Today I picked up my new to me 10/22 custom from Brads. My usual practice, when buying a used gun is to tear it down and clean it (new guns too) I got it home, tore it down and found it was already pretty clean! So, if one of you put a 10/22 on consignment at Brads, Kudos to you for cleaning your gun beforehand! Thank you!

LOL, 10/22 is basically self cleaning!

I bought one used a while back. Owner said it stopped feeding any kind of ammo and when it did shoot one down range, the group looked like a round of buckshot at 50 yards. I got it home, tore it down and I probably could've grown potatoes in the receiver! I soaked it for a few days in Hoppes, plugged one end of the barrel and did the same with it. Then scrubbed everything down. It fed and fired everything and group size was acceptable. That one ended up going to my daughter. She still has it and the cleaning kit to this day. That was 15 years ago.

Probably 10 years or so ago, I walked into Ben's Loan in Renton to browse around. Found a "stainless" 10/22 with a 22" barrel. Apparently these were only sold at Lipsey's (sp?) in the midwest. I looked it over, the barrel was nice & clean and for $225, didn't see how it could go far wrong so I picked it up.

Took it home and tore it down to clean it. I'm pretty sure someone fired a brick or two of nasty ammo through it, never cleaned it, and all Ben's did was clean the barrel. Everything else was completely gummed up with black, oily powder residue and all sorts of nastiness. Ran the bolt & trigger group through my ultrasound and started to see metal instead of gunk. I'm virtually positive that no one at Ben's ever took it apart to clean it, because what I found was that some PO had bedded the action. It was so tight, it took me a few minutes to figure out why it wasn't coming apart and then I found the pleasant surprise. I spent a couple of hours cleaning it, got it back together, and it's been a great shooter ever since.

I also picked up a GSG 5 from a guy who over oiled it to death with some green oil. It was everywhere, leaking out of every hole, sprayed on you when you shot it. He told me that it'd stopped working properly, lots of FTE & FTF, which didn't surprise me when I looked at the bolt, there was soot caked onto the bolt face and the whole thing was covered in that nasty oil and built up powder residue. Did pretty much the same as the 10/22 above, took it completely apart, cleaned out all the oil & accumulated gunk and oiled it like the manual suggested. I also went out & picked up a RRages bolt upgrade kit that replaced all the screws & pins with nuts & bolts. I also discovered that there was a recall on the bolt, so I sent it in for the recall, and got 1-2 25 round magazines with it when the bolt came back. That turned it into a very reliable & fun shooter. However, it was a complete PITA to clean properly so I eventually traded it for yet another 10/22.

Rather making a whole new thread, I'm just going to continue with this one. I took this out to shoot a week or so ago, it did good. Mostly one ragged hole at 50 yards or so, with the occasional flyer with fed auto match. CCI stingers did really well! But the trigger sucked like a $2 dollar whore with the rent due. It was awful! I knew this had a factory, all metal trigger, not the polymer housing and I didn't want to lose that. I picked up a Volquartsen trigger kit and installed it. It went from a 7.5-8 pound pull to a 2.5-3 pound pull Taking it out tomorrow to see how it does.

The trigger job did a world of good!! I brought 4 different brands and type of ammo.
Federal auto match. 10 shots all touching
CCI SV. Mostly all touching
Velocitor (at least 15+ years old) all within a 1.5” circle
Stingers. One small ragged hole.
Going to have to find more of these stingers!

Stingers!

That’s one heck of a spendy 10/22. That’s like on the verge of cheap .22 Mag

I know, I know. But they work!

Well when it works. You use it.

After so many years of going cheap and fixing that the cheap ammo won’t work in most guns (well). I finally have good ammo too.