Remington Model 24 in .22 Short.Quick history: This little beast was made from 1922 to 1935, and is based on the(you DO know who designed that, don't you? [/Tam]) Browning patent. Made in both .22LR and Short(some parts are not interchangeable), it came in five grades, from Standard to Premier. The LR model holds ten rounds, the Short fifteen. I had a chance to fire one before, and liked it, so when I ran across this one...
Remington says they made a little over 130,000 of these in both cartridges; more of the LR seem to have survived, I suspect because so many of the Shorts were bought as gallery guns and were used to death. This one has the marks that indicate it was a gallery piece, but it survived.
Took it to the range this morning(after a minimum cleaning) and tried it out. Recoil, as you might expect, is almost not there. Good trigger, breaking clean and light, and it placed the shots where aimed; I'll wait for any fine adjustments and groups till I have a solid rest. Had a few failures of the empty to clear the action; some semi-autos can be picky about ammo(all I had was some old Winchester Super-X), but there was also the possibility a serious detail-strip and cleaning would take care of it. Remember the 'used to death' part? Got home, and while disassembling it the recoil spring broke, right in the middle; from the looks of it it was kinked at some point and has been working up to the fracture ever since. Not a big problem, as springs are available. And something of a testimony to the spring: from the gunk inside it's been probably decades since it was actually cleaned, which means the thing kept working for unknown years after the kink. Considering that according to the date codes(which can be found here) this was made in 1931...
It's a fine little rifle, and I'm going to enjoy being the caretaker for a while.
6 comments:
That's a neat looking rifle; never had a dedicated .22 short rifle, but it looks like it would be plain fun with cans and such.
Ah... the Wanenmacher show. Surely during that show the Expo Square Quick Trip Center is transformed into the Cathedral of John Moses Browning. I worshiped both days, and was rewarded for my steadfastness with a sweet Ishapore Enfield. Very clean, great bore, all matching, awaiting a thorough safety check and a christening before taking her for a test drive.
I've heard that rifles actually chambered for .22 Short- as opposed to firing in a LR-chambered one- can be amazingly accurate. Considering the amount of lead that's gone through this barrel I'm not looking for 'amazing', but I think it'll do real well for cans. And golf balls and such.
I once read, back when they first hit the market, that those Ishapore rifles were one of the best deals around, good on you for finding one.
Congratulations on the little Browning.
I'll email you a pdf on winding your own replacement springs.
Thinking about your lathe, you might want to try this link, it looks more like the pictures you posted than the Atlas craftsman lathes do.
http://www.lathes.co.uk/craftsman/index.html
Seem to have lost your email address. There is a link to the spring making distructions at the end of this thread:
http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?p=5771419
Yeah, mine's the AA 109 series.
New address is elmtreeforge at att point net.
Damn, something's wrong with the High Road server right now, have to check it later
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