I have a ruger 10-22 with a factory bull barrel. the rifle has always shot great groups at 50 yards with a variety of 22 long rifle brands i took It out this spring to shoot and get ready for ground squirrel hunting and my groups went from well under an inch to 2-3" at 50 yards the only thing that I have done to the rifle since the last time I shot it was cleaning and to change out the scope
dose anybody know what could cause such a loss of accuracy? Bad scope?

I think it more likely that the cleaning caused the issue. My experience has been that my .22 rimfire barrels needed to be fouled pretty good before they shot well. Sounds counter to most wisdom, but that has been my experience...

Hank

I agree about the cleaning. When I worked at a shooting range in town, we tested several heavy barrels for the 10-22 on our 25 yd range. The most expensive barrel we used was a Valquartsen. Of course it preferred some pricey ammo as well - Federal Gold Medal (at the time about $10 per 50). It shot quarter inch groups at 25 yds. However, we also checked what would happen if we cleaned the barrels. Most took 1-2 boxes to group like before cleaning. The fancy one took nearly 4 boxes of the expensive ammo before it would group well again! DON'T clean the barrel - just the action.

Mike

when I cleaned the rifle I also took the stock off And I thought That maybe I had The Stock Screw on To tight I checked It And It seemed OK, snug not real tight. I will shoot a few more boxes of it's preferred ammo and see If It makes A difference. If not I will Put The old scope back on It's A sighttron 1.5 x 6 and the rifle shot great with it
But I wanted to use it on A different rifle so I put a new simmons 8 point on the 10-22 I'm alawys suspicious of cheep scopes. I need to resolve this problem before the gophers (columbia ground squirrels) take over

I have never encountered a problem cleaning a quality barrel. It should only take a few rounds to settle down. I definitely believe that it is the scope.
Butch

Hopefully, you didn't nick the crown. What kind of cleaning rod did you use?

since the 10-22 has only one mounting point - getting the screw the exact same pressure each time you take off the stock is critical. but the first thing to do is to see if it is the scope and put the original back on. first step is always to eliminate all of the changes you've made since the problem started, so put the scope back on and go shoot and see what happens


mike

Age old argument re: 22s - to clean or not to clean, that is the question. For me - more harm than benefit. From Ruger to Kimber to BSA; I don't screw with the barrel.

I use an old fiber glass rod of unknown origin. I checked the crown & It looks good. I shot about 100 rounds this weekend and got some improvement but still not what the rifle has been capable of in the past.I Shot 25 gophers (Columbia ground squirrels,in This part of MT any furry criter with small ears that lives under ground is called a gopher ) but head shots were quite hard at 50 yards I will change the scope back to the sightron 1.5-6 and try it again. Thanks for all the great help trying to figure out this vexing problem

wetdog,
I won't say that cleaning didn't have somthing to do with your groups. But, mine usually "season" with much less than 100 rounds. I'm betting you've either tweaked the receiver a bit when mounting your scope -it's easy to do especially with a .22- or, there is a parallax issue with the new scope. Either could be causing your problems. HTH.