Firearm Factory of the Month: Kingston Armory

It's March, time for the Ruger 10/22 posts, this month's Firearm Factory is Kingston Armory, a company that made a 10/22 based M1 Garand "tribute" rifle.

Kingston Armory was a short lived company that made a .22 caliber tribute to the M1 and M1A rifles.

The story starts with a man named Mike Kera. Kera had an idea to create a tribute to the M1 Garand rifle that was chambered in .22 Long Rifle. The rifle would have the look, feel and heft of the original.
On February 19th, 2010 he registered the name "Kingston Armory" with the State of New York.

In 2013 Kera petitioned the village of Liberty, NY to set up shop and produce the rifles.
On March 28th, 2013 a meeting was held by the planning board and after some discussion the approval was unanimous. 

The location, on North Main Street, was once an A&P Store (if you don't know what A&P is, look it up on wikipedia).
The building had a cement basement which would be perfect for an indoor test-fire range.

Kera's choice of the name for the company follows along with other companies co-opting names in an attempt to cash in on the recognition of former government armories, see my write up on that practice here. 

There were two government armories named "Kingston Armory", one in Kingston, PA and one in Kingston, New York, the latter being a little over an hours drive from the village of Liberty. Both are now used for civic events.

Rather than try to recreate the gas operated, rotating bolt of the original M1, Kera opted to use the proven design of the Ruger 10/22 Carbine.
Interesting how the story comes full circle here, the Ruger 10/22 was inspired by the Ruger 44 Carbine, which in turn inspired by the M1 Carbine which is a copy and little brother of the M1 rifle.....

Any how Kera copied the 10/22 action, choosing to make his own receivers from cast 4140 steel. They are identical to the Ruger versions, except of course they weigh more than double the factory units. These receivers weight 17.2 ounces, while the factory aluminum ones weigh around 7.9 ounces. 

 Here is a prototype that used a Ruger receiver (the serial number gave it away), they simply milled the Ruger roll marks down and applied thier own.

The barrels were probably farmed out, they were made custom to fit both the 10/22 receiver and the M1 stock and hardware, they measured 24" and had the same profile as the original M1, minus the bayonet lug.

The grooves provide clearance for the V-block/barrel retaining screws

The bolts were also non-Ruger. I am not sure if Kingston made these in house or purchased them from JWH Custom, they look like JWH units anyway.

The trigger assemblies were purchased from JARD

They had custom copies of the Ruger BX1 magazine body made, with an extra deep bottom plate. This is so they could attach a metal cover to make the rifle appear just like the M1. I would assume the internals were Ruger parts.

The M1A copies had a metal box attached to the bottom of the 10 round rotary mag that matched the look of the original M1A mag.

I have read that the American Walnut stocks were made by Boyd's stocks, but I don't have any information to back that up.

Being that the 10/22 is blow back operated it would have no need for a gas piston and gas tube, for the sake of looks, Kingston created these pieces to fit around the barrel and into the stock

Some pictures of the completed rifles

At the 2015 SHOT Show Kingston displayed their prototypes to attendees.


After some time advertising and taking orders they finally began shipping the guns in mid-2016. 
The exact production numbers are not known, but the six bare receivers I purchased were had serial numbers starting in the 700's.

I don't know the whole story of why the company failed. It could be production costs, could be the high price they retailed for or it could be the quality control issues which seemed to plague too many of the rifles.
I found many complaints in online forums, the alleged issues included:

• Bolts that were "out of spec"
• Ejectors on the JARD triggers not hitting the cases
• Barrel holes misaligned
• The JARD trigger assemblies not holding the magazine correctly.

While I cannot speak to any of these issues, most of the problems were fixed by replacing the questionable parts with factory Ruger units. In addition most attest that the guns were very precise when they did function.

By the end of Summer 2017 the fix was in, the company would not survive. On October 20, 2017 an auction was held to sell off the assets and remaining inventory of parts. Many of which are still available at the time of this writing.

What Remains

Besides the remaining parts which are still in abundance at this time, the old A&P building (and the newer metal building in front of it) still exists. They can be found at 308 North Main Street Liberty, NY

Sources

SC Democrat

Gunsamerica

The Firearm Blog

The Truth About Guns

Rimfire Central Forums

CMP Forums