Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Rimfires RJ Renner 10/22 Rhinelander

Posted on this before but the weather finally let me get out and take some pictures of a 10/22 that RJ Renner turned into a pretty neat design based on a German pre-war Sporter style. This started off as a Ruger Model 1150 Sporter with 22" barrel and birch wood stock. I wanted the longer barrel since I'm enjoying shooting with peep sights again but need to get the front sight out far enough for these old eyes. The birch stock certainly wasn't worth investing in so I found an older style Ruger walnut factory Sporter stock on gunbroker priced very cheaply since it had a lot of dings and overall wear.

Roger and I exchanged emails about how to incorporate the slender pre-war design around the rather fat receiver, especially blending gracefully into the narrow forend. In the end I just said, "do your thing", and he did, which was definitely the right choice. In addition to making the forend much more slender, he did his usual bit of lowering and narrowing the comb for open sights and really thinning out that fat pistol grip.

The rifle looks good in the pics and that's fine, but the main reason for doing this kind of project is the change in handling. I really wish there was some way to convey what a delightful little wand this turned into. Not that a Ruger 10/22 is a club, but their stocks do have a lot of wood. The finished product weighs 5 pounds even as you see it but feels a pound or more lighter, it comes up and mounts perfectly with the sight picture centered and looking right at your target. The difference in handling and the "feel" of that svelte forend and pistol grip in your hands is just incredible.

Not going to waste much more time so on with the fence post pics.

Right and left profiles.






Some perspective that shows off the long barrel - that was really the key that let Roger do this. A shorter barrel would have looked too chunky with the stock design. More on that shark fin front sight later.





Ruger used to use some nice wood, but I will credit Roger's finishing to really bring it out.




Continued....

That is one heck of a nice rifle! Gonna be prefect for a walkabout.

Stunning. It sure looks better than my factory stock DSP. I like the 10/22s, but I wish they shot better out of the box. One of these days, I'm gonna get a Green Mountain 22" pipe for it.

Wow, very nice, Jim.

Some stock details.

Since the area around the receiver is so fat and we wanted a very slender forend, Roger put "faux" panels into the wood. Those sort of emulate the old German design but allow the forend to be narrow without a drastic angle.

This pic and the next also show off the excellent recheckering job.




As part of making the pistol grip drastically thinner he contoured the stock around the trigger, this gives a nice transition and allows more room for the trigger finger.




Roger was having a time transitioning the top of the square backed receiver into the grip so he left this panel. Normally I'm not into personalizing rifles but since this one won't be sold in my lifetime Roger put my stylized initials here, which is pretty cool.

This also gives a good view of the Skinner "860 Reliable" sight. It's unobtrusive but solid as can be. I like the hex head adjustment locking screws, you can really torque them down to keep everything in place.

That's why I had to use that tall Skinner blade front sight - the taper of the long barrel and way the 10/22 receiver is higher than the barrel anyway required a .725" tall front sight. Which reminds me - shout out to Skinner. The front sight is custom made with a narrow base and tall blade. I called on a Monday to order it and it was in my mailbox that Thursday. Great company to deal with.




Does it shoot? Yes, it does. Or rather, I'm not unhappy with the way I can shoot it.

To get the obvious out of the way, yeah, I missed. This was the first group with the original front sight to see how much correction would be needed. That group is 10 shots into exactly .400" with CCI AR Tactical ammo. Front hand rested over a bag.



Once it was sighted on paper at 25 yards I fired at a 4" ringer set at 75 yards. The goal was to hit the center of the target with a 6 o'clock hold, that square profile Skinner blade and the round target make a perfect sight picture. A few shots to dial in elevation then three shots for record. The group looked good so I tempted fate and fired 4 more. Fate didn't screw me, the circled group is seven shots in 1.25" fired from the kneeling position. I'm happy with the way the rifle shoots and most especially with the way I can still shoot it with a peep sight and 65 year old peepers.



Again, this is a completely stock barreled action and trigger. I'm sure a high power scope, aftermarket trigger and a big fat barrel would out group this, but I have another fat barreled 10/22 for that. This is for fun.


And that's it. Hope you enjoyed the pictures and story.

Leaving off with a BIG shout out once again to Roger Renner of RJ Renner. He gets the credit for this, I just supplied the raw materials and said go for it. He is the kind of custom smith I've been looking for for over 25 years. Very friendly to talk to with a wealth of firearms knowledge and always willing to talk. He plans his work, tells you when he will be ready for it, he's ready at that time and gets the work back to you very quickly. I've had him do five projects and most of them take right around 4 weeks, the longest one took 6 weeks and only because his checkering guy was on vacation.

Now that’s how a real rifle should look. Just my .02, ......opinions may vary

Nice set up, and, good shooting !

Thanks for the nice comments, fellows. After he did up my Model 77 .30-06 as a pre-war German sporter I've had this idea in the back of my head for over a year to do up a 10/22 in the same way. At times it seemed kind of goofy to put this effort into what is "only a 10/22" but I already knew the rifle was accurate and figured what the heck, life is too short not to get what you want.

As mentioned above, Roger has done five projects for me including a No. 1 English stalking rifle and redoing two somewhat fat American Classic stocks on stainless Model 77's into very svelte and sleek looking Classics, and they all turned out just great, but I have to say the original blued 77 and this 10/22 in the German style are my sentimental favorites.

Very nice.

Beautiful!

Very classy transformation.

That is the classiest 10/22 I've ever seen!
If you don't mind, what was the cost of the build?
Where did you source the barrel?
Damn, now I'm drooling on the keyboard, hope it doesn't sh*%))>";...........

Except for the sights and front sling swivel stud, nothing was changed out of the Ruger factory rifle - barrel, action and trigger group are all OEM parts. The stock is a used older Ruger walnut sporter style bought off of gunbroker. The forward stud inletting, stock reshaping, finishing and complete checkering was about twice the cost of the basic rifle.

Beautiful rifle. Never knew 10/22s could be had with 22" barrels.

This is a Model 1150 "Lipsey's Distributor Exclusive". Basically it's the blued version of what used to be called a "Walmart Special" which came in stainless. Both rifles come with beechwood stocks.

Ruger Model 1150

What my rifle used to look like:







Ruger Model 1149

Very nice. That's definitely the best looking 10/22 I've ever seen.

Learn something every day. I didn't know Ruger had made Soprters with 22" barrels or in a non walnut stock.
That is a beautiful gun Jim.

I had bought a 10/22 in the early 70's that would hit my cheek with spent cases often enough to begin a flinch, sold it.
Not long ago I found a "Liberty" sporter I couldn't resist and it doesn't do that.

That’s a dandy! I’d be proud as hell every time I took it out of the safe...😎

that's about as cool as it gets, and it seems so affordable...

Got me thinking that I have an old 10-22 in a beat up walnut stock. Wonder if there's a sporter 22" barrel available for it?

Green Mountain makes them in factory sporter contour. Great shooter, I believe the also have a 24"