Rifle chassis are an “in” technology right now. They allow you to trade off the lighter weight and greater comfort of a polymer or wooden stock for the flexibility, rigidity, and accessory-compatibility of the typical chassis.

In the military the chassis is a good idea because the same rifle must often be reconfigured for different shooters and missions. Civilians might not need to do that, but it’s nice to have, say, adjustable pull length and cheekpiece position for a day at the range with the whole family.

spectre-chassis-prototype

It was inevitable that someone would combine this popular accessory with the world’s second-most-popular accessory host, the Ruger 10/22 rimfire rifle. In this case, Canadian outfit Spectre Ballistics has designed, and is preparing for production, an economical and fairly light 10/22 stock. It’s not on their website yet, but they’ve shown the prototype — which was 3D Printed.

The actual stocks will be CNC billet aluminum.

There’s a pretty good discussion of the stock and its design and the manufacturing schedule on Reddit. In time, the stock will be available for pre-order on the Spectre Ballistics website (not yet!) in KeyMod and M-lok versions. Target price is $200 CAD, and, unlike American firms, Canadian accessory firms are not under ITAR pressure from their counterpart to our State Department.

dudley_doright(They only have to bowdlerize their 10/22 magazines because Dudley Dimwit of the Mounties can’t tell rifles from pistols).

This is the 3rd version of a 10/22 chassis I’ve been working on. Now I just need to do this one up in aluminium.

It has a KeyMod forend and fully free-floats the barrel. It also locks the action into the chassis using a clamp system better than any factory stock. I’ll also do an M-lok forend too.

Here’s the earlier prototype stock, for comparison’s sake. The main part of this one is CNC machined from 6061-T6 aluminum (a strong alloy often used for things like automotive engine blocks and cylinder heads, and aircraft structural parts like landing gear struts and trunnions).

spectre-chassis-earlier-prototype

The final stock will be CNC machined and anodized black. His explanation for making the stock from 6061-T6 aluminum rather than polymer makes perfect sense:

The idea here is to reinforce the action and stiffen the whole thing up. A quality polymer would be nearly the same weight since areas would need to be thicker. Also going synthetic would probably cost $100,000 in tooling for the molds.

Parts are CNC’d out of house, assembled in-house. Yes I have my own printer.

While the Canadian regulatory regime is superior from an exporter’s point of view, there’s things he can’t do. Such as? Make a bullpup stock. One of the bizarre disconnects in Great White North gun law is that, a factory bullpup design (Tavor) or a short-barreled rifle by US standards, is perfectly legal. A bullpup conversion stock? Prohibited. (“Prohibited” is a Canadian regulatory class that is not quite plain-English-meaning “prohibited,” but extremely difficult to own for an ordinary Canadian citizen).

Meanwhile, Canadians, Americans, and probably anybody else who can own a 10/22 can pre-order the sock sometime around the beginning of November, if all goes as planned.

This entry was posted in Consumer Alert!, GunTech, Rifles and Carbines, Weapons Accessories on by Hognose.

About Hognose

Former Special Forces 11B2S, later 18B, weapons man. (Also served in intelligence and operations jobs in SF).

5 thoughts on “Coming: a 10/22 Chassis Prototyped by 3D Printing”

Simon

Probably should be pre-order the stock.

raven

Why not just mill the receiver and stock as one unit? if you want rigidity that is the way to do it.

Slow Joe Crow

I can think of several reasons not to. First off it makes building the rifle, and disassembling for cleaning it pretty hard at least in a 10/22. A purpose built “tube gun” like the Tubb 2000 target rifle works better for that. There is also the legal and logistical problem that on a 10/22 the receiver is the serialized part and thus legally it’s the gun so making the receiver integral with the chassis makes manufacturing and sales far more complicated.

As an aside 6061 T-6 is the most popular material for bicycle frames and parts and is also commonly used for scope rings and mounts.

BDFT

Handguns in Canada can only have magazines that hold ten rounds. Possession of a 11 round pistol magazine in Canada gets you 5 years in jail if the judge doesn’t like you. 10/22 magazines holding more than 10 rounds fit in a pistol, the (almost nonexistent in Canada) Ruger Charger. Therefore, all magazines for a 10/22 are pistol magazines and must be limited to 10 rounds. Thus decrees the Queen’s Cowboys. Its much more complicated than that but that’s the basics of it.

Alan Ward

Almost impossible to acquire a prohibited item now, only those who had them prior to the last great Liberal party attack on guns had them grandfathered in. Not sure but I think they can pass them on to direct family decendants upon their demise.