I have been after this rifle for a couple years � even bought a couple other guns from him a while ago when he said he was �selling up to this one�. He still did not seem real enthusiastic about selling so I was not in a good bargaining position. This was at the CADA show and luckily Stever was over looking a Burgess shotgun or something or the other���.
A friend and I took the side plate off and then put the barrel & magazine back on and cycled some dummy rounds through it. This is a really unique action! It will only work with a rimmed cartridge. It also has quite a long pump stroke for a 22 - 1.812" compared to 1.75" for a 1903 and 1.562" for 25's and 29's. (all approximate dim.s). It�s not long enough that you would really notice though.
If you had seen the action work the following would make complete sense � hopefully it still makes some with just having the pictures -
There are two cartridge stops � one on the frame that allows a cartridge out of the magazine and one on the carrier that keeps the cartridge to be loaded toward the front of the carrier. The bottom of the carrier has a slot in it that goes almost to the front � the front part of this slot is not wide enough for the rim to pass through so the cartridge to be loaded rests on the rim with the bullet resting on the small area in front that is not slotted; the cartridge has to be long enough to bridge this distance, shorts are held by only about 1/16� of the bullet so this gun would probably not feed CB�s - they would probably flip bullet down in the carrier, go off as the action were closed, and take off one of your toes.
The bolt goes through the carrier, which is bored with minimum clearance for it � the bolt pushes the stop on the carrier out of the way as the cartridge is chambered and keeps it out of the way during extraction so that the round can go back past the loading position to where the slot is sized to pass the cartridge. The spring-loaded bar mounted to the top inside of the receiver then ejects the round down.
When the breech bolt is fully rearward there is a notch in the frame for the locking lug that allows it to rotate more which reveals more of the slot milled in it, this allows the slide arm to continue rearward (note the straight part of the slot in the breech bolt) � it�s in this movement that the carrier is dropped to pick up another cartridge. On closing the action the carrier is then fully raised again before the bolt moves forward.
The pin in front of the trigger quard is the action release and the hammer can be dropped as the action closes by pulling the trigger with the action open to the point that the breech block is fully retracted.
The previous owner never even cycled a single round through it so I bought it not knowing if it really worked! I could see that it had been shot though so I knew it had worked at one time.
Gene
