u/Serious-Recipe-8304

Originally conceived as a late best man's gift for my best friend. He was interested in joining the 2A world, and said that he wanted an M1 Garand as his first gun 😂. This was meant to be a good stop-gap measure for that while he learned the basics with something less significant. Sadly he passed away suddenly late last year after a medical emergency. I decided to fulfill the vision this weekend and built it out for him.  It's definitely my favorite build, and it punches well above it's weight :)

All told it came in at roughly $500 USD, but that includes some parts I had in the random gear drawer like the red dot, sling, and AFG.

Happy to answer any questions in the comments. Build details are below for anyone interested. Sorry the formatting got a bit eh between notes and reddit...

Base:
- Standard Ruger 10/22 Carbine, Birch or Maple, Model 01103 (cheapest I could find new as I wanted to take something somewhat meh and make it rad and personal to him)

Frame:
- Completely stripped, sanded, and slightly reshaped the frame to clean up some ish' areas and round off some edges of the handguard and under the grip 

- Chiseled out a flat, 1/8" deep channel forward of the mag well for a handguard rail 

- Hollowed out compartments in the butt stock for a waterproof fire starter kit, waterproof 15 round emergency storage, takedown wrenches/punch, cleaning solution, oil, patches, Qtips, and a .22 bore snake

- Stained dark cherry red with water based stain (2x coats) 

- Finished and buffed with beeswax mixed with a very small amount of powdered charcoal which helped in the buffing phase as a minor abrasive and also gave the stain a richer final hue (3x wax and buff). It's like a tinted buff.

- Installed front and rear sling mounting points

- Hocky taped and banded the stock's cheek weld  

Internals:
- Slingshot bolt lock replacement (this should be a standard feature, SMDH Ruger)

- Extended charging handle replacement 

- Enhanced polymer bolt buffer replacement

Sights/Optics:

- Tech sights (TSR100) 

- 1x Primary Arms red-dot on a Primary Arms skeletonized QR riser that lets me use the dot and the Tech Sights interchangeably. Zeroes are 25 yards (dot), and 50/100 yards (Tech Sights)

Furniture:

- Ventilated polymer upper handguard w/ rear heat-shrink band for added stability (handguard only clamps to the rear portion of the barrel just forward of stock flip up rear irons)

- Magpul AFG

- GI sling mounting system

Accessories:

- Hockey taped/paracord under-wrapped 15rd BX mag (x2) 

- Hockey taped/paracord under-wrapped 25rd BX mags (x1)

- Surplus Soviet AKM sling (vibes)

Personalization:

- "Flesh Wound" grip emblem held in place with 'select' 6mm brad placements ;) He was a huge fan of Monty Python and anything Medieval. I think it fits well with the color and materials of the rifle, while adding some unique theming.