I bought my wife a 10/22 and it doesn't group for shit. How do I can accurize this gun? Redneck gunsmithing suggestions welcome...I don't want to spend (a lot) of money on this project.

Get a Green Mountain barrel and stone or replace the hammer.

That's weird Mine shoots insane groups from factory, especially with minimags and fed ammo. Maybe give those a shot?

Taking the barrel band off might help too. And if you have some time, you could always take a rasp & open up the barrel channel in the stock enough to free float the barrel, assuming that it's wood.

What ammo?
.22s can be picky.
Try several brands/types.

buy all tony kidd parts   coolguyguns

Yeah I went there looking for info on stripping the bolt on a 10/22 and came back a few weeks later and my wallet was lighter by about $350.00.  If you have will power issues and like rimfires stay off that site.

OP - My factory stock 10/22 likes Federal Automatch, and CCI Mini Mags.

A little expensive but worth it.  Every Kidd part I have is top quality.

Sure, you can head over to rimfire central... but those guys are going to have you spending nearly four figures before long.

Before you start doing anything to it... first, take out a piece of paper and write down on it just what group size you would be happy with at 50 yards.  For the vast majority of people, 1" is quite enough.  Chasing small groups just for the sake of small groups can be a very expensive endeavor.

When you do start upgrading, first to work on is the trigger.  Then, try a number of different types of ammo, and see where it's at.  You may be pleasantly surprised.... with just that, my stainless/synthetic will do 3/4" groups with minimags.

And before you chuck the factory barrel... it can be worth it to have it re-crowned.   A number of people have had poor-shooting factory barrels, and just a DIY crown job has made it shoot significantly better.

wolf match target works in all my 22's

Call up Connecticut Precision Chamber. A stock 10-22 with reworked parts (you will want a bull barrel, even a cheap one) is just if not more accurate than a full on factory Volquartsen.

The most important ingredient in an accurate .22 is the chamber. It has to be cut for the ammo you want to use. In a semi, a Benz Match chamber is cut for Eley Tenex and is the tightest chamber you can have with reliable semi-auto guns. After that you need to get the bolt face cut to .042", do a trigger job and crown. CPC does all this on stock guns, doesn't matter who made the barrel they all turn out good and those boys know what the hell they are doing.

I have a 10-22T that was given the CPC magic and it is easily an aspirin tablet gun at 50 yards. I can't read wind flags, but if I could it would do the same at 70.

Remove the barrel band.

Float the barrel (also play around with putting a little pressure under the barrel right at the end of the stock).

Polish the trigger components to smooth out and lighten the pull.

Try multiple ammo types to find what works best.

rimfire central should be renamed rimfire INSANITY!

If anything related to rimfire guns or ammunition appears under the sun it will also appear there a nanosecond later.

So far, all the suggestions are good. In your particular case, I would disassemble, clean everything extremely well, reassemble with great care and attention to torque on the receiver screw. Pay close attention to any marks inside the stock along the barrel channel; could be high spots that need to be relieved. Leave off the barrel band and start shooting 5 shot groups from a rest. Do you have any old carbon paper laying around? Lay some pieces along the channel to see where the barrel is touching to see where you may need to potentially remove some wood. One simple trick is to wrap a piece of electrical tape around the barrel at the receiver to get the barrel up off the wood.

If you want to do something while you have the receiver disassembled, yep, gently stone and polish all the trigger group parts or just replace them with Kidd or Valquartsen parts. Look for the wear marks and clean all that, especially inside the receiver where the bolt handle rides. Get a bolt buffer to help minimize the felt recoil from the bolt slamming against the receiver.

While you're at it, reshape the bolt hold open part so you can have a bolt release by just tugging back on the handle. Very easy and useful modification.

Personally I'm not a fan of the stock sights on a 10/22. Lots of options. The supplied 'rail' with the 10/22 is not well suited to the plethora of aftermarket sight options. For iron sights, there's an active discussion on the RC site about irons. I like Tech Sights because they're economical, sturdy, easy to install and work well in most situations suited for a casual 10/22.

The 10/22 is a great little carbine. Besides the AR15, I don't recall seeing so many aftermarket accessories from so many suppliers. The junk gets weeded out fast. You can quickly and easily drop a grand building a target rifle capable of holding 3/8" or less 5 shot groups all day long. With some careful work and shopping you can probably get close to that kind of accuracy for well under $200 using your stock receiver and parts and doing a lot of the work yourself.

Comfortable shooting positions are a large part of the accuracy equation. Technique is also critically important. If you don't use the front barrel band, you should install a sling stud and get a simple military cotton cloth sling to start with. Is your wife comfortable shooting with the wooden stock on the Ruger? Does it fit her for LOP, comb height, palm swell?

Have fun, enjoy yourself at rimfire central! Really nice group of folks there.

Another avenue to accuracy, I suggest with caution, are the Appleseed events...

I don't know why but I waited forever to do the BHO mod.  When I finally did it I could have kicked myself for not doing it sooner.  It makes a huge difference for just a little work.

I had work done by [email protected] .  When it came back it had less than a 2lb trigger pull (volquartsen internals), with a trued bolt, etc and shot awesome.  I had a best of 5 shot group through what looked like the same hole at 25 with cci's... the other groups were ragged holes.

do this first!
especially the ammo part...you will be amazed at how much brand can effect accuracy in a 10/22.
check this out its a little informal information I did on some different brands in 2 different 10/22's its not a real test just some 3 shot groups I did to see which ammo my 22's liked.
22ammo

Funny, I asked on rimfirecentral, if I should buy a barrel for my .22 get a trigger, etc... Or just by a savage BV. I was told to buy the BV