Something different

Sometimes things don't go in the direction you think they will. In December I picked up a '96 birch/stainess carbine at a big gun show that appeared to be unfired. Wasn't looking for another 10/22 but when opportunity knocks you answer. Brought it home and put it in the safe and thought about it. I've never built a 10/22 for accuracy so it seemed like the thing to do. Much research and annoying questions later I'd pretty much settled on a DSP stock and a GM heavy contour barrel. Traded the birch carbine stock and a couple of bucks to the local LGS for a walnut DSP stock that needed refinished, only to find when I got it home the stainless receiver wouldn't fit. Hmm. Well, I liked the stock on the Ruger American Rimfire I briefly owned so bought one in the Trading Post and did some work on it. Aluminum pillar I made at work and filled the voids in the stock with milspec epoxy and 7mm carbon fiber rods. Stiffened it up. Meantime the closeout deal on the Volquartzen muzzle weighted barrels came up and decided to try something different. I like long heavy barrels for offhand and this one is neither. Mounted the barrel using a Ruger v-block that was milled/drilled/tapped and thinks it's a Gunsmither (TM) twin. Floated the barrel and remembered some nice red silicone sheet to use for pressure padding. Aluminum tape got the receiver snug in the stock. Meanwhile the trigger group was getting worked over, auto bolt release, bolt headspaced, radiussed, firing pin polished, shaped and spring pinned. Firing group surfaces polished and hammer notch reshaped and narrowed ala super stock stickies. Mag release drilled and a carbon fiber rod epoxied in. Trigger plunger reshaped and polished, trigger mating surface polished. Old school Ruger scope rail with BKL rings and a Weaver T-24. First couple of range trips were less than encouraging, it shot patterns. Found out I needed much higher pressure pads because of how the bottom of the barrel channel is shaped. Finally this morning it's starting to show some promise. I had thouroughly cleaned the barrel and chamber, and after 15 fouling shots shot the target below at 50 yards. It needs to be better to shot MOA at 100 yards but I forgot the rests and shot off of the range bag. Dummy. The 2 left groups would have been .450s without the low flyers. The trigger needs to be lighter, working it in slowly, and better ammo is inbound, this lot of Eley Target isn't the best I've seen. My idea was to keep as much Ruger as possible, and it looks promising. Not really into naming my guns or cars or bikes, I just call it the 96.

What do you think?