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I’m a big fan of the 10/22 Takedown. The original 10/22 is one of those iconic firearms that lasts for generations, and the Takedown version adds a wonderful new twist on the concept. It makes the whole package much more compact and easy to carry around, raising fewer eyebrows among neighbors in apartment buildings and easily fitting into small compartments in vehicles. There was just one problem: it wasn’t small enough. So, with a spare $200 in my pocket and nothing better to do, I wanted to see if there was a way to make it even smaller. And cooler. And I think I have . . .

1022 Takedown, c Nick Leghorn

When I reviewed the 10/22 Takedown, I knew I wasn’t sending it back. The gun was fun to shoot, offered some nifty tech, and had serious potential for improvement. The ability to quickly swap barrels meant that even if I managed to screw it up, there was always a way to get back to the standard configuration rifle somehow. But while the Takedown does break in half for easy storage and transport, it could still be smaller. The first step on that path was getting a shorter stock, and AGP had just the ticket.

AGP Takedown stock, c Nick Leghorn

The AGP Arms folding stock means that the receiver section is only as long as the receiver itself, and not much more. This basically cut the length of that part of the rifle in half, and when disassembled for storage makes the end section extremely easy to stow in bags and such.

AGP Takedown stock, c Nick Leghorn

However, the main problem remained the barrel section. Thanks to the National Firearms Act, that needs to remain 16 inches or longer. Thankfully there’s a solution for that, too. It just takes $200, a 13-month wait, and about $150 in gunsmithing fees from your gun shop of preference.

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Once the Form 1 came back for the SBR, I had my local guys (Alamo Tactical) chop the barrel down and thread it. I have another dedicated .22lr silencer waiting on a Form 4, but since that’s probably going to sit in the shop for a year as well, I’m using the AAC Ti-Rant 9mm can that I have on hand to hush this puppy.

In its deconstructed configuration, the gun is just slightly longer than the length of the receiver. The barrel is a short 10 inches long, just enough length to cycle the action, but not so much that it gets in the way. Silencers are great, but they can be pretty long and ruin the look (and feel and weight and…) of your rifle. Trimming down the barrel and adding a can not only makes the rifle lighter and easier to use, but it also looks decidedly BAD ASS.

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There is one unfortunate side effect of trimming the barrel: the front sight is gone. The gun comes with iron sights, but now that front post has been cropped, that rear site is kinda useless. That’s why I’ve added a short rail section on top of the receiver using the scope-mounting holes, and mounted a Konus red dot. And I have to say, it works fantastically.

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Out at Tyler’s ranch I test fired the gun for the first time, and without any gunsmithing or spring changes the rifle functioned 100% reliably with standard .22lr ammunition both suppressed and unsuppressed. For those taking notes at home, that’s a 10 inch barrel length you want.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RIH3x4Ognw

I’m not the kind of guy to be happy with a gun the exact way it comes from the factory. Even with my CMP-procured M1 Garand rifle I’ve already swapped out the operating rod and added an adjustable pressure gas plug. I always feel the need to tinker with my toys until they are just the way I want them, and I get that feeling that I’m getting close with this gun.

Close. But not quite perfect yet.

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59 COMMENTS

  1. Nick, this needs to stop. I bought a 10/22 Takedown within a week of reading your review and its been nothing short of awesome. After seeing this I feel it might as well be you that is spending my money at this point lol.

    • TT said: “I think that rifle should be called the Urban Squirrel Hunter.”

      I’d call it the HUSH. The Happy Urban Squirrel Hunter. 🙂

  5. I’ve got 22 rifles. But I do NOT have a 10/22.

    I know. There is clearly something wrong with me.

    I must have a 10/22 to beat the piss out of.

    Thanks, Nick, for making me spend some money very soon. Damnit.

    • Don’t feel too bad; I don’t have “a” 10/22 either.

      I’ve got FOUR of the dang things. And they eat ammo like there’s no tomorrow. Ammo that is nearly impossible to find at a reasonable price nowadays. Ammo that is primarily fed through Ruger’s reliable 25-shot magazines (another recurring expense; gotta have plenty of mags).

      Count your blessings, dude. This habit is worse than crack (or so I’m told; no direct experience for comparison)…

  7. Oh man, that thing is entirely bad assed. Slayer of Squirrels. I haven’t spent a dime on my Takedown… But that sure does look pretty cool.

  8. I wish someone could make a new foreend for the barrel. One with a place to mount rail accessories or a bipod.

  9. Dear Mr. Leghorn, you are a bad person. You have created an irresistible urge to go wild on my Takedown 10/22. Please send money ….

    • Buy another one! Use your credit card if you have to, or donate blood. The 10/22 takedown is that cool.

        • Depends on how much they are giving for blood plasma in your area.

          Around here, research indicates that about 15-20 visits would net you enough cash for a 10/22 Takedown (depends a bit on the exact model, too).

    • I built a custom 10/22 with a Razor receiver shortly before the take-down came out. So there were no take-down stocks made at that time, but now I want to modify it into one.

      • I built a couple of Charger pistols based on 80% Razors also. One thing that puzzled me in the article was “a short 10 inches long, just enough length to cycle the action”. Both of my pistols feature normal 10/22 actions (for those of you that don’t know what a “Razor” receiver is) and used 10/22 barrels shortened to 5″ & 6″. The actions work just dandy for me.

    • Firearms law states that you are legally entitled to a MINIMUM of one gun of EVERY TYPE for every year of your life. and you get to define “type”, but a Takedown 10/22 is clearly a different type than a plain 10/22.

      (Legal citation: Pete’sLaw of Guns, 18PLC4570.2)

  11. That thing looks like it could fit in a pistol case and placed under the front seat as part of an emergency kit. Nice work!

  12. Hmmmm… I was pretty sure that I was going to invest in an M&P 15-22, but I may have to now reconsider.

  15. Does the red dot sight keep zero well?

    I am sorta worried about that and I am not a fan of scout scopes.

  16. It sounds like what you really want is an integrally suppressed 16″ barrel. Which, obviously, would have to be machined new, but if you’ve already spent this much on modding it, you might as well go all the way.

    • That was my purpose when I bought my Takedown 10/22; I wanted a second barrel that could be carried in the case (a sleeve for a second barrel is built-in!) so I could have the normal barrel, and a second integrally-suppressed barrel over 16″. Quieter than a muzzle can, and I wouldn’t have to mess with the SBR paperwork.

      The problem lies in the sighting system. If you use a scope on the receiver, you have to be able to quickly adjust its zero to work with two different barrel POIs, and if you use iron sights on either barrel, you must have a QD way to remove any optics from the receiver and return them to zero later. You MIGHT be able to use a barrel-mounted scope base, but to get it back over the receiver (where it is preferred for my uses), modifications would have to be made to allow the barrel to rotate for removal. So far, all I’ve come up with is a scope on the receiver for the normal barrel, and having a short custom rail section attached to any second barrel that would allow a small red dot sight (as in the photo, above) to stay mounted all the time, as they have no eye relief issues.

      • What about a cantilever mount on the barrel that extends over the receiver similar to what many slug shotguns have? You might even be able to buy a shotgun mount, drill and tap your barrel, and attach it directly.

        • That’s what I’d like to do, but because you have to rotate the barrel about one-eighth of a turn to remove it, and the mount would be attached to the barrel but overhang the receiver, the mount would have to be high enough to clear everything underneath when the barrel is rotated. That means having the mount rail significantly higher than I’d like to see it, because it would have to clear not only the raised edge of the receiver on the right side, but also part of the bolt handle (whether forward or locked-back).

          I haven’t made any exact measurements, but I estimate a scope on such a cantilevered rail mount (with the lowest possible rings) would be approximately the same height as a receiver-mounted scope with high- or (more probably) extra-high rings. Most of the shotgun-type mounts don’t have to be very high over the receiver, as the barrel slides in and out, with no rotating required. For that type of system, very little clearance between the receiver and mount rail is needed.

          If you have any other suggestions on how to approach/solve this problem, I’m all ears, as it has been vexing me for a while now.

  18. Eh! What ever. I have a 1933 Walthers .22 single shot rifle. The Rabbits hate me. One shot one kill. That is all I need. Besides I have never been impressed with the 10/22, the grouping isn’t all that great. I have a 1960’e Savage arms semi-auto tube fed that puts them in a one inch grouping at 100 yards. I am a big Ruger fan but the 10/22 is all over the target. Other than looking bad ass they really aren’t all that. I like looks but I’ll take accuracy over looks any day of the week. And yes the .22 round can be very accurate at 100 yards. I can put five rounds in a 1/2 inch grouping at 100 yards with the Walthers.

    • Shooting vintage rimfire is a hoot, sure.

      But shooting something modern like the 10/22 is a blast, as well.

      Kind of like shooting revolvers all your life then plinking with M&P’s and Glocks.

      Apples to oranges, sure. But an eye opener.

      I do feel that the 10/22 is like the Honda Civic of 22 rifles. But the mods on this one help ease that notion.

      • The Honda analogy is a good one.

        The 10-22 is a base Civic, and Nick’s SBR suppressed 10-22 is a Civic Si with a bolt-on supercharger.

        I never quite had the spare cash for the supercharger, but I drove that ’89 Si for 280,000 miles.

    • “I am a big Ruger fan but the 10/22 is all over the target.”

      Sometimes you get lucky out of the box, but even if not, 10/22’s are cheap enough on after market barrels, triggers and bolts that they are not hard to accurize to tack driver accuracy.

      A friend of mine has a stock one that he said prints surprisingly well at 300 yards with iron sights. I don’t recall the group size he said, but it surprised me, and I don’t think of 10/22’s as being horribly intrinsically inaccurate.

      The carbine I have is very finicky on ammo, though. HUGE difference in accuracy if not using the right fodder. Makes the hunt for .22 LR ammo all that more tricky when you have to be picky.

  20. Awe yeaaaaah….. /wipes drool/ I’ve been waiting to see what someone would do for a collapsible stock 10/22 takedown. Very nice Nick….very nice indeed.

  22. Didn’t you have to engrave the receiver with your name and location to comply with Form 1 NFA Firearms Making regulations? What was the approximate cost of that, and what engraving process did you use?

  23. Dude, you made a 10/22 look almost as kickass as an AK variant with a folding stock. Had I the money, I’d copy this piece for piece.

  24. Only problem with this is that without the front sight, so are dependent on a battery-operated red dot. Which may not last long in a zombie scenario. Of course, if you store batteries with your thousands of rounds of .22lr, that’s a different story.

  26. Good to see I’m not the only one who imagined a pocket-sized suppressed .22 short barreled rifle when they saw the AGP Arms folding stock. This is one configuration I’ve considered. However, an even shorter barrel might be ideal for suppressed use, as it would keep velocity down and more ammo would be subsonic in the rifle. So send the rifle over to someone like Thompson Machine and have them install an integrally suppressed barrel: 4″ of barrel followed by 6″ of suppressor, no porting needed to keep most ammo subsonic. And it’s the same length as your 10″ barrel, but with no suppressor to add on because it’s built-in. For someone starting from the ground up, you could simply buy an Operative 10/22 Take-Down SBR (two tax stamps) and drop it in the AGP folding stock.

    I’ve also looked into AGP’s own 10/22 takedown rifle which is different than Ruger’s and has some advantages and disadvantages. AGP’s SBR configuration comes with a 7.25″ threaded barrel that actually fits inside the hole in the AGP folding stock. You take it out of the stock and stick it on the front as in an AR-7, and it returns to zero. I’m not sure if it would be practical to use an integrally suppressed barrel with the thing (it probably wouldn’t fit in the stock, even if one widened the hole), but even if you carry a suppressor with it that’s carrying the suppressor instead of the forend with the barrel, since the barrel is inside the stock.

  27. Mr. Leghorn,

    How well does the 9mm (.355 caliber) suppressor reduce the report of .22 L.R.?????

  30. Oh that baby is gorgeous! I just bought a 10/22 takedown about a month ago, and love it so far (would love it more if I could find ammo), this is exactly what I had dreamed for it when I got it. The after market for these is still a bit slim right now though, I’d like a heavier barrel for an SBR build and or just a heavy barrel period.

  32. The TD is on sale here for $299. I’m tempted TP buy another but I just bought the 11112 TD that comes with a 16.5 threaded barrel.

  33. Alright, that’s cool, but it looks not quite finished with that giant gaping hole in the front of the forearm!

  34. So a little late to this and just want to add I dont have a take down per say I ordered a wrong TAPCO Stock which came as a Take Down type, So I tapped a piece of round stock and welded a stud on my barrel and made a take down out of a stock 1022 shoots just fine undo 1 screw and the barrel lug and bam done

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