I'm still on the search for .22 ammo to start the testing for my integral .22 project. After much teeth gnashing, I finally gave up today and broke out the credit card to buy some more .22 online at around $0.10/rd which I wasn't entirely happy about, but it is what it is. 

Hopefully within the next week or so, I'll be able to get the receivers cut and be able to work on barreling them.

Reamed out the blanks the other day and honed them out. They didn't quite come out as glass smooth as I had hoped, but for testing I'm sure it'll be fine.

Someone's comments got me thinking 

" The route I would take would involve a conventional suppressor on the front, with a sleeve that telescopes over the barrel that is the same diameter (1") as both the suppressor and the receiver. A little O-ring groove in the barrel so the sleeve will be sealed at the rear. You could then drill (I would EDM, but I'm not set up for that) holes in the barrel and they would expand into the chamber between the thinned barrel and the inside of the sleeve. Since your suppressor can be conventional, you get all of the advantages of superior suppression but the added benefit of the around-barrel bleed chamber.

If I understand you right, this defeats your purpose of having a monolithic upper but so be it."




Their comment and this video I watched (at the 1:00 mark) a while ago:

got me to do a little thinking. Instead of trying to squeeze everything into a small 1" OD piece of tubing, why not just fit up the frame to a large diameter receiver?

This is a 1.25" OD piece of tubing that I had laying around.

It might cause me to have to make some changes to the mechanicals, but for the increased volume, I think it'll probably be worth it.

Today I spend a little bit of time putting together my testing plan. I want to get an idea of what barrel length bullets will stay sub-sonic. My plan is to start at the factory length barrel and cut it down by 0.1" until it's 2.0" in length and record a number of variables along the way using a couple different kinds of ammo.

I also called up Ruger today to order a handful of ejectors and rivets for the new receivers I'm going to machine for the test barrels. It was about $50 for 10 of each, which should give me a few extra in case I mess up any.

Tore out the LCI, because frankly, who needs that pile of crap?

The next order of business was to take the MK II prints that I was able to find online and turn them into a solid model and print for the receivers that I'm going to make.

This is the print that I started with

And the horrendous looking receiver it yields.

Changed the ejection port a bit to be a little better looking.

All the cuts in the bottom.

Wire frame to see all the innards.

Right before the holidays was kind of crazy for me because I unfortunately totaled my car and had a little bit of a mad dash to find a new one.

Other than that slight setback, I was able to find a source of barrels. Someone on Rimfire Central tipped me off that Volquartzen usually has take off barrels, so I was able to get a pile of them from them @ $35 a piece, compared the the $80 I paid for the two from Clark Custom Guns.

Sorry I haven't had much progress to document lately. I've just been working on scrounging up more barrels and ammo for the up-coming testing period. The kind folks at Clarks Custom Guns gave me a call the other day to let me know another take-off barrel came in.

Besides that, I was fortunate a couple months ago to become involved in manufacturing BCG's for a couple big name retailers on this site, which not only has opened up a huge network of people within the gun industry, but also help in funding this project.

Yesterday afternoon I was able to sneak out of the office a little early and get some work done. After about two weeks of dry firing and countless times taking the Ruger apart, I decided it was time to ditch the magazine safety. Although I'm sure the device has its merits, I find it makes the pistol quiet frustrating to dry fire, it prevents the magazines from dropping free, and it turns disassembly into a whole magazine in and out hokey pokey song and dance.

You can see the magazine safety just to the left of the hammer

Torn out of the gun, you can see the three pieces that make up the magazine safety. The bushing, the little arm, and a spring.

In order to remove the safety, it requires a special bushing to take up the void left by removing them. You can see in comparison to a dime, it's a pretty small piece. I was fortunate enough for my friend to let me abuse his CNC lathe operator for a little while to make me the bushing after we got done chatting about some of the forthcoming machining challenges related to making the receiver.

You can see how the bushing just slides into the hammer. Eventually I'll probably replace this hammer with an MK II style hammer that doesn't have the notch out of the side for the magazine safety, but this works for now.

Installed and working like a charm. I will say this is a huge improvement for the pistol. All the previously mentioned items with dry firing, magazines dropping free, and disassembly are all cured, so I'm quite pleased.

Pending I can dig up some titanium tubing of the size I need, this is my initial thought for my design. Unlike the Gemtech design that is solid between the breech and the muzzle, I want to go with a removable barrel design that will allow me to port the barrel and have all that addition volume to reduce the noise signature and eliminate the need to do some crazy pressing in of a barrel liner.
Obviously this is just a preliminary design and I'll have to make adjustments as I discover what length barrel I'd like to go with, the thickness of the tube, and my baffle design.

My considerations so far are a hex on the outside of the barrel so I can tighten it with some sort of tool down into the receiver threads as well as have a baffle stop on the end of the barrel that has ports in it for both tightening it into place and allowing the gases to flow out into the baffle stack.

 did find a list of titanium tubing vendors, so I'll have to start making calls tomorrow to see if I can dig up what I need. http://industrialtubingresource.com/category/titanium-tubing.html

The closest thing I've been able to find so far is 3/4" schedule 80 titanium piping:

Did a little work last night drawing up the receiver. I was kind of surprised how simple it was, basically just a 1" OD x 0.75" ID tube with a few cuts in it. The ejector is riveted in place and the feed ramp is part of the barrel. Obviously I still have some work to do with the bottom cuts and threads where the barrel screws in, but that will come in due time.

I did though however run into my first hurdle. I can't seem to find 1.0" O.D. x 0.75" I.D. titanium tubing anywhere. It's my plan to use that as a starting point for the monolithic tube for the upper, so if I'm unsuccessful at sourcing some, I might have drill and ream some barstock.

I don't really have a timeline for this project. So in no particular order, some things I need to or at least have intentions of looking into to along the way:

• Determine what length of barrel will keep everything subsonic, supported with math
• Determine a general design for the upper. Keep in mind I intend to make a monolithic upper much like on the Gemtech Oasis.
• Figure out a barrel for the monolithic upper
• Create CAD models of a few different baffle stack ideas
• Do some flow analysis of said baffle stack ideas
• Learn a thing or two about machining Titanium
• Submit a Form 1
• Do some sound testing with the finished product
• Fix the factory trigger
• See what kind of sights I can put on instead of the pesky Ruger ones.

There generally seems to be three designs or approaches when it comes to suppressing a Ruger .22 pistol.


1. The standard order a TacSol upper or now buy one with a threaded barrel from Ruger and throw a can on it. This is fine and dandy, but why take the easy way out?

2. The second is what is understandably done for most integral cans because it's quick and simple. You thread the rear end of the barrel to screw on a sleeve. You can see this particular example has a ported barrel, which from what I've read helps immensely in reducing the noise.

3. And finally, what I call the monolithic design, which I intend to do. The entire upper is one piece, unlike the previous where there is a separate tube that covers the barrel and baffle stack. The one downside to this is figuring out the barrel situation and the factory Gemtech version is not/unable to be ported, but I hope to solve that as well.

The first order of business this afternoon, was to tear the gun I picked last night completely apart to see how everything worked. More from a curiosity standpoint. I will say, I did have to cheat on getting it back together by looking up instructions.