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Jesse's Hunting > Gun Room Articles > The Gun Room > Tinkering with the Ruger 96
Tinkering with the Ruger 96
Andy Moe - JHO ProStaff
- Montana
July 28, 2006
I'm a fan of the Ruger 96 lever actions. A lot of people don’t even know what they are but I like them. They appeal to my taste for the eccentric. Looking like a mongrel cross between a Ruger 10/22, a Savage Model 99, and the old Winchester Model 88 centerfire, this rifle is not just another pretty face.
It has a couple other endearing qualities to recommend it as well. Firstly, it sports a short-arc lever throw and secondly, a locking breech. This combination gives you the rigidity of a bolt action with second shot capabilities almost as fast as a semi-auto. Lastly, like all Ruger rimfires, the 96 features Ruger’s famously reliable rotary magazine.
Not much to look at
But with the tender, loving care of a dedicated tinkerer, it turned into a sure enough shooter. |
This is all good stuff to a guy like me and when I found a much abused 96-22 Magnum lounging in the back of a local pawn shop I just had to take it home. This 22 magnum was to be my third Ruger lever gun so far -the other two being a 96/22 in 22LR and a 96/17 chambered for 17HMR. Both are good shooters. The 22LR has worn a dozen different barrels and currently wears a 1-18” twist, heavy barrel from a 10/22. The 17HMR sports a beautiful 20" octagon barrel from Green Mountain Rifle Barrel Company.
I picked up this new 96 sometime around the end of February. The story was that it had come off of a ranch where it was a pick-up truck gun for one of the cowboys in whose less-than-loving hands it had traveled some hard trails. The stock was gouged and the metal scuffed. The rifle had several years’ worth of congealed WD-40, grit, and grime -inside and out- but the price was negotiable and heck, I'd just gotten paid. I spent a cold Saturday evening cleaning my new prize and inspecting the parts. Despite the accumulation of dings and gunk, the gun seemed to be in good mechanical condition. Ruger builds a tough gun. Satisfied that all was in mechanical order, the next chore would be to get on the ammo / accuracy trail. For this task the factory iron sights would not do.
If you're a Ruger 96 buff you know that the scope mounts for this rifle are not the same as those for the 10/22. They look like they should be, but they’re not. When you can find a Model 96 base you will more likely as not be saddled with a 3/8" dovetail mount for a tip-off scope. These are fine if you use the right scope and rings but my truck guns need something more substantial. For my Ninety-six I chose the Leupold "Rifleman" base for a Marlin Model 336 lever action. Only two of the four holes in the base lined up with the holes on the 96 receiver but that's plenty for a rimfire –especially for the Ninety-six because these two holes pass through a very beefy part of the action. I cinched them down tightly and so far those two base screws have held on like an ill tempered badger. With the base mounted, a set of B-square rings were used to strap down my old and reliable Weaver 2-7X Variable. The arrangement looked good.
Starting at 25 yards with a good lot of CCI Maxi Mag, 40 grain, "TMJ" ammo, the accuracy was about an inch and an eighth off of sand bags. No wonder that cowboy stored this gun under the pickup seat! He probably needed the space in the rifle rack for his fishing pole and a good reliable slingshot. I was disappointed. It was hard to tell what was causing this relative inaccuracy: An ammo preference, the 18" carbine barrel, bedding, the attorney-proof trigger, or all of the above. What ever the problem, there was definitely some room for improvement. After trying several other brands of 22WMR ammo and getting little in the way of accuracy improvement, I racked the rifle; moving on to other chores until time would allow me to revisit the ailing Ninety-Six.
When spring officially arrived in all its soggy glory I took a good look at the Ninety-six again. The barrel looked OK. The crown was good, the chamber was within limits. What did look bad was the bedding arrangement. I know that Ruger dotes on that "carbine" look but that barrel band they insist on providing has proven to be the source of poor accuracy on more than one occasion. It looks good, shoots bad. The easiest solution to the problem would be to pitch the darned thing…
…But unfortunately, I also like the look of that barrel band and I didn't want to remove it and leave the fore-end looking like something was missing. My solution was to take a careful saw cut across the top of the band, just above the lip where it came over the top of the stock. The strap over the barrel was now eliminated. A few licks of a file to smooth out the saw cuts and some Birchwood Casey Aluminum Black left the (now) split band grasping the wood tightly but exerting no pressure on the barrel. The problem was solved. An accuracy test during a lull in the weather revealed that the band had indeed been a good part of the problem. Groups were now in the 3/4" range but they would drift about a little as the barrel heated up indicating a bit of stock pressure on the barrel. My favorite remedy for a Ruger is to insert a thin brass shim under the barrel mounting lug. It is a quick fix and one that I've used successfully many times. A shim was cut and put in place and a very small amount of wood was sanded from the barrel channel as well. This sent the 25 yard group size to just under 5/8 inches from the bags. Not great, but a substantial improvement from the initial 5 MOA that rancher most assuredly cussed about.
When the weather turned to solid rain I decided to do something to the stock. It was truly nasty. The wood looked rat-chewed, dry, and almost beyond sprucing up. I thought of filling the gashes with fiberglass and painting the darned thing, but instead opted for scraping off the remaining lacquer with my pocket knife, sanding out the larger gouges, and slapping on some stain and sealer. Any additional effort applied to the Ruger's pale hardwood would be a waste of time. Besides, by this time the 96’s poor accuracy had only earned itself a spot in the back of my Jeep where wood takes a beating. No sense in getting fancy. As a refinishing job it was “quick and dirty”, but it was still a marked improvement over its original state.
Nothing a little paint can't fix.
The author touched up some metal gouges with a bit of enamel paint. |
As I mentioned, the action had taken quite a bit of abuse as well. I have a sneaking suspicion that cow-puncher used it to drive fencing staples but it wasn’t so far gone as to be beyond a simple make-over facilitated buy another few afternoons of wind and rain. A bit of judicious filing, degreasing, and careful coating with some “satin black” enamel spray paint fixed the worst of it, actually matching the Ruger finish to a “T”. An hour under some 150 watt lights cured the paint to a pretty tough finish. I was becoming mighty pleased with myself by this time. The assembled rifle was starting to look real good.
Ah ... but still not good enough! One evening I was setting the 22WMR Ruger back in the rack next to the sleek Green Mountain-barreled 96/17 and realized how much I admired the 17HMR's long, sightless barrel. I got to wondering if I had a barrel lying around that could be fitted to this 22WMR action to put it into a similar configuration. Digging around in my bail of Ruger rimfire barrels I found a 20” Ruger factory 22WMR barrel from a 77/22 bolt gun. I don't know why it was in “The Pile” but I certainly couldn't do much worse in the accuracy department than the 2.5 MOA I was currently getting from the carbine barrel. The 77/22's barrel shank diameter was identical to that of a 96, but just over an eighth of an inch longer. I cranked up the small bench lathe I have in my reloading room and turned an aluminum bushing that would take up the extra shank distance and provide correct headspacing. The cut in the 77's barrel for the locking wedge was extended a quarter inch towards the muzzle with a file, and the dovetail was fitted with a spacer to take up the slack between it and the 96 locking wedge. The whole rebarreling took about an hour and a half, start to finish. Another enamel paint treatment followed. With the longer barrel the rifle took on a long, business like look more to my liking. At least if it didn’t prove to be accurate it would still have its looks. It was again time to cross my fingers and hit the range.
The first group with this new barrel had me waving my target about for all to see and, had anyone else had been foolish enough to be out in that wind, they’d have been suitably impressed. From sand-bags at 25 yards the rifle now tossed all the slugs into small raggedy holes not much bigger than my cross hair wobble. I had hit pay dirt in that old cast off barrel. It now looked good and shot very well indeed. The bench rest accuracy was now better than I could have hoped for. Unfortunately though, off-hand shooting was still nearly impossible due to an un-refined trigger. It was heavy and gritty; the kind of trigger that makes you look twice to see if you really do have the safety off. This needed to be fixed before the rifle could be counted on for field shots farther than 25 yards.
There are no aftermarket M-96 trigger kits or components available like those made for the 10/22. A trigger fix on the 96 has to be done by hand, not parts replacement. The Ruger 96 trigger is a straight forward affair and as triggers go, easy to work on once you get used to the unusual mainsprings. The main springs are two clothespin type springs stuffed into a mortise in the receiver… a little daunting at first glance. If you have the mechanical bent that enables you to tackle a trigger job make sure you take a good look at that main spring arrangement before unhooking the struts from their cross-pin mounts. Refer to your owners’ manual if you have one. Once the main springs are out, you can disassemble the rifle and work on the trigger. On my particular rifle the sear engagement was far too generous. The full cock notch required a considerable stoning to reduce the depth -as well as a slight change in the angle of the engaging surfaces between the sear and the cocking notch. If you've never done any trigger work you'd best leave it alone. Poor trigger work can be dangerous and you shouldn’t attempt it without a good working knowledge of trigger geometries and safety. Read a good book on the subject or better yet, hire the job out. Professional trigger work is always money well spent.
Luckily, I speak Trigger fluently and had little trouble talking that trigger into becoming a more proactive member of the hunt. When I finished I had a trigger that, though not overly light, was crisp, predictable and a vast improvement on the factory issue. Range tests again showed an improvement in accuracy. Off hand shooting was much better, too. A field trip showed that the rifle was now accurate enough for taking prairie dogs and rabbits out to the 22 Magnum’s practical range limit. During the final range session the 92/22WMR had shown a definite liking for the 33 grain Remington Premier so that ammo got the field time for the next outing, anchoring nine prairie dogs and two rabbits with brisk effectiveness from 50 to 150 yards.
Summer is now well and upon us. I completed my Model 96 project and now enjoy the fruits of my labors. I have a good solid hunting rifle now and it rides beside me whenever I’m off the beaten track. And I’ll tell you what; working on this old beater rifle was a truly pleasurable past-time. In fact, if I could find the cowboy who owned this rifle before me I’d buy him a cup of coffee or something perhaps a bit stronger in gratitude for all the fun I had working on his old truck gun. It’d be the least I could do. You know... Considering he’s not getting it back any time soon.
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