The word "tactical" is used a lot these days.  When I hear "tactical" I think of black plastic and rugged looks.  A "tactical" rifle is an all-business, scary looking thing good for shooting bad guys and not much else.  Being a martialist myself, I thought my home defense options were not complete without a tactical rifle of my own.  I thought it might be fun to see how quickly and easily I could put together a politically incorrect defense gun from a popular plinker: the Ruger 10/22.

The finished Tactical 10/22.  Project time was 20 minutes with all parts on hand.

I bought a Ruger 10/22 new on sale and then paid half as much for a Muzzlelite Bullpup Stock.  The stock is made of plastic and puts the trigger group forward of the magazine in order to shorten the overall length of the rifle.  In the new stock, the Ruger measures just over the Federal length limit for rifles.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Check your state laws regarding aftermarket stocks, barrel lengths, and overall lengths!  While the commercial Muzzlelite stock meets Federal requirements, there is at least one state in which the overall rifle length is too short and requires the addition of a muzzle compensator or other accessory to fall within legal limits.  Your state may have "assault rifle" legislation that concerns adding a pistol grip, too. 

The first thing you have to do to convert the standard 10/22 is remove it from its factory wood stock.  There's a screw around the barrel band and another under the stock forward of the trigger.  You have to remove these and slide the barrel band off the front. I used a screwdriver to spread the barrel band so it would come off.  With the mechanical guts of the Ruger free of the non-tactical wood, I was ready to get started.

Muzzlelite Bullpup Stock (top) with Ruger action and barrel.

The factory magazine release just won't do.  You have to press up into the rifle to make it work and it's a big pain.  For only a few dollars I bought an extended magazine release.  All I had to do was slide out one pin, pull the old release, and insert the new one.

Factory magazine release is inconvenient.  The extended
release shown here drops in quickly and easily.

The extended magazine release is installed in this picture.  The
factory release is on the blanket to the right.

When I researched the 20-minute tactical 10/22 project on the Internet I did a lot of research at www.rimfirecentral.com.  It was there that I picked up the next tip.  I used a knife to remove some of the plastic from both halves the stock (it comes in two parts that screw together) in front of the trigger.  When completed the rifle still has to be tested to make sure it will fire reliably.  If it doesn't, more plastic might need to be removed.  That would extend the total project time, but it is a minor correction.  If there is too much plastic blocking the Bullpup trigger, it will not "reset" with each new shot because the trigger will bind up when it tries to come forward.  Don't confuse this with "filing down" anything in the rifle to make it "automatic," or anything like that.  The mechanics of the rifle just don't work that way.

Both halves the stock have to have some plastic removed for better
trigger action.  I didn't want to remove too much to start.

Once I had the stock and the mechanical parts ready it was time to put them together.  A plastic lever fits over the factory trigger and connects to the new Bullpup trigger.  The instructions said to lube the trigger and the trigger pin that pushes against it, so I used a little gun oil.  When everything was pressed into place I laid the right half of the Bullpup stock over the left half.

Ruger 10/22 action installed inside left half of Bullpup stock.

You could stop at this point and you'd have a functioning rifle.  The plastic stock houses a replacement sighting system that sits much higher than the barrel.  It's not very accurate, but you didn't want a target rifle.  You wanted a tactical .22 that throws lead at the bad guys and that's what you got.  Several allen-head screws hold the Muzzlelite stock together (there's a little flathead screw too).  It feels a little sloppy because it's two halves bolted together instead of one piece of wood.  It works well enough to pump bullets downrange.

EDITOR'S NOTE: The resulting commercial Bullpup conversion is NOT an automatic weapon or "machine gun," nor can it be converted to such a weapon.  The plastic trigger arm of the Bullpup stock simply presses the factory trigger face.  The weapon "looks scary," but it isn't some evil death machine.  Any functional gains are confined to making the Ruger more compact and thus handier (but also unusable for left-handed shooters).

Completed Bullpup rifle conversion.  It truly is a "drop-in" unit with a few tweaks.

I added clear plastic Steel Lips magazines to my Tactical 10/22.  They're not as reliable as the factory mags, but they give you something to grab (because they extend out of the body of the rifle) if you press the magazine release and the magazine doesn't drop free.  When they're fully loaded you can also tell that they are loaded because you can see through them.  Pre-ban high-capacity magazines are available, but the curve of the magazine may make it hit the pistol grip if it is too long.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Reliability is always a concern, particularly in a defensive firearm.  Adding an aftermarket magazine is therefore a trade-off.  Ruger factory magazines are widely known to be extremely reliable, so you're not likely to find an aftermarket magazine that isn't less reliable, if only by a small margin.  The Steel Lips magazines are pretty good, though, because they have metal lips and and a metal stud that locks them properly in place on the rifle.  All-plastic aftermarket magazines, by contrast, frequently do not lock reliably in place and are prone to jamming (especially with certain brands of ammunition).

The last step was to add the accessory that defines the ugly black plastic home defense gun: a laser sight.  I bought a pretty cheap unit at the sporting goods store.  The Muzzlelite stock comes with a plastic scope mount that is bolted to the "carrying handle" part of the stock from underneath.  I mounted my scope to that and put the pressure switch on the pistol grip where I can activate it by tightening my thumb against the grip.

Laser sight unit mounted. Switch is secured with electrical tape.

After 20 minutes I was done with my project.  What I have now is a mean-looking rifle that is compact and can put multiple rounds into a home-breaker with just enough accuracy at close range.  The laser sight makes it easy to use at night and in darkened rooms.  It is light enough to be fired with one hand and I have set up the laser so a natural motion of my fist activates the beam.  Yes, I have my black plastic "tactical" gun.