Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Rimfires OK "Old Timers" - learn me up some....

They made it...but if I'm not mistaken, they no longer make it, what is out there is all there is. I know where an 1903 is sitting right now and I just haven't pulled the trigger due to the ammo. As cheap as I have found it is 17 bucks plus shipping. I'll hold out for a nice '63.

Old school .22s are a bunch of fun. I've been having a good time with this old Winder. CCI Target Shorts are head shot accurate and quiet as a mouse fart.

Gotta love it.

550-1s are great fun too. Haven't found a round mine won't function with, including CB Shorts.

Oh my...

I want.

If'n I ever lose my faculties PennDog get's that one. I'm not planning that tho!

Rats...
I never did like PennDog.

Who is he?

Ahhh.......that would be me - the one whose been lusting after that rifle ever since FB posted a picture of that beautiful, beautiful rifle many years ago😄

Killerv - you are correct. I thought they were still making that ammo, guess I should have bought more when I had the chance!

PennDog

I have a particular fondness for the Mossberg 46B one of which my dad bought at a farm sale back in 1956 or so for a grand total of five bucks. I grew up with that rifle plinking at stuff around the farm. I finally gave it to a nephew for a wedding present. He was more than happy to get Grandpa's gun.

Meanwhile I realized that I missed it so much that I decided I needed another so found one identical to it on Gunbroker. Was pleasantly surprised that it would do one half to one inch groups at fifty yards with just about anything I fed it.

Some of those old beaters are still good for something after all.

Well, okay. Maybe I could be next after you? You know, just in case of an alien abduction or you decide to sail off to Tahiti with some Polynesian Princess?

Sorry, I didn't see your post. I have 3 Model37s left. The one that I bought from Mike Walker is the most accurate that I own.

Found this thread after getting back from hunting. I'm a cheap bastid most of the time but appreciate old blue and walnut, american made rifles in my safe. Besides the couple splurges I made on 40X's, 52 B's, and a 52C (when mama wasn't watching), most of my stuff is pretty pedestrian- but very well made and excellent shooters to boot.

Hard to differentiate by ability to shoot because they all seem to shoot about the same on any given day if I do my part and feed them the right ammo- but here would be my list to watch for, especially at pawn shops, LGS, and other unsuspecting places where you might find a decent deal.
Winchester 69A- later ones have a groove top, all of them are available with excellent aperture sights if you are lucky enough to find one. My last two have Lyman 57 EW sights on them and they are excellent but scopes bring out the best with my old eyes
Winchester 75 Target and Sporter. Both shoot very well and the sporter is very light and well adorned with checkering and usually very nice wood. The 69A and 75 share the same action and trigger.
Winchester 72A- basically a 69A that is tube fed as opposed to magazine fed.
Winchester 9422 in several different configurations and the Marlin 39A are terrific lever actions and tons of fun to shoot. Henry and several others make lever actions the look somewhat like them, but if you pick up the Marlin and Winchester and work the actions and then the Henry and other look-alikes, you'll only look at the Winchesters and Marlins from then on.
Remington 541S and 541T- beautifully made rifles when Remington still cared about those things with excellent wood and handle exceptionally well. Both of mine are capable of very fine shooting- some days will give my 52B a run for it's money at 50 yards.
Remington 581, 582, 580 in the order I would put them in. The 581 is mag fed, 582 is tube fed IIRC, and the 580 is single shot.
Remington 5 teen rifles- 510, 511, 512, 513, 514
Mauser, Walther, Erma, and other German .22 trainers can be found for decent prices if you are very lucky and are all very good shooters.

There are lots of others, but these are my favorites to shop for. I would love to have a nice Anschutz or Sako, but they are just a little bit out of my budget and I'm having plenty of fun trying to keep these kids happy. My buddy owns the Remington teens and they are very good shooters- I haven't gotten that far yet....

If you budget is in the market for Remington 37's, 40X/40XB, or the Winchester 52's, the list gets much longer.....


Bob

Yep, the Rem 582 I bought about 50 years ago is still pretty accurate. Back in those days the local hardware store sold Hodgdon 22s in 500 count bricks for seems like 8 bucks. It was the most accurate in this rifle I could find, with Super-X coming in a close 2nd. Many a time I got in trouble for not getting chores done fast enough, burning through a brick a month can slow a guy down somewhat.

I just bought another LH 581.

Actually, there are few .22's from the 20th century that don't rate ownership by gun cranks. A couple I've studiously avoided were Nobles, Floberts, and Quackenbushes. Even they have their place in the overall scheme of things.

A neat pump design that simply doesn't work worth a tinker's dam (at least the couple I owned) was the Stevens Visible Loader. Interesting and innovative from nigh on 100 years ago, it has a universal reputation for unreliability. Nickname: "The Miserable Loader." In their defense I've heard of a couple that were dead reliable, but I never saw one like that.

Another neat old autoloader that does work reliably was the Savage 6/Stevens 87- what's called the "click clack repeater". (The bolt stays retracted if you hold back the trigger and releases when the trigger is released- takes some getting used to, but rapid fire is no problem with one afterwards.) They also have a feature whereby the bolt knob can be manipulated to lock the bolt for single shot use. Kind of hard to describe, you have to see one and play with it to fully understand it. Mine shoots like a young target rifle.

Oh, now you suck!

I'll post a photo of it when it gets in.

Look forward to it. Where the heck did you find that one? NEVER see them in the LGS's or pawn shops around here.

Well since it isn’t mine I am more than willing to give it to you when I leave with that Polynesian Princess😄

PennDog

Excellent!