Three years ago we featured a unique homemade reimagining of the popular 10/22 rifle. At the time the 11/22 OpenTop receiver was just the fevered dream of long-time TFB reader and fan Sebastian Unger from Austria. Today, he is happy to announce that along with Fletcher Rifle Works in the United States he is finally able to offer the 11/22 OpenTop receiver for sale to Stateside customers.

More 10/22 Articles on TFB:

• The New Grey Birch Solutions Fusion Receiver System
• The Rimfire Report: The Most Reliable Ruger 10/22 Magazines
• TFB’s Build Of The Week Series: Week 4: Doug M’s “Corona Light 10/22”

11/22 OpenTop Receivers are Coming to the USA via Fletcher Rifle Works

Sebastian made all of his prototypes and did all of his testings in his small garage/home workshop with a German milling machine from 1968 and a Chinese lathe. Since then, he has had made a lot of progress with the design as well as had some setbacks in actually getting the thing to market. Now he is happy to announce that his partnership with Fletcher Rifleworks which will be producing and selling the 11/22 OpenTop receiver.

For those that don’t know, the OpenTop receiver takes the original design of the 10/22 receiver and adds in a Picatinny rail as well as makes it a lot easier to get inside and clean the action without disturbing your optics setup and messing up your zero. The OpenTop 11/22 receivers can be pre-ordered now and will begin to ship at the end of July 2021 at a starting price point of $250. Sebastian says that the price could come down, however, due to the risk involved in introducing a completely new product to the market, Sebastian still feels that it is very affordable.

Description

Replacement receiver for Ruger® 10/22®

• Receiver and lid are CNC machined from solid billet aluminum, then black anodize finished.
• Pins, springs and detents are stainless steel.
• Allows for removal of bolt, extractor, firing pin without removing the trigger or separating from stock.

Sebastian is happy to have his product finally come to market and he has listened to your feedback, criticisms, and suggestions and taken them all into consideration and finally, after 4 years, the OpenTop 11/22 Reciever will be available.

Sebastian had a few words he wanted to share with everyone here at TFB as you’ve all served as both inspiration and help for him to accomplish his goals with the OpenTop 11/22:

Thank you very much to Pete and Luke from Thefirearmblog for supporting this project, that started in 2017 with pure enthusiasm and passion. Especially the first reports of Pete pushed this project a lot and helped me to get in touch with many people during the last years. I don’t have much reach, because I focused on development and not on posting fancy videos.

I also want to thank all the people that supported the project with their kind comments, shares and their critics that helped me to improve to receiver to its final form that is determined 100% by function. It was not easy to keep the motivation up while spending completely ridiculous amounts of time and money on prototypes, testing and the patent.

It started nearly 4 years ago with being annoyed by the cleaning procedure of the 10/22 and it needed several different design changes, getting rid of all the disadvantages, having finally a receiver that is so pleasing for myself, that it is my basic tuning for the Ruger 10/22 to change the receiver to my OpenTop ones.

I am very glad that finally a company in the USA – Fletcher Rifle Works – is producing my OpenTop 11/22 receivers, CNC machined from solid billets of 6061 Aluminium and Type 3 hard anodized for high longevity. The price will be USD 250,– at the beginning, which is very affordable considering the risk, that always comes with trying out something new.

The amount of testing that went into those receivers was ridiculous too, to make sure everyone is happy with it, so I am extremely excited to see what people will say, finally using the receivers for their own rifles.

Stay tuned to TFB for an upcoming testing and evaluation review of the 11/22 OpenTop Reciever.