470873 Us Hwy 95, Sagle, Idaho 83860, United States
Educational Purposes Only
Metal Injection Molded vs Machined Parts on Firearms
Look closely at the top part. Do you see the small circles indicated by the arrows? These show the location of ejector pins when the part was molded from liquid metal. To quickly remove parts from the mold, small pins are pushed out of the mold cavity and impact the part to remove it from the mold. The part then falls into a bin and the mold closes again, ready to form a new part. These circles are the simplest way to tell we are dealing with a MIM part. While the MIM method of production is inexpensive & efficient, it often times does not make the best parts. As with anything there are good and bad MIM parts. The example shown would fall into the bad category.
This is a failed plunger tube from a 1911. This failure will take the gun out of service until a proper repair can be done. Unless you carry around a spare 1911 plunger tube, staker and reamer set your gun is pretty much a paper weight for a while.
The old tube must be completely removed, the area cleaned and any damage addressed. The new part is cleaned, fit, Loctite applied and staked in place. This is not a difficult job, but it must be done correctly or the new plunger tube will also fail in short order.
The Semi Auto .22 Long Rifle
Additional Information
The Ruger 10/22 is an iconic American firearm and everyone should own one. It's one of the first .22LR semi-auto rifles made with a magical combination of low price, light weight, accurate, reliable and relatively simple to work on. Other guns may have had those individual traits prior to the 10/22, but none in Goldilocks proportions of the Ruger 10/22.
At our gun store we've seen many 30+ year old 10/22's that are completely bone stock still banging away. We've also seen brand new guns modified so much they are unrecognizable but for the marking on the receiver. The versatility and ease of modification of these guns appeal to the people looking for a tool as well as those looking for a toy or a tinkering project.
The design of the standard 10/22 begs to be modified. The stock on a 10/22 is removed by a single screw and most aftermarket stocks drop in with no fuss at all. How easy can it get, right? Different stocks allow different size barrels to be installed and sort of get the modification ball rolling for most folks. People find themselves replacing the barrel, trigger, bolt hold open, magazine lever and on and on.
Here is the first small tip? The best money that can be spent on a 10/22 to make it more fun to shoot is replacing the solid steel bolt cross pin or as most folks refer to it, the Bolt Buffer with a synthetic replacement. This solid steel pin in the back of the receiver keeps the bolt from moving too far back and makes an annoying clank sound on every shot. It is very simply replaced by any number of inexpensive nylon & synthetic parts on the market today for around $10
At some point (US Optics might be to blame) we decided all of our guns needs to be able to swap glass so we installed Tactical Solutions picatinny rails and Warne quick disconnect rings on all the 22's we have. Now we can move glass around on our various .22's and make only minor adjustments to the zero.
Bolt catch, magazine release . . . the modifications can go on forever.
If you want to save yourself a bunch of time, money and effort, Tactical Solutions makes (in my opinion) the finest 10/22 parts and complete guns available so just buy a TacSol manufactured X-Ring and put your choice of optic on it. Done.
10/22 Alternatives?
A possible replacement for the 10/22 might just be the CZ 512.