What Rides in the Truck, and What It Weighs

Introduction

There is already a deep dive about this rifle. It is Volume 11 of the .22 Rimfire series in the Firearms project, and it is called The Suppressed Takedown as a Backpacking Rifle. It is good, it is specific to this exact gun, and almost none of it applies here.

A rifle in a pack is a weight problem measured in ounces, carried for days, by a person who is never more than arm’s length from it. A rifle in a truck is a different animal entirely: it is measured in pounds against a payload budget that has no slack, it is stored rather than carried, it sits through months of daily heating and cooling in a box the owner is not looking at, and — the part nobody writes about — its storage location in Michigan is dictated by statute, not by convenience.

This dive is the truck version. Four volumes: what it weighs and where it goes, what the heat does, what the law requires, and what to feed it.

⭐ THE FINDING THAT ORGANISES THIS DIVE: the rifle package is not a payload problem. It is the first item on this truck whose storage location is set by two constraints that payload arithmetic cannot see — temperature and Michigan law — and, as it happens, both point at the same drawer.

1.1 The kit

The rifle is a Ruger 10/22 Takedown, stainless, 18.5 in barrel, and it is not stock:

Table 1 — The rifle is a Ruger 10/22 Takedown, stainless, 18.5 in barrel, and it is not stock

Component	Note
Ruger 10/22 Takedown SS/SYN, 18.5 in	Ruger lists the base 11100 at 4.6 lb, 37 in overall, 1:16 RH twist
Rimfire suppressor, titanium, 1/2×28	Out of production. Mack Brothers’ current rimfire can, the Vapor, is 4.3 oz and 5⅜ in — a fair size-class stand-in, not this can’s figure
Magpul Hunter X-22 stock, medium cheek riser	Replaces the factory synthetic; adds roughly a pound
Nikon P-Rimfire 2-7×32, BDC150, 1 in tube	½ MOA adjustments. Nikon exited riflescopes in 2019
UTG low-profile rail + TPS 0.785 in rings
Harris HBRMS 6–9 in swivel bipod with PodLoc	Plus a Magpul M-LOK bipod mount
KIDD bolt, firing pin, extractor	Factory Ruger sporting chamber retained
KIDD bolt buffer · KIDD silver/black Viton bolt handle	The buffer is the part that protects the receiver — see vol 4
KIDD single-stage trigger
KIDD guide rod and spring kit	Three recoil springs: standard, subsonic, 17 Mach 2
Volquartsen automatic bolt release

🔴 Every weight in that table except Ruger’s own 4.6 lb is published-spec or inference, and the rifle as configured is nothing like the 11100 Ruger weighed. A Hunter X-22, a 15.6 oz scope, rings, a rail, a bipod and a suppressor are all bolted to it. The as-built figure is very likely north of 8 lb and this dive is not going to invent it. Put the whole thing on a bathroom scale, both halves and the can together, and write the number here. It takes ninety seconds and it is the only honest way this row ever gets filled.

1.2 Where it rides

Taken down, in a canvas wrap, in the DECKED drawer.

That sentence is doing more work than it looks like. It is simultaneously:

• the coolest enclosed volume on the vehicle (vol 2),
• a configuration that satisfies Michigan’s vehicle-transport statute two different ways at once (vol 3), and
• the arrangement that keeps the suppressor threaded to the barrel half so the can never becomes a separate object to lose — which is Volume 11’s advice, and it survives the move from pack to truck intact.

⚠ The canvas wrap is not weather protection and should not be trusted as any. It keeps steel off HDPE and stops the two halves rubbing each other. It is not a dry bag, and a stainless rifle is corrosion-resistant, not corrosion-proof. If the drawer ever takes water — and drawers do, at a river crossing or through a bed rack in a downpour — the wrap holds it against the metal rather than shedding it.

1.3 The ammunition, and what it weighs

The storage scheme is settled in vol 2: indexed PETG trays for abrasion, inside one gasketed box with desiccant for moisture. The exact tray geometry is a make-a-few-and-measure problem and is deliberately open. The weight arithmetic is not, and it does not depend on the container:

Table 2 — The storage scheme is settled in vol 2: indexed PETG trays for abrasion, inside one gasketed box with desiccant for moisture. The exact tray geometry is a make-a-few-and-measure problem and is deliberately open. The weight arithmetic is not, and it does not depend on the container

One loaded .22 LR round	≈ 3.6 g
100 rounds	≈ 0.8 lb
300 rounds	≈ 2.4 lb
500 rounds	≈ 4.0 lb

⚠ Computed from bullet weight plus a typical case, priming and charge — not a manufacturer figure. Weigh a box on a reloading scale if the number matters. Indexed trays will add to this and a steel can would add several pounds more (vol 2), which is exactly why the container choice is a payload decision and not a preference.

⭐ The load-out is settled at 200 rounds — which is two 100-round plastic factory boxes of the chosen load (vol 4), in one Sheffield 12633 field box (vol 2). Call the whole stack roughly 3½–4 lb including the box, spare magazines, filler and desiccant. ⚠ The Sheffield’s empty weight is not published — weigh it and close this number. ⚠ And “not much” needs qualifying, because of where this build actually stands: the Weight and Balance dive reads 1,100 lb off the truck’s own Tire and Loading label, commits 879 lb to fixed equipment and two adults, and leaves 221 lb for everything else — against which the kit as planned already runs the truck to roughly 1,214 lb, or 114 lb over.

🔴 So the rifle and its ammunition are not being added to spare capacity. They are being added to an existing overage. Four pounds is a small share of the nominal budget and of the overage — and it is small precisely because the round count was decided deliberately. 🔴 The Sheffield holds about 225 in³ and a 200-round box fills roughly a tenth of it; a filled .30 cal box would be nearer 14 lb. ⭐ Decide the round count first and then size the container — the reverse is how a 4 lb decision quietly becomes a 14 lb one. That is not an argument against carrying it — it is an argument against carrying a brick out of habit. Fifty rounds plus a spare magazine is a more honest load-out than 500, and the difference is real weight on a truck that has none to give.

✅ One quiet benefit of moving off the sports-drink-bottle plan: the mislabelling hazard disappears entirely. A beverage bottle full of ammunition will eventually be picked up by a passenger, a child, or a first responder going through the truck at the worst possible moment. A gasketed ammunition box looks like exactly what it is. ⚠ Label the outer box anyway — it costs nothing and there is no argument on the other side.

1.4 The pistol

A Ruger Mark IV also rides, under a Michigan CPL. The choice between it and the Mark III is settled in vol 4 and the answer is not close, but the short version belongs here because it is a storage argument as much as a shooting one: the Mark IV has the one-button takedown, and a pistol that lives in a truck gets cleaned in the field, with grit in it, by someone who would rather be doing something else.

✅ Recall status: clear. Ruger recalled all Mark IV pistols built before 1 June 2017 — serials beginning 401 or WBR — because the pistol could fire when the safety was moved from a mid position to fire after the trigger had been pulled. Ruger states that serials beginning with 5 are post-recall production and unaffected. This pistol’s serial begins with 5. No action needed. Anyone reading this with a Mark IV of unknown vintage should go read the prefix right now; it is a thirty-second check against a genuine unintended-discharge mode.

1.5 What this changes upstream

It does not change the diagnosis, and that is the point worth recording. Roughly 8–10 lb of rifle, 7 lb of ammunition and a pistol is real weight, and it lands on a truck that is already 114 lb over its label. But it is not the cause — the Weight and Balance spine is unambiguous that the problem is the 879 lb of rack, tent, drawers and people, 80 percent of the budget and all of it already decided. Deleting the rifle entirely would recover roughly 17 lb of a 114 lb overage. It is a contributor, not a lever.

⚠ The lever remains where that dive puts it: the hardshell tent (45 lb) and water carried rather than filtered (up to 83 lb). Nothing in this dive changes that ranking, and nothing here should be read as permission to stop worrying about it.

⭐ So the rifle is an unusual entry on this build: an item whose interesting constraints are entirely non-weight. Everything else on this truck earns its place by surviving a payload argument. This one survives that argument easily and then runs straight into two constraints the payload spreadsheet has no column for. That is what the next two volumes are about.

References

• Ruger 10/22 Takedown, model 11100 — stainless, 18.5 in barrel, 4.6 lb, 37 in overall, 1:16 RH twist, ten-round rotary magazine.
• Mack Brothers Vapor rimfire suppressor — 100% titanium, 4.3 oz, 5⅜ in, rated .22 LR / .22 Mag / .17 HMR / 5.7×28. Used here only as a size-class reference; the can actually fitted is an earlier, out-of-production model.
• Ruger Mark IV recall — pistols made before 1 June 2017 affected, serial prefixes 401 and WBR; Ruger states serials beginning with 5 are later production and not affected.
• Weight and Balance, this project — the 221 lb truck-only budget and the 879 lb of fixed equipment these figures are measured against.
• .22 Rimfire, Volume 11, Firearms project — the backpacking treatment of this same rifle, which this dive deliberately does not repeat.