TINCANBANDIT's Gunsmithing : Ruger 10/22 Finger Groove Sporter Tribute Part 1

A friend of the blog gave me a bunch of gun parts and included was this modified factory walnut stock.

I wasn't sure what to do with it and somewhere along the line the idea came to me to create a cheap copy of the Finger Groove Sporter (FGS) stock.

The Finger Groove Sporter

Looks like someone beat me to the punch, mine will look something like this when finished.

Here are more pictures of what it looked like when I brought it home. It appears that someone painted the whole stock black, then later tried to customize it with a belt sander. The sides of the forend are flat, the bottom side of the forend has a step in it, the barrel band portion was removed and the end tapered and rounded.

It still had the aluminum butt plate. I will need to paint, Cerakote or anodize it.

Here is what I plan on doing:

Cut some finger grooves into the forend with a router

Thin and taper the comb, then cut some flutes into the front of the comb

Refine the grip area and add a grip cap

Install some sling swivels that closely match the original FGS style

Put a satin oil finish on the wood

For the trigger assembly, we have this beat up aluminum housing that I will have Cerakoted along with the trigger, mag release and aluminum butt plate.
I have a complete (but broken) aluminum trigger assembly that will act as a donor for the guts.

For the bolt I purchased this aftermarket one on fleabay for $7.50 including shipping (I bought four of them).
The picture showed them as stripped with a rough texture black oxide finish

but one of the ones they send me was assembled and polished, this is the one I will be using for this project.

For the sling swivels I found a factory set just like the ones used on the original FGS stock

I also found a rear swivel loop in my parts bin, I will attach it to a standard sling stud (after slimming it down to fit and rebluing it).

I happened to have some Mauser sling bases, I will modify one to act as the front swivel base

For the record this is what the original FGS stock swivels looked like

Step one is to remove the remaining paint from the wood, I used Citristrip to get the paint to bubble up and scraped it off

I had a friend of the family put some grooves in the forend of the stock, it isn't exactly what I wanted, but this is not an exact copy of a Sporter Finger Groove anyway.

Now we start with the profiling of the butt stock, I want to add flutes to the front of the comb and a grip cap at the grip. Along with this I will be slimming down the stock, making the grip more prominent.

I installed the butt plate, you never want to sand a stock with the butt plate removed. This is why the wood comes first, then we refinish the metal parts AFTER they have been fitted to the stock

I bought this grip cap at the gun show for $1, there is a vendor there who sells boxes of various gun parts for $1 each. I believe this is off a Remington 700.