull, which means that this much weight is needed for the rifle to fire.)

The heavier the trigger pull, the more strain is placed upon the shooter, and thus less consistency. (Remember what I said about consistency?)

Unfortunately, I didn't have enough money to buy any aftermarket trigger group modifications, but I was able to make several accurizing modifications by myself. More on this later.

4. Optics
The days of iron sights and squinty-eyed sharpshooters is long past. These days, telescopic "scope" sights are indispensable on any target rifle. That doesn't mean that you have to spend as much on your scope as you do on your rifle. That seems to be a fairly common myth among shooters. Just find a scope that you like, and do some reading to see what previous buyers have to say about it. Although spending extra money won't hurt, perfectly serviceable scopes can be had for less than half of the price of top-end scopes.

Due to my budget, I was restricted to the lower-end of scopes, but found a great deal on a 50mm objective [Barska] "Varminter" scope with adjustable zoom from 6.5-20x (P/N AC10048). It features user-modifiable parallax adjustment, which means that no matter what the magnification, images should remain sharp and clear. The scope got good reviews, but some reviewers stated that cheaper scopes like my Barska get fuzzy out at extreme magnifications. I didn't find this to be the case with my scope, and it performed admirably. [The Sportsmans Guide] has some stunning prices on scopes and binoculars of all kinds.

5. Ammunition
Although not technically part of the rifle, shooters have found that each rifle will work better with some ammunition than with others. Some rifles are extremely picky, and will only shoot well with one type, whereas others will shoot just about anything accurately. Unfortunately, there's no way to predict this behaviour, so you'll just have to shoot lots and lots. (But that was the purpose anyway, right?)

One thing that .22 shooters differ from larger-caliber shooters in is that very few people handload 22 ammunition. Because of this, you are tied to commercial sources.

Pricing & Buying Notes
In my case, I bought the absolute cheapest 10/22 I could find. The reason for this was that I was only interested in the receiver and trigger group. Federal law regards the "receiver" as the actual "firearm", which means that pretty much anything other than this component can be purchased without any sort of restrictions. (I bought everything else via online retailers, as noted above).

I ran the numbers and found that if I was to meet my $500 total price, I wouldn't be able to purchase an aftermarket target trigger. Trigger modifications can range from an entire trigger group to drop-in replacements for the trigger, sear, disconnector, and hammer. Volquartsen, for example, has some beautiful target trigger assemblies for $200 and up. Maybe another goodie for another day.

Of primary interest to me was the target stock I would mount my receiver and eventual barrel in. I know this is completely a personal thing, but I've always found thumbhole stocks to be very comfortable and cool looking. Even if you're a traditionalist, there are dozens and dozens of stock styles to choose from. Materials range from natural and laminated wood to plastic and Fiberglas.

Fact of the matter is, I don't like wood because I always feel like I have to protect it from dings and scratches.

I went with the barrel-mounted scope rail and rings for two reasons. First, Many scopes mount to the firearm's receiver. For the most part, this is fine and good, although technically the receiver is not always consistently lined up with the barrel. If you were to take the barrel off of the receiver, you'd have to realign after reinstalling it. By mounting the scope directly to the barrel itself, you remove at least one extra mechanical interaction. Secondly, the scope I was getting was very large, and if I were using a receiver-mounted rails, I would have needed to fudge around with various heights of scope rings.

The Build
Ok, on with the actual build.

Below you can see the separated receiver/bolt assembly and trigger group. I have already removed them from the factory stock and barrel. The barrel is held to the receiver with two hex-head screws, and the receiver is held to the stock with a single takedown screw.

After removing the receiver/trigger group from the stock and barrel, the trigger group can be separated by knocking out the two drift pins, as noted. They are slightly tapered, so you'll need to gently tap them out from left to right, if I remember correctly. I used a hex key and tapped on the other end with the handle of a screwdriver. The first time is the hardest, after which they should slide in and out easily.

While the receiver and bolt assembly are separate, now would be a good time for some real lubrication. .22LR ammo is rather "dirty", and you should avoid oil lubrication. I used a light coating of white lithium grease. Be sure to wipe up any extra.

In the above picture I've already replaced the stock steel buffer pin with a white nylon one. The buffer pin is what the bolt will recoil into after firing. The metal-on-metal collision of the factory pin is very jarring and can mess up delicate optics. Lots of places sell aftermarket plastic pins for $8 or more, but there's an easier way: Make your own.

I noticed that the factory buffer pin was exactly 1/4" in diameter. A quick trip to Home Depot netted me a couple of 1/4" nylon bolts, each for less than fifty cents a pop. I then cut a section out of them with the same length as the factory pin, and slid it into place. Presto! Pefect fit.

Set aside the receiver/bolt assembly for now. Let's concentrate on the trigger group. First remove the hammer spring. Simply pushing the hammer all the way forward should free it up enough so that the spring/retainer drops out.

The hammer is held in place with a pin. Slide it out, as shown. Depending on how old your 10/22 is, there might also be a bolt lock spring. I forgot to include it in this particular picture (above). It's my opinion that the 10/22's bolt lock sucks, by-the-way.

You can now remove the trigger/sear/disconnector assembly. Push through the drift pin holding in the trigger group. A second pin holds the sear (the L-shaped piece) into the trigger casting itself. Watch out, as there's a small spring between the sear and disconnector (that piece sticking out a 45° angle to the trigger in the picture above).

You should also pull out the trigger spring and trigger spring plunger, which serve to return the trigger to it's prefiring state, because that's what we'll be concentrating on next.

If you're like me, you have a box of springs collected from a thousand and one different places and "projects". I can't say how many times some random spring has come in handy to fix something. In this case, I'm trying to reduce the trigger pull by replacing the beefy factory spring with a slightly lighter version. That's what the cutters, looming ominously over the replacement spring (bottom) are about to do.

NOTE: if you choose a replacement spring that's too wimpy, it will prevent the sear from positively engaging the hammer, which could cause a misfire. Any modified firearm should be safely and rigorously tested to ensure that none of your fiddling around has broken anything.

While playing around with the trigger group, I noticed that there was a good deal of room on either side of the sear inside of the trigger casting. Play is never a good thing in a target rifle, and I fixed the issue with a thin synthetic washer (from my collection of washers, of course). This single modification helped out tremendously in the apparent "tightness" of the entire mechanism.

When putting everything back, keeping the trigger/sear/disconnector assembly together can be a challenge, due to that compression spring. To make life easy, I clipped a section of q-tip handle just long enough to hold everything in place, yet short enough to not interfere when I dropped the assembly into the trigger group casting.

Put the trigger group back into the receiver, and reinstall the drift pins. Now you're ready to install the barrel.

As you can see, I've already mounted the rail and rings to the barrel. I did this to make alignment easier on myself.

Lubricate the mating end of the barrel with a little grease, as the 10/22's receiver is made of aluminum. If any moisture were to get in there, the differing reduction potentials of the two metals could result in corrosion.

After you get the barrel inserted into the receiver and aligned, use the receiver capture block and screws to cinch it down tight. You will need to make sure that the extractor claw smoothly enters the extraction cutout on the barrel. Open and close the bolt a few times to ensure this is the case.

While I was at it, I went ahead and dropped the rear support screw on my Weaver mount so that it just touched the top of the receiver. Too much and you'll bend/misalign the mount, too little and there won't be a good mechanical support.

Now that the barrel is mounted to the receiver and trigger group, you can drop it into the stock with the lone takedown screw.

Next we need to mount to the scope into the rings. When doing this you need to take into account the proper "eye relief" distance. This refers to the distance between the actual eyepiece of the scope and the shooter's eye. For my scope, this is about 3.6 inches. The best way of determining this is to hold the rifle as you would normally, while sighting through the scope. Move the scope back and forth till it feels right, and is at least close to the manufacturer's specified eye relief measurement. Using a pencil or a bit of tape, mark the distance on the scope barrel.

My Barska scope has a 1" barrel with an extra-large 50mm primary objective. This lets in lots of light, which means that at high magnification the target will still stand out well. There is a potential problem with such large objectives, however, and that is due to the height they must be mounted so as to not touch the barrel. As you'll see it's a fairly close fit.

Before I locked the scope in with the other half of the scope rings, I placed two small squares (approx 1cm x 1cm) of a soft plastic material known as Parafilm between the bottom half of the rings and the scope barrel. I don't know if this will do anything, but it should give a little bit of extra cushioning and anti-creep insurance. It's soft enough to deform when the top halves of the rings are tightened down.

Note: be careful when tightening scope rings. You definitely don't want to crush the scope barrel and / or the delicate optics contained within.

Once the scope was correctly mounted, I gently tightened up the eight hex-socket screws holding the two ring top-halves in place. There shouldn't be any play in either the barrel mount, the Weaver rail, the rings, or the scope. It should be one mechanical unit.

And here's the final product with a headless and yet still sexy, me modeling it for the camera:

The Shoot
Now time for the fun part.

I had a long wait for my scope, during which my nearly-completed rifle sat sad and opticsless. One my scope arrived, I was more than ready to drive out to the range.

For bench-shooting, one should have several items at the ready. Especially for long-range shooting, you need a stable platform in which to rest your rifle. There are expensive bench-rest shooting setups, but I've found a bargain solution: two sections of 2x4 and a 25lb. bag of rice. Simply lay two 18" or so sections of 2x4 in parallel, about a 10 inches apart, and put the bag of rice on top. This forms a soft-moldable channel in which you can rest your rifle.

Now you're all dying to know how well it shoots, right?

Well, Beth and I drove out to Arrowhead shooting range and spent several hours punching holes in paper.

It was kinda gusty, which has a bad effect on the very light (26gr) .22 bullets. Also, I only had two different types of ammunition on hand, a big box of Federal "value" ammunition, and 100 rounds of CCI Green Tag precision. Even the Green Tag isn't really considered "match grade" ammunition. Something to keep in mind that "hyper velocity" ammunition, or ammo that has a muzzle velocity over the speed of sound (1100 fps) will have stability issues at long range.

This is because as bullets decellerate through the sound barrier (transonic), they will be more likely to experience turbulence. This is why many match loads aim for muzzle velocities lower than the sound barrier, as they won't experience issues in transonic region. The CCI Green Tag was a subsonic load (1056fps), and the Federal brand ammunition was supersonic/transonic (1280fps at muzzle, 1020 at 100 yds).

Despite these issues, we got some very impressive preliminary results, indicating that the hardware side of the equation was more than capable. This first trip was mostly to break in the barrel and action, and get an idea of performance. With some work on the ammunition side of things, I can expect to see even greater improvements.

Here's some highlights:

Here's Beth shooting at 25 yards. When zeroing a scope, you have to start out at short range and move up from there, otherwise you'll drive yourself crazy trying to figure our where your bullets are going. Straight from the factory, the scope lined up pretty well with the boresight, which made adjustment easy.

Here's me at 100 yards. I found that leaving the clear lens cover on the scope make for a very blurry sight picture at long ranges. Taking it off brought everything into crystal-clear focus.

Here's beth at the 100 yards range. You can get a good idea of how far the targets are away. The six black dots at the end of the range are the VisiShot targets we were using.

Here's some of the example groupings that Beth and I shot over the course of the day:

Of particular interest is one of Beth's targets at 100 yards. This was shot near the end of the day (after we'd ran out of the excellent VisiShot targets), and with Federal's transonic ammunition. The approximately 2-inch group is quite impressive, given the conditions. I'm quite jealous.

One should keep in mind the technical and physical aspects of what's occurring during target shooting. We're discussion the precision of an instrument already proven capable of less than one inch variance at 300 feet or more. Maybe it's just me, but I think that's incredible.

We'll, I've met my goal and built an exceptionally accurate rifle for under $500. It's loads of fun to shoot, and already got the attention of several individuals at the range. If you're looking for an engrossing and highly technical hobby, target shooting definitely something to look into.