Ruger Barrel Band.

[GordonBennett]

I’m thinking of buying a 10/22 and fitting a Magpul Hunter X22 stock which has an adjustable length of pull. I noticed that the barrel band is not transferred to the new stock. Is this band purely cosmetic?

[Daryll]

Thats a can of worms you've opened...!!

Many people (including me) say they're cosmetic, and the first thing they do is taken them off... if you think about the "free floating barrel" ideal, the band defeats that.
Its interesting that not all the 10/22 models have it... so it can't be that critical...

The other camp say that Ruger have been putting it on for many, many years, and if it wasn't critical they'd save a few cents by not putting them on...

If you're fitting a new stock that doesn't need the band... take it off...

If you were keeping the original stock and asking the same question, the only way to know is to shoot some groups with it on, then take it off and shoot some more groups, and see which works best.

[Sim G]

You won't need it on the X22 stock, don't worry about it.