Rebarreled my Ruger American rimfire

[tomme boy]

I have been thinking on this for awhile. So last week I ordered a ER Shaw 20" Ruger Precision Rimfire barrel. I made some tools to get the barrel off. It was really easy actually. I knocked out the pin that holds the barrel and receiver together. Then pressed out the barrel.

This what I started with. It was a compact version. I added a Boyds stock to make it more comfortable to shoot.

There are some differences between the two guns. The regular American the barrel is a interference fit and pinned. The Precision is just like a AR15 barrel with the nut that holds the barrel on. And the barrel is a slip fit. There is a 0.003" in diameter difference between the two barrels. The American is larger than the Precision. So to make the Precision barrel work I took a 0.0015" stainless steel shim and wrapped the barrel tenon. I then froze the barrel for several hours in our deep freezer. I then heated up the receiver a little. I put some loctite 680 on the barrel tenon then inside the receiver. Then I slipped them together.

You have to make sure the extracter grove and the other thing on the bolt line up. There is a little room to twist the barrel to make sure they both are in the right spot. I then let it sit for 12 hours to let the loctite do its thing. I then got a 0.123" drill bit and drilled the barrel for the split pin. Then tapped it in to further lock the barrel.

I went out this morning very early to test fire and break it in a little. It shot very well. Better than the factory barrel. I was just using some junk bulk ammo to sight in the scope. I was hitting shotshell hulls at 75yds every shot once sighted in. I have a feeling it will continue to shoot better once there are some rounds through it. Right now i shout about 100 rds today.

Here is a little video showing it a little better.

 

[VFL1911]

Nice job. Sounds like you put quite a lot of work into the barrel install. Fingers crossed it will hold up over time!

 

[Bobcat86]

I have been thinking on this for awhile. So last week I ordered a ER Shaw 20" Ruger Precision Rimfire barrel. I made some tools to get the barrel off. It was really easy actually. I knocked out the pin that holds the barrel and receiver together. Then pressed out the barrel.

This what I started with. It was a compact version. I added a Boyds stock to make it more comfortable to shoot.

There are some differences between the two guns. The regular American the barrel is a interference fit and pinned. The Precision is just like a AR15 barrel with the nut that holds the barrel on. And the barrel is a slip fit. There is a 0.003" in diameter difference between the two barrels. The American is larger than the Precision. So to make the Precision barrel work I took a 0.0015" stainless steel shim and wrapped the barrel tenon. I then froze the barrel for several hours in our deep freezer. I then heated up the receiver a little. I put some loctite 680 on the barrel tenon then inside the receiver. Then I slipped them together.

You have to make sure the extracter grove and the other thing on the bolt line up. There is a little room to twist the barrel to make sure they both are in the right spot. I then let it sit for 12 hours to let the loctite do its thing. I then got a 0.123" drill bit and drilled the barrel for the split pin. Then tapped it in to further lock the barrel.

I went out this morning very early to test fire and break it in a little. It shot very well. Better than the factory barrel. I was just using some junk bulk ammo to sight in the scope. I was hitting shotshell hulls at 75yds every shot once sighted in. I have a feeling it will continue to shoot better once there are some rounds through it. Right now i shout about 100 rds today.

Here is a little video showing it a little better.

I have been thinking on this for awhile. So last week I ordered a ER Shaw 20" Ruger Precision Rimfire barrel. I made some tools to get the barrel off. It was really easy actually. I knocked out the pin that holds the barrel and receiver together. Then pressed out the barrel.

This what I started with. It was a compact version. I added a Boyds stock to make it more comfortable to shoot.

There are some differences between the two guns. The regular American the barrel is a interference fit and pinned. The Precision is just like a AR15 barrel with the nut that holds the barrel on. And the barrel is a slip fit. There is a 0.003" in diameter difference between the two barrels. The American is larger than the Precision. So to make the Precision barrel work I took a 0.0015" stainless steel shim and wrapped the barrel tenon. I then froze the barrel for several hours in our deep freezer. I then heated up the receiver a little. I put some loctite 680 on the barrel tenon then inside the receiver. Then I slipped them together.

You have to make sure the extracter grove and the other thing on the bolt line up. There is a little room to twist the barrel to make sure they both are in the right spot. I then let it sit for 12 hours to let the loctite do its thing. I then got a 0.123" drill bit and drilled the barrel for the split pin. Then tapped it in to further lock the barrel.

I went out this morning very early to test fire and break it in a little. It shot very well. Better than the factory barrel. I was just using some junk bulk ammo to sight in the scope. I was hitting shotshell hulls at 75yds every shot once sighted in. I have a feeling it will continue to shoot better once there are some rounds through it. Right now i shout about 100 rds today.

Here is a little video showing it a little better.

I have been thinking on this for awhile. So last week I ordered a ER Shaw 20" Ruger Precision Rimfire barrel. I made some tools to get the barrel off. It was really easy actually. I knocked out the pin that holds the barrel and receiver together. Then pressed out the barrel.

This what I started with. It was a compact version. I added a Boyds stock to make it more comfortable to shoot.

There are some differences between the two guns. The regular American the barrel is a interference fit and pinned. The Precision is just like a AR15 barrel with the nut that holds the barrel on. And the barrel is a slip fit. There is a 0.003" in diameter difference between the two barrels. The American is larger than the Precision. So to make the Precision barrel work I took a 0.0015" stainless steel shim and wrapped the barrel tenon. I then froze the barrel for several hours in our deep freezer. I then heated up the receiver a little. I put some loctite 680 on the barrel tenon then inside the receiver. Then I slipped them together.

You have to make sure the extracter grove and the other thing on the bolt line up. There is a little room to twist the barrel to make sure they both are in the right spot. I then let it sit for 12 hours to let the loctite do its thing. I then got a 0.123" drill bit and drilled the barrel for the split pin. Then tapped it in to further lock the barrel.

I went out this morning very early to test fire and break it in a little. It shot very well. Better than the factory barrel. I was just using some junk bulk ammo to sight in the scope. I was hitting shotshell hulls at 75yds every shot once sighted in. I have a feeling it will continue to shoot better once there are some rounds through it. Right now i shout about 100 rds today.

Here is a little video showing it a little better.

I’ve often thought about doing the exact same thing. Could you please show how you used the shimming material? If I actually order the barrel I would like to reach out for assistance if that’s ok with you.

 

[tomme boy]

I ordered 1" wide SS shim stock. I cut off about a 1/8 to wrap the barrel. I wrapped it about 95% around the tenon. I put the loctite on the barrel. Then on the top of the shim. I froze the barrel to make it shrink. Then heated up the receiver to expand the bore.

Before I did anything I checked for fitment. The extractor and the spring on the other side have to be in a certain place to make sure they slip into the cut outs for them. On this barrel they are cutout at 180* across from each other. The factory barrel the spring side is clocked up about 5* higher than the new barrel. But they fit with slop and can be felt as you twist them to find where they need to be at. I then marked the barrel and the receiver to make sure where they needed to be clocked.

When you go to put them together you have to be fast as the barrel heats up it will lock the barrel into the receiver. I then pressed them together, well slip fit them and held them firmly together till they locked up. I left them sit over night and then drilled the cross pin and tapped it back in.

You will have to inlet your stock to fit. I just used a couple of deep well sockets and wrapped some sand paper around them to get the final size I needed.


You are going to need a plate of some sort to drill a 7/8" hole in to pass the barreled receiver through. The receiver will sit on the face of it so you can insert whatever rod you need to insert into the receiver to press the barrel out. You are going to need a hydraulic press to do this.

One like this is what I used.

https://www.harborfreight.com/12-ton-h-frame-floor-shop-press-70604.html

I used a #31 drill bit to drill for the cross pin. You might have a hard time finding this. So a 1/8" may be used if you loctite it in. I have a whole set drill indexes with every # and lettered drill size so I could choose the size I wanted. I went with the 31 as I reused the factory pin. I believe the factory pin is 1/8" split pin. Be careful removing it and you can reuse it.

But most of all is to make sure to measure the shank of both barrels so you can select the size of shim you need. So if the factory barrel is 0.003" larger like mine, you select a 0.0015" shim as it adds 0.0015 to all sides. So it will add 0.003" Find the difference and select a shim 1/2 the thickness for your needs. Try NOT to go larger than is needed as they might not go together. Mine would not go with a 0.002" shim.

 

[tomme boy]

Optic Planet has the barrel for $189 right now BTW. I added the extra shipping so it would not take 10+ days to ship. It was at my house in 2 days. Just make sure it is in stock before you order. If it is not it will be months to years to get from them. They will take your money even if it is a year out or more. And the extra shipping was like $10 or wait and have it shipped free.