IMO owning numerous Renegades and Hawkins rifles, the Hawkins is by far a more comfortable rifle to shoot. Now don't get me wrong, I love my Renegades. BUT because of the design of the stock, the Renegade being a straight working stock and the Hawkins having a cheek piece (are they called Monte Carlo.. never could understand why), when shooting heavy loads the Hawkins if far more shooter friendly.

If you were to shoot lets say 20 heavy charges out of a Renegade and a Hawkins. At the end of the day, my right facial cheek is sore, shooting the Renegade. It has been beat up by that straight working stock. Doing the same shooting with the Hawkins, you will find much less discomfort in the facial cheek area from the Monte Carlo stock of the Hawkins rifle. Now this is just my experience. In fact a friend was shooting 426 grain conical bullets with 100 grains of Pyrodex RS out of my Renegade and after 2 shots, refused to shoot anymore. He said it hurt his face. The same load, out of my Hawkins rifle did not seem to bother him. It has to be the stock.

The .50 caliber Renegade is still 1 inch on the flats for thickness. They are a heavy barrel, and two inches shorter then the Hawkins. The Hawkins while 2 inches longer is 15/16th thick. This decreases the weight of the barrel. Also that 2 inch difference I find no problem to deal with. In the .54 caliber the barrels are the same thickness, but still the Hawkins is 2 inches longer. And the weight to me does not matter.

The newer Renegades, called the Renegade Hunter has a single trigger. The Hawkins still has the double set triggers. I like the single trigger rifle, but for target shooting and setting a shot in the field when I have time, that set trigger is a real advantage if you know how to use them and don't get excited. So the old Renegades still have double triggers.

Both are great rifles, and both will serve you well. Other very comfortable rifles to shoot and very well made is a Lyman Trade Rifle. It is just a nice comfortable rifle to shoot. I like them a great deal. And they are much cheaper in price then the T/C line of rifles. I have a Lyman Trade rifle flintlock and it is one of my favorite rifles to shoot. The T/C New Englander is a meat and potatoes rifle, but nice to shoot and well made. And then you have the Black Mountain Magnum by T/C and of course the PA Hunter is a nice rifle to shoot.

Its hard to decide what to purchase sometimes. So I suggest get them all and then let them sort it out..