Jeez Mariez. The youtube videos make it look easy, but I'll never do it again.

First, getting that little spring tab in the tiny pinhole in the magazine nut is a bitch. The tab is bent at an angle, so getting an angled tab the diameter of a pin in a tiny straight (?) hole is enough to make you swear out loud in front of children and nuns. Then just try to hold that nut with your fingertips against the building spring pressure while you try to wind up the spring 4 turns, and you will now be screaming obscenities. At the top of your lungs.

After having it unwind explosively in my fingers several times and getting sore fingertips, I resorted to a 7/16 open-end wrench to hold the nut while pressing the opposite end of the magazine screw against the table and turning the magazine body while using the wrench to hold the nut. That works reasonably well, but as you wind, the nut is drawn into the magazine body, and keeping the wrench on it is a bugger. I used an open-end wrench so I could see to push the nut into its recesses after getting the spring wound, and after about 400 tries I finally got it. But by then I was running out in the front yard buck naked, screaming curse words that would make a Marine drill sergeant blush and bleeding from the ears.

I would like to have another mag that will reliably feed the last round into my RAR, but I ain't about to take another one of those sonzabitches apart.

Believe it or not, after a few times it gets MUCH easier. If you want to skip the learning curve and don't mind spending $14, get this...
http://borelsport.com/product/ruger-1022-magazine-assembly-tool/

Even though I can take apart 10/22 mags easily now without any tools, I still use the device above to make it faster...well I actually just use the "wheel" portion and wrench.  I have 15 or so mags that I clean often so any help is a thumbs up.

http://youtu.be/sM5QAqsdRf0

Honestly? I spent as much time as anything finding that  tiny hole for the spring tang in that black magazine nut. You need blazing light to try and line it up and blindly insert the tang into that hole (which goes out of sight as you try to assemble the mag) But I can see where that tool might make it easier to rotate the nut and hold it.

One other thing - Brownells says to wind the spring 3-4 times, whereas this guy says 1-1/2 turns. Who's right?

I go 1 1/2 turns. Put a little dab of red finger nail polish on one corner of the nut and another dab on the mag. Makes it easy to keep track of how many rotations the nut needs to go.

Getting the end of the spring in the hole in the nut gets easier after time. If you just rotate the nut and watch closely from the side to see when it catches in the hole, you should see that just rotating the nut will find the hole for you.

As far as how much rotation....If you are doing it without the tool, First notice how the nut is a hexagon(6 flat sides). I was always told to turn it 8 flats or 1 and 1/3 turns. I believe that amount was arrived at after testing by the 10/22 nuts over at RimfireCentral.com. Also instead of turning the nut, try holding it stationary and turning the mag body...I found that much easier. These are the instructions I first learned how to do it from-
https://www.heypete.com/pete/shooting/rugermag.html

The Borel tool I linked to above really makes it easy and I highly recommend it if you plan on taking 10/22 mags apart regularly. Their directions tell you to turn the nut 1.5 times and since the tool is set-up to make that the easiest, I go with 1.5 turns. IME both work just fine.

I just dug the tool out and took apart a mag. After re-reading the instructions since it's been awhile since I used it, I put a mag back together in 30 seconds. I then had my wife try it. She hasn't ever taken apart a 10/22 mag but is pretty decent at stuff like that. She read the directions and was able to put it back together on her third attempt in about 30 seconds as well. She took it apart two more times and on both tries was able to get it back together on the first attempt.

Thanks guys.

I wound the spring 4 turns of the magazine body, and that's probably one reason the job was such a bitch. By that time the spring pressure is really trying to spin that slippery little nut and there's not much to hang onto.

The reason I took it apart in the first place is that my RAR was misfeeding the last round from the mag, and I read somewhere that more spring tension would push the nose of that last round up higher and improve feeding. The good thing about my curse-fight with the magazine is that the RAR now feeds the last round.

I think if I wound the spring only 1-1/2 turns of the mag body, it wouldn't be very hard to do.