Over-boring a .22lr barrel

A non event in regards to mechanical safety. The only concern would be the same concern I would have from any sudden barrel deflection while discharging the firearm.
The bullet hitting any part of the rifle unintentionally after exiting the rifling would be a ricochet in my books. Not the same as normal muzzle jump from recoil. Either one has an effect on accuracy but in this scenario the internal 'ricochet' would make the bullet's flight unpredictable and therefor out of control and therefor dangerous.
 
The bullet hitting any part of the rifle unintentionally after exiting the rifling would be a ricochet in my books. Not the same as normal muzzle jump from recoil. Either one has an effect on accuracy but in this scenario the internal 'ricochet' would make the bullet's flight unpredictable and therefor out of control and therefor dangerous.
I don't want to get in a dispute with your engineering judgement. I ask you consider:
  • How a soft lead bullet like a .22LR might act differently than a hard bullet like a bimetal bullet.
  • How a rub on a smooth surface at a slight angle might act differently than a harsher angled impact.
  • Why threaded barrel bb/pellet guns are oversized to the steel bbs, and how a steel bb rattling down such a barrel is not considered unpredictable. If you sandbag such a rifled pellet gun and shoot a few dozen shots you might discern as I have that the bbs spiral out of the barrel along the grooving and form a neat doughnut pattern providing you with a clear ability to count barrel rifling twist grooves.
  • Why service proven suppressor designs have often such narrow design clearances between baffle and flight path.
  • What historical outcomes of baffle strikes are related to trajectory and how a baffle strike is a greater or lesser concern than a smooth barrel rub.
  • How much your firearms deflect when you shoot on a gusty day or even when not sandbagged and braced on a good day and at what point you consider your target shooting to be unpredictable and dangerous.
I am really preferring to consider the matter from a more comprehensive perspective than just what feels dangerous to one or more individuals. I am looking for perspectives based on engineering and experience.
 
Only one cat. But, It is our next door neighbor's and I would not risk the repercussions.
If I wanted the cat gone I would use a Havahart trap and drop the cat off at the animal shelter.
We lived in Hawaii for 6 years... It might be a good thing I did not have a quiet .22 over there. We had easily a few hundred feral cats within a half mile of us. Gun laws in Hawaii are pretty challenging.

Maybe that's why they have so many feral cats. To be fair, we had a lot more specialty restaurants in that area than we have here and I have full confidence they were not tapping the cat supply. No one tapped the Pidgeon supply there either. Well... the cats tapped the Pidgeon supply. The cats, mongoose and rats pretty much left each other alone.
 
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You may try drilling a small hole perpendicular to the bore just ahead of the chamber. Do it on the bottom and have it vent into the stock. It's messy but can tame the high velocity ammo. Haven't done this with a carbine but have with a few Ruger MKII pistols.
Or, get a Ruger Charger with one of those sketchy "pistol braces".
 
..for that matter you could drill many vent holes, like compensator ports, wherever you want. You'd have to experiment with placement, size, and number of holes. At least 10-22 takeoff barrels are inexpensive.
 
The reason I am shortening the barrel is to be effective with a suppressor.
How does the porting affect the sound signature of the firearm?
What size hole is small? I think 1/16" is about as small as I have drill bits for. Not sure I can drill that small a hole in a barrel without breaking the bits.
I suppose I could fill the barrel with a Cerro safe plug and drill a bunch of "Small" holes. Then melt out the plug.
I wonder if a 1/16" hole is likely to plug or neck down with crud over time while venting dirty high pressure gas repeatedly?
 
A hole just forward of the chamber vents pressure.
Before you try anything, though, have you tried your suppressor without barrel mods?
A good, modern suppressor works quite well, even with bulk high velocity ammo.
 
Not mine, but:
"
"The other answers have adequately covered the fact that simply drilling holes will make the weapon’s report louder, but I’m going to add a bit about a more obscure technique that involves porting a barrel to decrease velocity.

A standard suppressor will not have any meaningful effect on the velocity of a bullet, all it does is corral the escaping gasses to reduce the report. If the bullet leaves the muzzle at a supersonic velocity, it will make a sonic ‘crack’ sound as long as it is moving faster than the speed of sound. This sonic crack is usually eliminated by using subsonic ammunition, but a downside of this is that now you have different ammunition types for the same round and therefore conflicting logistical systems.

With the Heckler & Koch MP5SD(SD stands for Schalldämpfer, German for suppressor) , HK wanted a way to make the 9x19mm Parabellum round* subsonic without using specialty ammunition. Their solution was to port the barrel down its entire length so that the gas pressure was reduced during firing. This causes a lower force on the bullet and lower acceleration, leading to a reduced muzzle velocity. The gas vented from these ports is captured in an aluminum sleeve around the barrel and allowed to slowly escape. The forward portion of the barrel has baffles like a traditional suppressor to help slow the expansion of the hot gas.

*Standard 9x19mm loads have velocities around 400 m/s out of the MP5’s 225mm barrel. The speed of sound at sea level is only 343 m/s, meaning that a standard MP5 shooting 9x19mm ball ammo will be significantly supersonic. The MP5SD shows muzzle velocity decreases of 16 to 26% compared to a standard MP5, giving the MP5SD a muzzle velocity between 336 and 296m/s.

Below is an early diagram of the MP5SD barrel, showing the ported section to slow the bullet and the baffled section to slow the escaping gas (the barrel in the diagram is pointing left)."
 
If you are going to all this trouble, you could form 1 the entire gun and create an integrally suppressed barrel with porting down the barrel as the above poster mentioned. Or you could go one step further and just buy an integrally suppressed barrel for your 10/22. What you are looking to do seems needlessly over complex and just trouble waiting to happen. I haven't looked into many integral barrels, but I imagine a few are set up to reduce velocity as you are looking for. You could also look into using wipes for your rifle. they are a legal minefield, but it's possible. With the work you are already proposing, wipes would be a far easier course of action. and if you use something the size of a 9mm suppressor on a .22 I think you'd be far better off just keeping the .22 supersonic through a .22 suppressor.
 
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