I've had this gun for almost 30 years.  I primarily use it for small nuisance animals several times a year and sight it in each Spring.   Maybe 2 or 3 years ago, the sighting in didn't go as well as usual.  The groups were larger than I expected.  I chalked it up to my getting older, my eyes are not as good as they were when I bought the gun, and I've got a cheap rim fire scope on the rifle.  Still shot good enough to kill the occasional groundhog at 50 yards.

 

This summer I missed as many as I hit.  So today I set out to figure out what was wrong.  After a very thorough cleaning I got rid of the cheap scope and installed a known good scope off of another gun.  The new scope is 16x and parallax adjustable down to 25yds.  At 50 yds, I'm shooting 5" groups from a good solid rest.  I'm not as steady as I was in my 20s but I'm sure not moving that much.

 

Everything about the gun seems tight.  I'm assuming the barrel has finally had enough.   I know I once bought a case of 10,000 rounds that I don't' have any more and I've bought plenty of bricks of 500 over the years.  My best guess is that this gun has shot 15,000 rounds.  I don't know if that's enough to kill a barrel.

 

But my question is: Is it worth replacing the barrel?  Will I ever get a new barrel installed tight enough to the receiver to be accurate again considering that 10/22 barrels aren't threaded to the receiver and are only a friction fit?

 

Is it just a paperweight now?

More likely that a .22 barrel is leaded up rather than shot out.

 

There is a multitude of chemical products to soften the lead which is then easily removed with stainless steel ribbon (soapless pot cleaning pad) wrapped around a cleaning brush on a solid rod, breech to muzzle, NEVER the other direction.

at 15,000 round of .22 rimfire the barrel should be fine --  question is -- How often did you clean it?  

 

Cleaning could do more damage to the barrel then 15,000 rimfire rounds ever could.

 

 

Sure your problem isn't ammo related?  Did you have a stash of .22 before the shortage? 

 

You should have no problem re-barreling a 10-22.  May have to do a little filing on the wedge but easy enough.  I've re-barreled mine to upgrade and it shoots really nice.

 

I'm not sure where you are, but I have a stock 10-22 barrel you can have for cheap - How about a trade for 1000 CCI large pistol primers  -- maybe you have a source

 

Jer

Both of the above! Would be pretty hard to burn out a .22 rimfire barrel.

I've made some progress in figuring out the problem.

 

I had bought some Federal Premium American Eagle ammo that turned out not to be so premium.  This was the stuff giving me bad groups of 5" at 50yds.

 

I've got a little of the good stuff left so this morning I shot the last of my Winchester Super X and brought the groups down to almost 2". 

 

This evening I broke out my Remington target ammo.  I've been holding on to this because it's one of the few rounds my Beretta pistol will cycle consistantly.  With the Remington, I'm down to groups that are about 1-1/2".  I can live with that.

 

But I also decided to tackle the possibility of lead in the barrel.  Using some aluminum window screen, I made patches and ran them through the barrel.  At first, there was a rough section of barrel from the chamber to about 6" into the barrel.  From that point to the muzzle, everything felt smooth.  After a dozen passes with the window screen, the entire barrel is smooth now and there was a lot of lead dust that came out of the barrel.   I'll shoot it again tomorrow and see how tight the groups are.

 

Thanks for the info and suggestions.

Those Remingotn Thunderbolts will really fill  up your lans with lead in a hurry...

Actually, the lead fills the grooves, not the lands.

If the lands are growing, you've found yourself in ... The Twilight Zone

 

(cue Rod Serling doing his best Chuck Connors imitation)

Nevertheless, replacing a 10/22 barrel is fun and easy.  There are many great companies selling accurate barrels, and it's an easy job you can do yourself.