"Assault weapon" California style
Posted 20 January 2007
I have a lot of evil shotguns in the office, but no evil semi-automatic centerfire rifles because they are illegal in California. However, for some reason that is not clear to me, evil semi-automatic rimfire rifles are not subject to California’s “assault weapon” ban.
I have been interested in those 10/22 stocks from people like Rhineland Arms and RB Precision, since I make stocks for shotguns and are always looking around at other folks’ approaches.
The Rhineland Arms stock is especially intriguing. Looking at the pictures, it didn’t seem possible that it could be fully machined from aluminum and sold – through distribution – for $100. I’m here to tell you there’s no way I could get something like this made for under $40 (my necessary cost level if I was to sell through the channels at an MSRP of $100). Machine shop rates must be pretty low in Texas.
Anyway, even rimfire stuff can get pretty spendy. Here’s a run-down of the costs:
| $ 234.00 | Ruger 10/22 (including DROS) |
| 194.95 | VLTOR Weapons Stock |
| 109.95 | Nikon 4×32 Rimfire Scope |
| 95.00 | Rhineland Arms Stock |
| 89.99 | Adams & Bennett Blued Bull Match Barrel |
| 80.00 | Mesa Tactical Adapter Mount Standard Profile Picatinny Rail, 7-1/2” (2) |
| 79.95 | Picatinny Scope Mount & High Rings for Ruger 10/22 |
| 68.49 | Harris Bipod |
| 49.95 | Leupold QRW Rings |
| 24.00 | Ladder Rail Covers (2) |
| 15.95 | Butler Creek Lens Caps |
| 7.00 | A2 grip |
| - | Uncle Mike’s Dome Stud |
| $ 1,049.23 | Total |
The original plan was to build a sort of scout carbine with iron or red dot sights, but the stock elevation is too high to use the rifle with iron sights. So I settled on a sniper. This meant the side rails (my own Mesa Tactical rails that happen to have the same screw size as well as 1” screw pattern as the Rhineland stock) were superfluous (don’t need lights on a sniper), but after digging around in a box in the shop I found the rail guards that actually provide a very comfortable and firm grip.
The top sight Picatinny rail is by Volquartsen, but Hornet Products bundled it with a set of cheap Chinese rings I threw away as soon as I opened the package. So the rail alone should be a lot less than $80 if you can find it (if Mesa Tactical made a rail like that it would retail for about $45 to $50).
I didn’t buy the VLTOR stock for this project; I have a number of AR-15 stocks laying around here. Ditto the A2 grip. I also snagged an Uncle Mike’s sling stud from another rifle I had around here, which I needed to mount the bipod.
You can see the kinds of groups I was getting at 50 yards when I took the rifle out to the range. I am very impressed with this performance, considering everything inside the receive is factory (my other 10/22 shoots better than this, but that was after replacing much of the action).
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