VQ now has installation instructions for their CF 15-22 barrel on their website:

S&W M&P 15-22 Barrel Installation | Volquartsen Firearms

Tom

Thanks for posting those. I had called VQ hoping to get their feedback on how to install last Friday but their tech rep was out for the day. He called me back on this last Monday when he returned. I asked about the installation and he seemed a bit uninformed on the installation process. I did get mine installed over the weekend. It is none too tight but it shot well as I reported. I hope to test it again this weekend. Hopefully it will group as well and the point of impact won’t change to the heating/cooling cycle.

I made it to our Clubs' indoor range this morning. Sighted in my C-mores at 30 and 50 ft. 12 and 16 minute dots. Just shooting groups using my gear bag as a rest the VQ barrel shoots groups half the size of what I get with the stock barreled gun. At 50 ft 10 rd groups that look like a single .45 hole. Nice improvement but what's even better is the difference in how the gun feels with the lighter barrel. Major difference. I've got a club steel match and then Illinois State Rimfire Challenge coming up so I'll get to see how it works.

Installing the barrel I grabbed it GENTLY in my pine barrel blocks after tightening them on piece of 3/4" bar stock to "final form" them. Then I tightened the barrel nut also holding the upper. I used anti-seize on the barrel threads. I would definitely NOT USE the usual aluminum V blocks. I made a narrower block set so I could grab just the steel at the muzzle to tighten my muzzle brake.

More: I didn't shoot a large number of rds thru the VQ barrel, ~100, but all fired, fed and ejected just fine. Probably 80 rds of Fed Auto Match and 20 or so of Armscor 36 gr Hi-Velocity HP's.

This is exactly what I came here tonight for. thanks everyone. I'm a 10/22 guy by nature, and my older kids run 10/22 race guns in SteelChallenge. But my 8yo girl is getting the bug, so I nabbed her a pink camo model from a friend that already had a 3MOA CMore and CMC Flat trigger, dropped a minimalist stock on it, ordered a new 9.9oz Handguard from Manticore, and have been searching for info on the weight difference between the barrels: which TimCat51 supplied above.

looks like I am spending some money on that Volq barrel for her.

THANK YOU!

I think it was money well spent. I got to shoot our monthly bowling pin match with it saturday nite. The weight reduction makes it a much nicer gun. It's enough difference it takes a little getting used to. It changes your timing.

Gotta be careful about handguards. What I took off mine, including the steel barrel nut (it's all nylon tied together in my junk box) is 9.4 oz. I'm running Taccom3gs' CF ultralight handguard along with Tacticool22s' free float handguard converter barrel nut.