It’s a weird thing, the North American firearms industry. Some guns are so popular they’re practically immortal, with factories around the world turning out copycats. Other guns that are quite interesting, and probably more fun to shoot, are cast the wayside. Here are three rimfires that I’d like to see come back into production, if only the dollars and cents made sense …
Twenty-twos @ TFB:
Winchester Model 62
Pump-action .22s were big before the Marlin Model 60, Ruger 10/22 and Savage Model 87 made semi-autos the standard. Pump-actions could shoot pretty fast compared to bolt-actions, falling-block actions or even lever-actions of the early 20th century, and handle a wider range of ammo, including .22 Short. All the major manufacturers had one in their lineup, but the most popular to this day is probably the Winchester Model 62.
Based on a design that evolved all the way from the Model 1890 rimfire rifle, the Model 62 was a John Browning and Matthew Browning design originally. Between the Model 1890, Model 1906 and the Model 62, which ended production in 1958, Winchester made roughly two million of these rifles. Many were used in shooting galleries, where they earned the nickname “gallery guns.” Rossi sells a sort-of clone today under that name, but it is nothing like their older pump-action .22, which was a pretty faithful copy of the Winchester rifle (and who knows how many of those Rossi sold; they were in production until very recently).
The Model 62 and its clones and predecessors were very fun to shoot, especially since any one I’ve handled has lacked a disconnector switch. This meant you could hold the trigger down and shoot as fast as you could pump rounds through the gun; my cousin owned one as a kid, and it was the first rifle I ever fired. The slamfire certainly made an impression on all of us at that time!
I later owned my own Rossi copy of the Winchester, and did enjoy shooting it a lot, but the crude sights were not to my liking and I eventually moved the rifle on after about a decade of ownership (a dumb move, in retrospect; despite the oddball dovetail on the Rossi rifles, I could have figured some replacement sight eventually).
Besides the janky plastic-stocked Rossi Gallery Gun, you can also buy a Henry H3 Frontier pump-action rifle. It’s built to a better standard, but is not as well-regarded as the old Winchester design (the Henry is an adaptation of their design). I wish someone would bring the Model 62 back; I can’t imagine why Uberti or one of those other companies hasn’t done so.
Charter Arms Explorer
Speaking of Henry, I wish they’d dust off the old Explorer pistol design and rejuvenate it! This one should be really easy, because the Explorer is just a short-barreled variation of the AR-7 rifle. Henry’s current-production AR-7 is an excellent update of this old Eugene Stoner design. They could apply the same changes (an updated barrel alignment lug, in particular) to the handgun design and I am sure they’d sell reasonably well. The older Explorer was plagued by quality control, but in my experience, the latest-production AR-7 has no such woes.
For thoughts on the original Explorer pistol, see Sam’s write-up here. He wrote, “ I do not think this is a great rimfire handgun. It is picky after a low round count and is pretty obviously cheaply made but I love it. When it works, it is fun because it is strikingly different from all other 22 handguns on the market.” So why not bring the pistol back under the Henry name? If they could sell it for roughly the same price as the S&W Victory, or less, they’d certainly have interest from handgun plinkers.
Savage Model 87
The Savage Model 87 semi-auto/bolt rifle is forgotten by all but working-class gun geeks, but once upon a time, they sold a bajillion of these rifles. Along with the Savage name, they also sold them under department store brands, and in a wide range of configurations—the Model 85 version had a box magazine, and some variants of the rifle were semi-auto only. They were all the same basic rifle, though, and this one holds a soft spot in my heart because it was the very first gun I bought with my own money.
The version I had was the classic Model 87A that had a long 24-inch barrel, a tube magazine, and the “gills” cut into the left-hand side of the receiver. These slots were supposed to vent waste carbon and other scrap, helping your gun run more smoothly. And there was a round hole bored into that side of the receiver as well, which you could push the action’s bolt knob into. This converted the rifle into a straight-pull action. Thus, you had a semi-auto that ran well on standard .22LR shells, but you could also feed the rifle a diet of subsonics or .22 Shorts and still have a repeater.
I think this was quite a clever design and wish I hadn’t sold mine off, especially because it was very accurate. Foolishly, I thought that all .22LR rifles were this dialed-in and got rid of it when I wanted some other rimfire. I quickly found that wasn’t the case, but the Savage was long-gone. I bought another one later, branded Revelation (the in-store brand of the Western Auto Supply Company). This one had no cuts or holes on the receiver, and was semi-auto only, but it shot well enough, but a friend needed an affordable .22 for his kid for Christmas, so off it went. I’m always on the lookout for another, but what I’d really like is for the Savage plant in Ontario, Canada, to start making a modern version of this rifle!
See Luke’s write-up on the classic gill gun here.
