When I bought my stainless Ruger 10/22 I expected to have to refinish the receiver at some point. The barrel is stainless, but the finish on the aluminum receiver is just silver paint of some sort.
The reason I expected finish problems is because Paul Simer had posted about his finish wear on his rifle, and Ruger’s lame re-painting job.
After cleaning my stainless Ruger 10/22 with Breakfree Powder Blast (which is more or less brake cleaner) I noticed that some of the paint started peeling.
I’ll eventually wind up stripping off the paint and refinishing it. Any suggestions for a new finish?
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Just not pink.
In the name of all that is good in the world, not pink.
You could try this: http://www.warpig.com/paintball/technical/anodize.shtml
Back when I played paintball anodizing was pretty popular and gave nice results. Although it does involve sulfuric acid, I think the process is actually pretty safe. Probably no more dangerous than the chemicals used for gun cleaning.
Rusty: not unless I was going to give it to one of my daughters.
Will: sounds interesting, if a little involved. I never realized how anodizing worked.
I need to hit Brownell’s Web site and see what options I’ve got. Gunkote is ten bucks. Duracoat is supposed to be good, but since I don’t have an airbrush it gets a little more expensive.
I painted my Marlin 60′s reciever with epoxy wheel paint. I heated it to ~200 in the oven first, sprayed it, and put it back in the oven for a while.
Of course, you don’t live alone, so YMMV on the heating part
RE: anodizing:
they use a really low quality but strong/high-ten aluminum alloy on their receivers and trigger groups, i attempted to have mine sent out for anodizing and the company (pacific anodizing and plating) said that it would be possible but would magnify the inprefections and casting swirls, thus not turning out that good. i just stripped mine with acetone, then scrubbed the hell out of it with steel wool, now it looks like real stainless. the trigger group i painted with red high heat bbq paint and stuck it in the oven at 200 for an hour. it baked on like powder coating, and also stands up to every powder solvent/lead solvent i have used thus far.
i know a guy that had his brass plated, it looks really nice and only cost him like $40.
Les,
Might be on the pricey side, but look at Robar’s NP3 plating.
Looks really nice, in a matte gray finish, and is exceptionally tough and has excellent lubricity, being a nickel-teflon composite.
If you plan to keep your rifle (no one should be without a solid, easily modified, and easily repaired, .22), it will probably pay dividends in longevity. I’m contemplating this route with my 10-22.
Good luck, sir.
Uncanny that you and I should be 2/2 on poor finish. The rifle has been back at Ruger for about three weeks, and I haven’t heard from them. What I’d really like is a blued version or a check for the cost of one to show up at my door. With my luck, they’ll just strip it and put the same crappy finish back on it.
Don’t buy the stainless Ruger 10/22! Tell your friends!
My father in law could powder coat it for you. The name of his company is American Powder Coating in Ft. Lauderdale, FL. 954-935-9003 ask for Bob and tell him Lonnie sent you.
Powder coating would seem to be the best bet.
And what’s wrong with pink?
http://olegvolk.net/gallery/friendsandstrangers/madmike/pinkrifles0511.jpg.html
I like powdercoating, but it would have to be done locally to be economical, and I don’t think anyone around here has experience powdercoating firearms.
By the time I pay to ship the receiver both ways and then pay $25 to my local gunstore to receive it I’d have about $50 invested even before I pay for the treatment. That’s getting mighty expensive when I could just buy a complete blued 10/22 for $189.
A place local to me powdercoated my wife’s AR (all external metal) metalflake with translucent purple overlay for $75. Call around. Might not cost much.
There’s no specific specialty knowledge needed to powdercoat a firearm vs anything else.
In that case it might not be a bad option. Thanks for the tip.
Yup, it’s just metal, and the curing temp won’t exceed 400, which will actually strengthen most precipitation hardening aluminum alloys. They’ll acid dip and etch, spray, dip in the color and then rack in the oven to cure. done.
I am just wondering how to remove this crappy gray paint. The gun IS stainless but they put a poor paintjob on it, for what? So it would match the plastic trigger group? Thats not cool.
So how do I get this barrel and receiver to a durable stainless finish? Thanks!
The barrel is stainless, but the receiver (the part that’s painted) is aluminum.
I did not know that the receiver is alum but still there is paint peeling off into the chamber and I want a plain non painted version.
What are my options here??
See the comments above. For DIY there’s Brownell’s GonKote for ten bucks. DuraCoat is a little more and you’ll need an airspray system.
If you’re willing to pay someone else to do it there’s anodizing, powdercoating, and NP3 (which is a trademarked name for the one company that does it).
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28 years ago I costomized two 10/22′s. I did one for my wife and on that one I polished the aluminum receiver trigger assembly and barrel band using tripoli for the original rough polish and jewlers rouge for the final shine. I did the same on the rifle I did for my son. They are still bright and shiney.
Any need to clean up a dirty receiver after polishing can be accomplished with semichrome polish.
I purchased my ruger 10/22 at Walmart awhile back ago. It is the “stainless version” and I experienced the same problem with the receiver during the cleaning process of the gun. I believe that Ruger needs to step up to the plate and make all receivers impervious to cleaning agents. Painting them with spray paint IS NOT THE ANSWER! They have developed a great reputation over the years with the 10/22 and it will be ruined in a short amount of time if this receiver issue is not rectified! One needs not to look to far to find companies who are declaring bankruptcy due to squeezing a “few nickels” from their products and their customers…(IE. GM,CHRYSLER,…)Make it right Ruger, make it RIGHT!!
Break free powder blast is very corrosive to gun finishes. I made the same mistake and ruined the finish on one of my pistols. Break Free CLP is what you are looking for…
I’m a longtime fan of Breakfree CLP and know the difference. I was using Powder Blast on purpose. It’s lame that Ruger’s finish on stainless 10/22 receivers can’t handle it.
The same thing happened to the inside of my receiver after using powder blast. I just finished what I started and used a brush, steel wool to remove the rest. Then I coated with Breakfree clp. The outside of the receiver is fine with no peeling. I would leave it alone unless the outside has problems.
It’s not only the stainless version (which I also have, but haven’t had any problems with it yet). Last week I cleaned a brand new 10-22 carbine with what I thought was a parkerized receiver. I too got solvent on it and it took the finish off the receiver in no time! I took the rifle apart, got the receiver down to bare aluminum and repainted with a few coats of Rustolium textured flat black paint…gee, why not? It’s probably what Ruger used in the first place. Anyway, the rifle “looks” better that when I bought it…but I sure won’t get any solvent on the inside or outside of that receiver again. Not even Hopps #9. I anticipate I’ll have to go through this repainting procedure a few more times during the course of my owning it…it’s not hard to do, just a big inconvenience. I own 5 Ruger firearms and this is the cheesiest thing I’ve seen Ruger do. Shame on you Ruger! They should have a recall on the affected firearms and blue them for free.
My 10/22 All-Weather is about 6 months old, and has had fewer than 500 rounds through it.
I knew it was getting dirty inside the receiver (I normally just clean the barrel with a snake), and the bolt kept catching or moving like molasses at points.
I finally took it apart tonight to give it a good scrub (I too use brake free and a toothbrush) and found not just a little peeling, but the whole inside was shredding off. The coating in the groove, included, which explained the catching.
So I heavily scraped it out and kept spraying it and scraping it. Tried to smooth off the parts that remained with emory cloth, and put it all back together with a coating of oil where the coating used to be. I’ll find out at the range tomorrow if it’s OK.
I’m none too happy with Ruger over this. The gun is not very old, and kept in good storage conditions.
I’ve polished then before with good results. Any painted gun will react badly to some solvents. In any case I have a polished one and an original and the polished has not lost it’s shine in several years.
I am in thew process of customizing a 10 22 and am curious as to why the receiver is painted anyway??? The aluminum finish, if polished properly, should hav a good look on its own. Other than to protect from oxidation, is there a reason to have the painted finish on the receiver?
It’s probably cheaper to paint it than to polish it.
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Check out Duracoat. It’s on the web.
You can also youtube it, look for Nutnfancy. He has a great video about a doing it yourself process.
If you want to remove the paint and do a polish job – is to try one of two options of the same chemical to create less work for taking off the paint. I build custom Maglite flashlights and take off the anodized paint with Heavy Duty Oven Cleaner or (for me) the actual chemical “Lye” that can be bought dirt cheap (thelyeguy) off the internet. The Heavy Duty Oven Cleaner might work and can get at WM, TGT, or a grocery. I highly recommend to test on something small, painted, and not on the gun before spraying (or sinking in a jug of Lye) to remove (I can look too hazy on some aluminum – not all aluminum is pure and the alloys can make things turn out less than expected, but most of the time I can polish out the haze). What I do is soak the paint off and then polish with Brasso. You can use a dremel with a polishing cotton tip, but have to be careful not to overhead the aluminum – thus a hand polish approach might be the safest.
When I take off the paint off Maglites, and polish with brasso it works quite well with minimal work (unless you want a mirror polish which is more work).
Thanks, Craig. Tha’s probably what I’m going to do. Removing paint intentionally is not a hard endeavor, I’m just surprised I would have to.
I have the newer ruger carbine blued. The receiver is painted as well. I was going to bead blast the receiver to make it a nice bead blasted finish since i’m going to place a SS bead blasted finish KiD 20″ barrel on the gun anyways. Has anyone done the glass bead blasting before?
The new 10/22′s are garbage. I don’t mind the plastic trigger as much as the soft aluminum receiver and krylon paint job, hell they should of just left it bare
metal. When I put the scope mount on the receiver I ran the screws in until they hit bottom (knowing it was aluminum) then gave it a little bump to secure. well thats all it took to strip so in the garbage it went. My pellet rifle far exceeds in quality over the dime store 10/22 Junk. who wants to pay $300 to $400 dollars for a volquerstine receiver and another chunk of change for a bolt group and another $400 for a barrel. its was over the top for a .22 LR in my opinion.
Why don’t you redrill for a larger screw? Or use a sleeve? Waste of a gun to toss it over a tiny thing like that.
Send it to me. I’ll fix it.
Garrett, I have to agree with Michael. Great gun, the 10/22. Just requires some finess in its handling. Aluminum is a soft metal, not prone to rusting, so is better than steel in that regard. You could redrill for larger screws without too much trouble. BTW, I finally bit the bullet and stripped my receiver this week. Unlike other’s experience, it was a cast iron bitch to get the paint off the exterior (inside had already peeled from cleaning). After that, I went at it with 600, then 800 grit paper and followed up with a good polishing with a dremel. MY OH MY, does it look GOOD! Should have done it the day I bought it!!! I’m very pleased and know this will last a long time this way–have another International model (discontinued Wally World model) that had this done by a previous owner and it’s still looking great. Final polish was with a simple chrome polish.
Well, Hope y’all have a great holiday season and that your Christmas brings you joy! God bless.
I agree, I shouldn’t of tossed it. I just hate it how Ruger has abnegated their responsibilities and made em so cheap. They are good rifles. Bill Ruger would roll over in his grave if he knew how they where killing the quality. Its pretty bad when a pellet rifle is made better you gotta admit. I gave the 10/22 another chance and bought a new SR-22. I’ll just handle it like its a toy and it should be OK. Cheapness has no place with firearms. these days its all about the bottom line for the corporation. let em eat cake they say..make em out of play-doh the schmucks will buy em.
You didn’t even salvage parts, or ensure it was properly destroyed against some kid finding it, or try to sell it as is?
I kept the guts and the stock. traded the barrel for some ammo to a gun shop. I had Ruger dispose of the receiver after they lied to me and said they had always (from day one) been made of plastic and aluminum which isn’t true. I figured the Microcephalic supervisor told the peon at Ruger to say: Just tell him this is how they have always been made, the schmuck will believe it and he’ll go away. Who is he to want quality. Our bottom line comes before what the customer wants.
just deal with him.
I dont want a gun you have to handel like its an egg shell. I’m gonna try out a Browning Buckmark .22 Rifle. I’ve bought my last plastic 10/22. The days of Ruger quality are slowly dissolving. smith and wesson sold out to the Democrats so they’ll be next. they’ll just start following in Rugers foot steps and produce junk that noone will want.
Yeah, my daughter’s has the extended mag release they should have made years ago, and no barrel band, but that release is plastic, and the trigger guard, and the receiver is paint that peeled from day 1.
$50 later the trigger is decent, and I polished the bolt.
Hornet products did have some all metal trigger groups for these rifles. not sure if they do anymore. the 10/22 still serves a purpose for youth shooters as they are inexpensive. the action is tried and true. I just hate the materials they have started using. WHY Ruger WHY?? Bill Ruger would die all over again if he knew this. the chipping paint is no big deal. I took a Mouse and sanded it all off. looked alot better. Damn that paint is a toy store application. once again. WHY Ruger WHY?
well glad to see im not the only one. I was cleaning my 10-22 . i was using rusty duck lubricant and action cleaner. When the lids are off they look exactly the same and thats what did my receiver in ,and like most of you i looked into all these options and after much thought i didnt want to try it myself and ruin my receiver and also did not want to spend a furtune on it because honestly you could probably just by a new receiver from ruger for cheaper, any way i took mine to an automotive paint shop. Yeah they probably thoght i was crazy but for$30 my receiver is resistant to most any cleaner i can throw at it and is resistant to road tar and bug guts j/k seriously though its holding up fine and looks just like the original finish. Paint shops are always painting cars and just ask them when they get time or a car in of the color you like to call you i mean they have left over paint and they already have out the paint when they are painting so it shouldnt be too expensive. just another option.
Very interesting, Steve. Hadn’t thought about the auto finish route! I’ve been using mine since last November in an unfished mode and get tons of evious looks and expressions of Wow whenever I pull it out at the range. I need to take it out tomorrow morning for an accuracy test. Will use several types of .22LR and have room for before and after pix on each target, because I’ll be pulling the bolt and sending it off for the final portion of the customization. I’m having the bolt jeweled and polished. While he is at it, he will also be doing some smithing work to bring it into a tack driving state. Will report back when it’s all done and I have the after pix added to the targets. For the nonce, fire at will.