# barrel for older Ruger MK semi-auto



## g19g26 (Apr 26, 2014)

Looking for suggestions on a threaded barrel to fit my older Ruger .22 semi-auto pistol. I've seen a few threaded barrels for the 22/45, will these fit my frame? Looking to put a can on my pistol.

Any first hand experience with this?

TIA


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## Steve M1911A1 (Feb 6, 2008)

River?


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## g19g26 (Apr 26, 2014)

Sorry, auto-spell.
I should mention that the pistol is a stainless 5.5 inch barrel.


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## SGWGunsmith (Jan 8, 2015)

g19g26 said:


> Looking for suggestions on a threaded barrel to fit my older Ruger .22 semi-auto pistol. *I've seen a few threaded barrels for the 22/45, will these fit my frame? * Looking to put a can on my pistol.
> 
> Any first hand experience with this?
> 
> TIA


Yes, they will. The 22/45 upper assemblies fit very well on any of the steel grip frames. Going the other way though can be an issue. When the 22/45 uppers are fitted to the Zytel grip frames the receptical on the 22/45 upper is smashed down a bit to tighten up the assembly.


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## Scorpion8 (Jan 29, 2011)

Look up Pac-Lite? Pistol Barrels ? Tactical Solutions. I have a similar one on one of my Buckmarks. Highly recommended.


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## DJ Niner (Oct 3, 2006)

I feel I should mention that swapping the barrel on a Ruger MK-I/II/III isn't as simple as doing it on a Browning Buckmark. The Buckmark barrels are attached to the frame with two screws, and come off fairly easily. The barrel on the above Ruger models are crush-fitted into the tubular upper receiver, and can't be unscrewed without a proper clamp/fixture and heat being applied. A new barrel will have to be "timed" by milling-off the shoulder to get it correctly located in the upper (depth and rotationally).

Because of the difficulty (and associated costs), most folks don't replace just the barrel on the Rugers, they replace the whole barrel-and-tubular-upper assembly. However, there is a minor problem with doing THAT, as well. Bill Ruger decided that the tubular upper should be the serial-numbered part of these pistols, so to buy another barreled upper, you have to do the same paperwork as buying another pistol (because that's what you are actually doing). So the Tactical Solutions Trail-Lite barrels for the Buckmarks are cheap, drop right in, and can be ordered from and delivered to your home, but the TS Pac-Lite barreled uppers for Ruger MK-I/II/III pistols are treated like a new gun, must be bought from (or transferred through) a licensed FFL dealer, and you have to do the same paperwork as buying a whole new gun. Which makes them slightly less popular, as you might imagine. I can actually buy a whole used Ruger pistol with a different barrel length for less than what some (many?) of the Pac-Lite barreled uppers cost. Which is what I just did a couple of weeks ago. But I waited two years for the model I wanted before it finally showed-up used, at a decent price, in a local shop.

Anyway, I wanted to make sure you knew the difference between ordering/installing a new barrel on a Ruger MK-I/II/III and other similar-but-different pistols. It's one of the few drawbacks to the Ruger, but many folks like me just use it as a reason to buy an entire second new-or-used pistol, so maybe it's not such a bad thing after all.

For installing a suppressor on a currently-owned Ruger MKI/II/II pistol, some folks just take the upper to a gunsmith and have the end of the existing barrel thinned and threaded, and the front sight moved back (hole re-drilled) or eliminated on the tapered models. Often this can be done by chucking the entire upper/barrel unit in a lathe, so removing the barrel is not required (check with the gunsmith first; not all 'smiths will want to do it that way, and how they choose to do it can greatly affect the cost of the modification).


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## JohnCEa (Jan 20, 2020)

I try that a year ago it fits in my frame well


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