The Heavy Barreled Mosin Nagant

There seems to be a lot of custom building on the Mosin Nagant rifles these days. There are a lot of them, they hit hard and they are fairly cheap. While I’m not really a fan of taking a pristine, all matching number Milsurp rifle and modifying it, there are plenty of arsenal rebuilds with no matching serial numbers out there to take a run of the mill specimen and turn it into a superb shooter.

Most of the guys that want to do some mods all seem to have several Mosins. They’ll keep the collectible stuff as is, and take a beat up rifle and turn it into something that it never was.

I’ve been swapping out the triggers on lots of rifles. Most guy are going with the Timney Triggers because they don’t cost a fortune, (around 80 bucks) and they take your 10 pound trigger with 1 mile of creep in it and drop it down to around 3.5 lbs. This is the first and best thing you can do to your Mosin, it literally transforms it into a different beast.

The Timney also gives you a safety that is much easier to operate. It mimics the Remington 700 safety, a simple push forward puts it in the firing mode. The stock must be relieved for this to work, but that’s about a 10 minute job with a Dremel tool.

Another popular conversion is to chunk the old stock and replace it with a synthetic Archangel stock. This has an adjustable cheek piece for the proper cheek weld when using a scope and also has an adjustable stock so that you can add to or take away length on the stock which makes for a perfect fit.

This stock is practical and robust and does a great job. Its light enough to hunt with and solid enough to use with a bi-pod for longer ranges.

They come in Black, Olive Drab and Flat Dark Earth.
Another feature is the 10 round detachable magazine. Its a great improvement over using stripper clips to load the magazine and the system works well.

Its a fact that many of the Mosins out there have barrels that are worn out. They are generally mediocre shooters that are fun to plink with bot for serious shooting they lack a lot.

Another popular mod is to swap out the barrel. The heart of all rifles is the barrel and this can be the difference between a gun that cant hit the side of a barn or one that can drive tacks at a couple of hundred yards.

Since pictures are worth lots of words here are few to give the the idea. This one used a Green Mountain Barrel blank that cost 60 bucks, I left it heavy 1.250″ diameter at the owners request and chambered it and crowned it.

It turned out to be a superb shooter. It uses a “Red Star” scope mount which required 3 drilled and tapped holes but it’s a very solid mount as compared to the multitude of “no drill” scope mounts out there.

Here are 5 shots into a single hole at 50 yards. While I dont have a picture of a 100 yard target, it pretty much looks the same. This was using standard canned Milsurp ammo. I think that with handloads and a decent scope, one might even be able to improve on that.

The Smallest Suppressed Revolver in the World

Here’s something that you don’t see so often…or not at all.

A couple of weeks ago I was in a conversation with a Silencer Manufacturer that had received a request to try to suppress the Freedom Arms Mini Revolver from a Gun Shop out in Florida. They were so backed up producing Silencers that they didn’t feel like they needed to take on another project and they recommended me.  The gun was sent to me and I pondered on it for awhile.

The factory barrel was much to thin to attempt to thread so I took it off and made another barrel using a cut off from a Ruger 10/22 barrel that I had shortened and threaded for a suppressor.

The barrel threads are tiny…48 threads per inch. I could barely even see them. Taking my time and going slow, using the digital readout on my lathe, I got it done with a nice snug fit into the revolver. I actually lengthen the barrel to cylinder gap, knowing that the tighter is was the less sound and pressure could escape and hopefully make it as quiet as possible.

The other end of the barrel was easy, just the standard 1/2″-28 threads that are universal for .22 cans made here in the states. I left the barrel much thicker than the original and I had to produce a new cylinder pin because the factory one was just to thick to work. I made the cylinder pin out of a piece of  1/8″ stainless welding rod and it worked great.

I screwed the barrel in and I thought it would look better with flats on each side of the barrel so I put it in the milling machine and made it happen. I used a 3/16″ end mill and stopped short of the threads, leaving a small flange for the suppressor to seat against.

To be honest, all we were looking for was to make it “hearing safe”. We knew that there would be gas escaping from the cylinder gap so we really didnt expect much to begin with. These little revolvers will make your ears bleed because they are so loud due to the short barrel and they have a loud bark.

I used the Hunterown Arms “B” suppressor which is short and designed to be fired wet and I was pleasantly surprised when we loaded it up and shot it.

It met our goal of being hearing safe and the whole thing fits in your pocket. It’s a cool little package really. It seems to be a love/hate affair with people. Most of them love the way it looks, a few bad mouth it because they think its ridiculous to attempt to quiet a revolver. I did too until I built this one and after shooting it I definitely think its worth it.

Here’s a picture of what the custom barrel looks like.

Here’s a picture of it in my hand. Sometimes you just have to think out of the box. Its pleasant to shoot without any hearing protection, so we met the goal that we were trying for. Plus…its just plain cute.

The Suppressed .223 Remington 700

Its a curious thing that when talking on the various forums about suppressing a .223 that not many people seem to want to talk about it. The comments are always the same…”its no better than a suppressed .22 Long Rifle” or “why?” or even “its a waste of time” and its mostly by people that have never tried it.

XCaliber Firearms LLC, a company based in Mena, Arkansas decided to market a new can that is meant to suppress any .22…all the way up to the .223. What makes this different than all others is it’s size. Its exactly the same size as their .22 LR offerings but with a .223 rating. This one is called the Genesis TI…and its made of Titanium.

To be honest, I didn’t really expect that much out of a can that small. I was pleasantly surprised when I mounted it on my .223 Remington. Using SS109 ammo, it was hearing safe and in fact it made the gun very pleasant to shoot. Of course, being supersonic, the downrange “crack” from the bullet going supersonic was evident but no hearing protection was needed at all. I was impressed, enough so that I shot about 30 rounds of it into one small group.

Happy with that, I decided to experiment a bit with some subsonic rounds. First I tried 55 grain bullets and I was supprised at the accuracy of them putting 10 shots into one hole at 25 yards. I was using Red Dot powder which was very quiet.

This rifle has the “tactical” barrel which is a 1 in 9 twist and since I had a box of 500 Sierra Match 69 grain bullets I loaded some of them up just to see. I wasnt sure of the results that I would get with a heavy  subsonic bullet, but the box stated that it was specifically for rifles that had from a 7-10 twist and since it was a 9 I figured it would be OK.

This too showed excellent accuracy and the predominate sound was the bullet thumping the berm. It is as quiet as any suppressed .22 LR that I have several of, but the fact that the bullet is almost twice the weight of the standard .22 LR gives it almost twice the kinetic energy and since its a spitzer type bullet, penetration wise it isn’t even in the same league as the Long Rifle.

Using a Nikon .223 scope I was pleased to see that when the rifle was sighted in with the SS109 ammo, it was a simple matter of using another spot on the reticle when shooting subsonic. The beauty of that is that one can shoot the supers for the long range stuff and simply by using moving to a lower reticle point they can accurately shoot very quiet with out have to guess where to hold.

The Genesis TI is user servicable, meaning that it can be taken apart and cleaned. This is necessary when shooting the .22 LR which is typically filthy to shoot and it can gunk up a can rather quickly. Its also rated for  all the 17 calibers, anything .22 and even the smoking hot FN 5.7 as well as the .22 Hornet.

If you are looking to suppress your bolt action and was reluctant to stick a big heavy can on your rifle, you no longer have that excuse to use. This can is light and it works extremely well. It retails for 500 bucks and has a lifetime guarantee.

Xcaliber Genisis TI suppressor

Rifles and lights.

Due to the increasing issue with coyotes around here showing up at all hours of the day and night, I decided to spring for a weapon mounted light.

After reading a gazillion reviews and seeing a lot of cheap trash that comes through the shop, I decided on a Streamlight TLR-1 HO. This thing is bright, output is supposed to be in excess of 600 lumens.

It literally turns the dark into day. While its not something I would use in the house due to its brightness, where I live you cant ever have enough light in the dark. It was purchased from Amazon and I got it in two days.
After playing with it I really like it. I’m a big believer in the KISS principal and I’m not one to add 20 pounds of gear to a rifle but this one is worthy of placing on the gun.

Another aspect I like is that you can detension it with a quarter to take it off and if you need it you can place it on,tighten it up and then you are good to go in less than a minute.
Here are a few pictures.

Another added plus is that it is easy to operate, a smile push with the left thumb will go to full on, intermittent or strobe. In addition to that, the Aimpoint Pro that is on there really compliments the whole setup and it is easy to see the read dot.

A shot on a running coyote should be no problem.

First picture shows a close up of the light. Second pic gives you an idea of how it looks.

Picture no.3 is showing the light at 100 yards. It pretty much lights up the world in front of you.

The last picture is shown looking through the Aimpoint PRO optic. That red dot really makes it easy to aim with the light on.

The 9mm Bolt Action Rifle

A friend of mine that is an NFA sort of guy approached me and asked me if I knew of any rifles chambered in the 9 mm. After a rather lengthy Internet search I could find none.

There are a few things that could be modified, but the overall effort and potential cost just didn’t seem worth it.

So, he made a suggestion. He had recently acquired an Armscor .22 TCM bolt action rifle. He deduced that since they also made a Government model pistol that came with two barrels, one in .22 TCM and the other in 9mm, that they were close enough dimensionally that it was do able.

That sounded good to me, so I thought I’d try it. I figured that we shouldn’t have to mess with the extractor and the bolt face on the gun ought to work. After looking at it and studying it, I told him it was worth a try. He ordered a barrel blank from Green Mountain, and brought it to me. The project was on…good, bad or ugly, we decided to give it a try.

As most of you know, the popularity of the 9mm is on the rise mostly because of the .22 ammo situation. Although its starting to come back, the fact that it was hard to get gave the 9mm the push it needed. Although not as cheap as shooting a .22, it was still cheap enough to shoot and the absence of recoil in a bolt action rifle was an added plus to those that have issues with recoil.

So, I turned out the barrel blank and chambered it. We left it a bit on the heavy side, because in my experience with suppressors, the heavy weight of a suppressor on a thin barrel is just not good for accuracy. Its basically a varmint weight barrel, but at 16″ its wasn’t heavy enough to be a problem and it’s a short as we could legally go without SBRing it.

So I pulled the old barrel off and put the new barrel on. That was easy enough.

The 9mm case fit perfectly in the bolt face. So perfect in fact, that there simply wasn’t enough clearance for the empty case to eject. The tight fit of the case just would not tilt enough when the plunger tried to push it out and the extractor just held it in place. You could shoot, rack the bolt back and the case would just sit there.

So, I chucked the bolt in the lathe, dialed it in and removed about 15 thousands off of the bolt face rim diameter. This gave the case enough clearance to to tilt and let the case eject as it should. Problem solved, it worked great.

Next was the issue of the feed ramp angle. We were using 150 grain cast lead round-nose bullets and although the feed was OK, it was not 100 percent. Occasionally one of the bullets would slam into the feed ramp and hang up. Usually just manipulation of the bolt would take care of it but it was annoying.

So, I took the rifle apart and looked at the feed ramp. On this rifle, it bolts on using a small bolt to secure it. That was good, I removed it and put it in the vise. About 5 minutes with a Dremel tool using a sand drum held at a little more of an angle than the original and lowering the angle about an 1/8″ of an inch and that problem went away.

Feeding was flawless. Re ran some FMJ and even some Hornady XTP Hollowpoint through it with out any issues.

Next was the suppressor test. Using a cast 150 grain bullet traveling at approx. 1000 FPS and shooting it through a couple of different cans, this thing is stupid quiet. Pretty much the predominate sound is the bullet whacking what ever it hits. Its just a phhtttttt… WHACK.

Accuracy was great. While we haven’t yet tried it for serious accuracy yet, we were hitting every thing we shot at it and doing it quietly enough that it had us both giggling like school girls.

So there you have it. We now have a 9mm rifle that is capable of killing deer, larger critters, paper and what ever else pleases you. It’s a lot more capable than a suppressed .22 with enough energy that it isn’t even in the same league and its as quiet as it is. Its fun and cheap to shoot…especially if you cast bullets and load your own.

It doesn’t get any better than that.

The Packable AR-15 9MM Rifle

There’s a new company out called Quarter Circle that is building AR receivers in 9mm, .40 and .45 ACP from the ground up. They take Glock Magazines and it sounded good so I took a gamble and ordered both a receiver and the bolt which was cut for the Glock mags.

I’m glad that I took that gamble. Once I assembled everything in the typical AR fashion, I really expected it to be problematic. AR’s in 9mm don’t exactly have a stellar history of working without lots of tinkering and I expected this one to be no different.

I had to fabricate a 9mm barrel out of a barrel blank because I could not find an AR barrel in the 9MM caliber in the short length that I was looking for. I decided on a 5″ length and made it a bit heavier profile than most because my intention was to hang a suppressor on it. I threaded it for 5/8-24 on the front just for that.

While I was building it, I thought that putting a Huntertown DOLOS unit on it might make it more interesting. It can be broken down in just a couple of seconds and it could be packed virtually anywhere. A patrol bag, a bug out bag, in a survival kit, its short and its light and most of all…its accurate.

So I loaded up a few magazines using 3.5 grains of Red Dot and 147 grain plated bullets. Since I did plan on shooting it suppressed, I wanted hard hitting bullets that were fairly quiet.

Imagine my surprise when I shot the magazine dry. No malfunctions, no mis-feeds, no failures to extract…nothing. It ran 100% and it did it both slow fire and as fast as I could shoot it. The recoil was pretty much non existent, in fact I shot it one handed just to see how it would handle. This thing would be great for women and children. Its was past hearing safe with the can on it and its as fun to shoot as any rifle out there.

So, we now have a rifle that can be made ready to fire in less than 5 seconds. Think about that. In the time it takes you to read this sentence, you could pull it out of a pack, assemble it, charge it and be cocked, locked and ready to rock.

Quarter Circle Ten has a winner here. The lower does exactly what it is supposed to with none of the known issues that other conversion kits have. It wont be my last one. Up next is the .45 lower.

Here it is in my patrol bag. How cool is it to have a rifle that you could pack, assemble really quick and be able to use the magazines that you had on your belt?

The Mighty .460 Smith and Wesson Rifle

The Mighty .460 Smith and Wesson Bolt action rifle

I’m always looking for new ideas and this seemed like a great one. We were talking about subsonic calibers with suppressors that were being used to specifically hunt feral hogs. Several examples were brought up about the fact that the .300 Blackout was failing on the big pigs. While it seemed to have stellar performance on most of them, it seems like it was lacking a bit for the really big hogs (+300lbs.) which would often run off and be lost, sometimes without even a blood trail.

Our discussion went to what might be the ultimate pig rifle. The problem is, there really isn’t much to choose from in anything over .30 caliber. We wanted something that was reloadable using standard brass in an established caliber that was easy to get just about anywhere, could possibly use cast lead bullets and could be suppressed enough to get off a least a couple of shots on a herd moving towards you.
There are some wildcats that fit the bill, the .50 Hushpuppy being one of them, but that requires a lot of effort to make usable brass.
We wanted something that was easy.

One of my friends suggested that the .460, if it could be made to work, might be a good candidate for a pig rifle. When I asked why, what he said made perfect sense. The .460 can also shoot the .454 Casull, or even the .45 Colt.
While the .454 Casull is a smoking round, the .45 Colt runs a sedate 800 and something feet per second speed right out of the box. Meaning that, for people like him that didn’t reload, having the ability to run to the local Walmart or Sports Shop to buy a box of heavy projectiles that were already subsonic was a definite plus.
Now, we already know that any subsonic bullet isn’t exactly going to be very flat shooting…in fact, the trajectory of most resemble the arc of a rainbow. On the subsonic .460 it is no different. One thing that the .460 could handle though is a standard off the shelf box of supersonics traveling at over 2000 FPS that could be used for longer shots where suppressed shots weren’t an issue. An example would be walking up on a heard of hogs in a field, say around 150 yards or so. One could simple take the can off, pop some full house loads in the magazine and start shooting.
This was an idea that sounded great. With supersonic rounds you had the range with plenty of energy for the big pigs. If you are slipping through the woods or sitting in a stand using a suppressor in hopes to ambush several hogs, the .45 Colt ammo had the quiet energy to do it.

So, after thinking about it for awhile, I thought that I’d try it out.
I started with an Encore. I got a barrel and some brass from a friend of mine, and to test the concept out, I immediately threaded the barrel 5/8-24. I had just got a silencer in from X-Caliber. It is a .45 caliber can, is user serviceable and it is as quiet as any out there for less cost than the rest of them.
That can sounds good with everything. Its rated for subsonic .300 Blackout and it is quieter on my bolt rifles than some of the .308 cans are. Since we were running subsonic .460 through it, I figured that it wouldn’t be an issue.
So the barrel was threaded, with the can on it and we were good to go. I started out using some hand loads that I had loaded for my .45 Colt Ruger Vaquero. They were loaded with Accurate Arms No. 5 and had a cast 255 grain bullet stuffed in it. They were great in the Vaquero, so I tried them out.
I first thought that the shorter case might be an issue with the accuracy due to the amount of bullet ”jump” , the distance it had to go before engaging the rifling. This is a known issue on some calibers and I thought that it might be the same here…sort of like shooting a .36 case in a .357 magnum. Yes it works and its done a bunch but its not exactly the most accurate load for a .357.

As it turns out my fears were unfounded. Sighting in the scope at 25 yards and shooting several through the same hole proved that maybe is wasn’t the issue that I thought it could be. It was accurate and wonderfully so.
It worked out great. So we knew then that store bought .45 Colt ammo could be used effectively in the .460.
The only limitation that the Colt has is that due to case capacity, 300 grain bullets are about as long as you can go. Not really a handicap, but since it’s a .460 we figured we could do better.
A friend of mine that was working in parallel with me brought over some loads in the .460 cases. These were loaded with 405 grain cast lead bullets. These were originally designed for the .45-70’s and bigger, being .458 in diameter. They had to be sized in several steps to get to the .454 diameter used by the .460.
We tried two different powders. Trailboss and Red Dot, both of which have been used for various suppressed loads because they are quieter than other powders.
So, bracing for shock, I touched the first one off.

I couldn’t believe it. It was as quiet as any Blackout out there. There was a bit of a kick, not bad but noticeable but shooting a 405 grain bullet that was too be expected. Still, for a suppressed load one could shoot all day without any discomfort at all.
We were putting those big lead bullets through one hole at 25 yards. I had concerns about the twist being too fast to stabilize the long bullets but checking a couple of bullet twist calculators showed it to be good and it was.

I might add that we were using a Nikon BDC reticle, and once you figure out where to hold at what range, its easy to use.

I was impressed. It sounded good, it shot good and you didn’t have to walk up to the target to see the big holes in the paper. So far…so good.
So, expanding on the success of the Encore, I figured that a bolt action rifle could be modified to do the same thing.
I took a Savage that I had which had a .45 ACP barrel on it and took the barrel off. The .45 ACP worked great but it was a single shot gun due to the fact that the bullet case was too short to be held properly in the magazine. Figuring that the .45 Colt or the .460 would have no issues because it was longer, I re-chambered the ACP by simply running a .460 reamer right into it. That was quick and easy.

I did have to disassemble the bolt and remove the bolt head so that I could re-bore it. The case head on the 460 runs around .540 diameter. The bolt head that I had was originally for a .308 which is smaller so I counter bored the bolt face. That didn’t take long and inserting the .460 case into the head showed a perfect fit.
Stuffing 3 rounds into the magazine can be tricky. I didn’t modify the magazine feed lips, it seems to work OK without it. You have to place them in there a certain way, or they will just strip out the top. When I figured that out it wasn’t an issue. I suppose that I could grind the feel lips just a bit but as long as it’ll work, I’d rather leave it alone in case I want to swap calibers later on down the road.
The Savage rifle in .460 does well. I can see this becoming popular in this area. Its simple to build, requiring just a .45 caliber barrel, a counter bored bolt head, and some threads on the end of the barrel for a suppressor. It’s quiet and that bullet slapping the berm the predominate sound. It looks good too.

The 1/7 Twist .22 Hornet

You have probably read of the Hornet Project here on this blog. We achieved what we set out to do which was duplicate .22 Long Rifle specs for suppressed rifles in a cartridge that could be reloaded. That project was a huge success and we were very pleased with the results.

The only issues with that project that we had is that a typical Hornet is either a 1/14 or 1/16 twist depending on the manufacturer. While that works great for the lighter bullets at high speeds, its less than ideal for subsonic bullets of more than 50 grains. Anything heavier than that just would not stabilize. Using 55 grain bullets would see the bullets hitting an 8″x 10″ sheet of paper sideways…if it hit the paper at all.

So…we got to thinking about that. My friend Trent, the one that really brainstormed this project and I thought that we might try a faster twist to stabilize heavier bullets, sort of mimicking the .300 Blackout concept, but with a .22 caliber.

Looking around on the net, I found some Green Mountain .223 barrels that were on sale for 99 bucks. They were stainless 1.06 barrel blanks, just the thing for re-barreling the Hornet. I ordered the Hornet reamer and the headspace gage and when it came in, I fabricated the barrels. I chose to leave them at 1″ diameter and eventually cut mine back to 18″ and threaded it for a .22 suppressor. Trent wanted a longer barrel so his was cut to 22″.

Testing with various bullet weights, these rifles are accurate. I started out with 55 grain bullets that I had a bunch of for loading the .223’s and they did well with Red Dot. These loads were quiet and accurate.

Next, I tried some 62 grain bullets, running approximately 1000 FPS. No issues there either, they were quiet and accurate.

Finally, we settled on 69 grain Sierra Boat Tail Match Hollow points. These are as accurate as I can shoot them and using 2.6 grains of Red Dot, they are as quiet as anything out there. I took it out to the range and started popping 4″ steel gongs with it. They hit the gong so much harder that the subsonic .22 Long Rifles that it was evident to anyone that was there to hear it. Where as the .22 Long Rifles would hit the gong with a “ping”, the 69 grainers were hitting it with a rather loud “WHACK” and tried to rip the gong off of the chains holding it.

Comparing the 69 grain bullets to the standard 35 grain bullets used by most .22 Long Rifles and using the JBM Ballistic Calculator available on the Internet, we more than doubled the kinetic energy and range by using the heavier bullets. The penetration capabilities of the heavier bullet aren’t even in the same league as the .22 LF, due to the spitzer shape of the streamlined bullets with a much better ballistic coefficient than the round nose design of the .22 LF.

We already know that the subsonic .22 LR bullet when fired through a suppressor is a great small game killer. Squirrels, rabbits, crows, possums and other small critters are no match for it.

By doubling the energy using the .22 Hornet with 69 grain bullets, we are moving from a small game getter to a medium game getter. Large coons, foxes and even coyotes are fair game with a suppressed rifle. For the pelt hunters out there, this could be the ideal round that is quiet, accurate and wont tear a pelt up.

Here’s a picture of the Hornet rifle…

Here’s a picture of the 69 grain bullet…seated to look just like a “normal” Hornet round.

The Stevens 200 turned .300 Blackout

I walked into a pawn shop the other day and talked to the owner. “What have you got that I cant live without”? I asked. He knows that I’m always looking for a good deal on a rifle to make into something else.

He showed me a relatively new Stevens Model 200. I’ll admit, I’ve never messed with a Stevens, knowing it to be made by Savage as one of their bottom line guns. It looked brand new and he told me that it had issues and that he just didn’t want to mess with it. The original owner had fired less than a box of .223 through it and had extraction problems. That was all that he could tell me about the gun. So, I took a gamble on it and gave him 200 bucks for it. It did look new after all and I had hoped that the issues with extraction were fixable.

As it turned out, when I got it home all it lacked was the small ball and the extractor. I went to Midway USA on the net and soon ordered a couple of each. Total fix for the gun was around 12 bucks. I shot it, every thing worked perfectly as designed, and I had another bolt action rifle that I really didn’t need but Hey…it was cheap.

I had just had a run of Green Mountain 1 in 8 twist .30 caliber barrels done for me by a local tool and die shop. He built them on a CNC lathe using the Green Mountain blanks that I gave him and he built them to my specs. I’d had a hard time finding a 1/8 twist barrel in a 16″ or 16.5″ length that was threaded for a suppressor so I had a half dozen made up. I didn’t chamber them, thinking that a 1/8 twist for subsonic projectiles in a .308 rifle would be better for the heavier bullets. Having several .308 rifles. I knew that they refused to stabilize any bullet over 180 grains as subsonic speeds. They were just too long to be pushed slow and they would hit the target sideways at 25 yards, leaving a perfect profile of the bullet on the paper…if it even hit the papers.

So, I grabbed one of those barrels and swapped it out with the thin .223e barrel that came on the gun.

One thing that I have learned over the years is that thin barreled guns do not like heavy suppressors on them. The barrel whip is just too much. Knowing that, I had the barrels produced with a varmint profile. When shooting suppressors on rifles, the heavier the barrel is the more accuracy you will see.

I swapped out the barrel, head spaced it and shot it with some off the shelf Remington Subsonic, 220 grain OTM. I’m not really a fan of this ammo, as it is louder than most of my reloads but since I had a case of it laying around, I shot a box of it through the gun with a suppressor on it just to see how it did. I might add that I had to set the stock up in the milling machine and take a bit out of the barrel channel as the varmint weight barrel was to big to fit properly.

I put a Nikon BDC scope on it and off I went.

Once it was sighted in, I was pleasantly surprised. The gun is accurate and worked flawlessly. Here a picture of the rather simple looking rifle and then a picture of one of the groups. There are 8 shots in that group. That’s about all I can expect with the setup I used, I think a rear sandbag would have tightened it up some but unfortunately for me my dog decided that that nice leather bag that I left laying on my bench would be just the thing to chew on and he shredded it. Completely.

It’s proof that even a cheap gun can be made to shoot.

Here it is dressed up wearing a Boyds stock. It looks much better and feels much better.

The Kimber .22

A friend of mine asked if I could do something for his Kimber Custom .22. in the way of mounting a suppressor to it. He had looked everywhere on the Internet and there just isn’t anyone making any threaded barrels for the Kimber. After a call to Kimber to see if they did in fact have one, they let me know that they did not have any and they didn’t plan on making any. So, I did some research on the subject and saw that there were a couple of ways to deal with that, that several people have done.

After a bit of thought, I figured out how to do it. It’s not hard, but I did want the fit-up to be flawless in execution and that was somewhat problematic according to some of the accounts that I read, so I knew I had to be careful in how I went about it. I made a barrel extension, machined it to the same outer diameter as the barrel and gave it a bit of length to accommodate different suppressors. As it turns out, it was flawless in operation, no failures to feed, extract and it appears to be pretty accurate.

Here are a few pictures.
This one shows the extension threaded to the barrel.

Here’s a closeup of the extension in the slide.

Barrel inserted into slide.

Here’s a picture of the gun.

Showing how it fits.

Last but not least…the suppressed Kimber .22. I think it came out better than I expected. What do you think?

That Kimber .22 is a fine shooter. Its light, accurate and the predominate sound when using CCI Standard is the slide clack and the thump of the bullet.