Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Custom Rifles & Wildcats Ruger Model 77 as a “faux” Pre-war German Sporter

Sorry for the redirect - the original idea for this rifle started in the Hunting Rifles forum so that's where I posted the main thread but I figured folks in the Custom Rifles forum might appreciate this as well.

The real thread

I like it!

I think that is very nice. GD

really nice !

Nice looking rifle.

Very nice rifle. Looks real good!

The guy is an artist hard to believe what a transformation removing a couple of ounces of wood can do in the right hands. I have attempted to do this a couple of times but with nowhere near the fine results of Rogers work. The finish is very well done too no obvious clues that it is not legitimately aged. I have also done this on muzzle loaders and antique furniture with mixed results and a few real disasters. I refinished one birch stock so many times I finally left it almost black from the Aqui Fortus as it looked fake otherwise. Final result was it looked like it was in a fire. I would like to see what he could do with a nice board of wood.

Really nice!

What a transformation! A really classy looking rifle.

Unfortunately he doe's not do stock profiling from a blank. Too bad as all my factory stocks are pretty bland and not worth the expense.
He did say he would re-work an already profiled stock so that may be an option. He got back to me very promptly.

You could always send him a bland factory stock, have him skip the finishing and checkering and have it duplicated with a nice walnut blank. Not a cheap option but nothing in the "Custom Rifles" forum can be tied to common sense.

The sky's the limit but Roger's purpose is to create a custom rifle at a certain price point. From his website:

"We start with your rifle and artfully refashion the stock into the slender, graceful form of those beautiful rifles of the late 19th and early 20th Century which initially inspired Mr. Ruger to create the No. 1, No. 3, and Model 77 rifles. Then we re-checker the stock at 20 - 22 lines per inch and restore the all-weather factory-type "Hunter" finish. The cost is a mere fraction of the cost of restocking your rifle and the result is a Trophy Rifle that is sure to become an heirloom"

The basic price is $750 but one can add case hardening, special finish, fancier checkering etc. etc. etc. and boost the price way up there. Some of his stuff such as case hardening and checkering is farmed out to one or more folks. Plus I get the impression that he doesn't want to get bogged down on any one project but can turn these around within a fairly reasonable time frame so it has to be already a drop in or extremely close fit for your rifle, like 98% or so since inletting by hand is time consuming and he'd have to charge a lot more.

I started out this project by getting a completely inletted but unfinished Winchester Super Grade stock that had very fancy wood and would have made up into a beautiful rifle. He could have reworked the pistol grip and forearm for that and then applied a finish but unfortunately it had a drop at comb and heel way too high for these purposes. So then I was going to send him respectively a factory M70 Fwt which had especially nice factory wood but the same limitations - very little drop to begin with. Then I looked at an MRC 1999 but it has a Boyd's stock and they route a very large channel in the forend, so deep that he would have been cutting into air to try to thin the forearm enough. But even then he said he could work something out with an ebony tip inletted into the gap of the channel. It would be "tricky" in his words but he thought he could make it work.

As it turned out the gods were smiling on me and presented me the opportunity to buy this factory Ruger with a nice piece of wood which, since he specializes in Rugers, was a perfect fit for the project.

I certainly can't speak for what all Roger is capable of but if a fellow had an already shaped stock in the raw - i.e. not just rough shaped - and it was a drop in fit or needed at most a small bit of finish inletting he could probably work with it to make up something for you. He's very responsive, just give him a call or send an email to ask.

Jim:

I might have missed this, but does he put a front sight on a rifle without one?

Thanks

RM

Heck of a makeover - very nice!

Yes, he will install front and rear sights although those are extra cost and you'd have to discuss with him what you'd want, either a barrel band type or a regular ramp. Mine came with the front sight so that was a plus.