Riomouse911
Member
When I was a kid my Grandparents had a good sized cattle and sheep ranch in the Texas hill country. I spent every summer there from age two until 19, in my free time traipsing around the canyons and upper pastures in pursuit of fox squirrels with a pump-action Winchester 1890 .22 LR and a handful of 40 grain Federal .22 cartridges. I killed quite a few for stew over the years, but the best part was just being out and about with a reliable old rifle.
My Grandparents, the ranch and the Winchester 1890 are long gone, but I’ve always had a soft spot for pump action .22’s. I’ve never owned one of my own but a recent article in a gun magazine about the older Interarms-imported Rossi 62 pump piqued my interest enough to go out and find one. I did find a nice one in great mechanical shape for $425.00. It only has a couple spots of thin bluing on the left side of the barrel about 4” back from the muzzle and a few handling scratches in the metal. The barrel is octagon, like the 1890’s was, and it breaks down with a screw on the side of the receiver like the 1890 did, too. The bore and action were really clean, it looks like this gun was bought, shot a little bit and then put away for ages.
This gun, a Rossi 62sa, is a copy of the later Winchester 62, the descendant of John Brownings 1890 and the later 1906, and appears to be a pretty faithful copy at that. The action is really smooth and quick to cycle, plus one could “slam fire” by holding down the trigger of one so desires.
The barrel is 23” long and the tubular magazine holds 14 LR cartridges. (It shoots S,L and LR but LR is all I have on the shelf.) The bluing is really nice and the wood has the common-for-the-time high gloss finish without a bunch of dings.
The top of the receiver opens up to extract-eject so there aren’t any drilled or tapped screw holes to mount a scope up top. The sights are a simple dovetail front and a square-notch rear with an elevation ladder. It came set just past midway, so I left it as is to see where it would hit.
Now it’s not a target rifle, and I left my dedicated shooting glasses at home so I was a bit handicapped focusing on the front sight, but at 25 yards slow-fire offhand I didn’t do too badly with standard velocity 40 gr solid and a 36 gr HP high velocity load. The sights were hitting pretty high and right, plus I chunked a few flyers, but with another range session I should be able to bring the shots closer to poi (center Orange bull).
All in all it was a decent day. Holding, loading and firing this new-to-me rimfire allowed me to hop in the wayback machine to a time and place where I was utterly carefree... if only for a little while.
Anyone else have a “time machine” rifle that brings back youthful memories of long summer days perforating tin cans?
Stay safe.
My Grandparents, the ranch and the Winchester 1890 are long gone, but I’ve always had a soft spot for pump action .22’s. I’ve never owned one of my own but a recent article in a gun magazine about the older Interarms-imported Rossi 62 pump piqued my interest enough to go out and find one. I did find a nice one in great mechanical shape for $425.00. It only has a couple spots of thin bluing on the left side of the barrel about 4” back from the muzzle and a few handling scratches in the metal. The barrel is octagon, like the 1890’s was, and it breaks down with a screw on the side of the receiver like the 1890 did, too. The bore and action were really clean, it looks like this gun was bought, shot a little bit and then put away for ages.
This gun, a Rossi 62sa, is a copy of the later Winchester 62, the descendant of John Brownings 1890 and the later 1906, and appears to be a pretty faithful copy at that. The action is really smooth and quick to cycle, plus one could “slam fire” by holding down the trigger of one so desires.
The barrel is 23” long and the tubular magazine holds 14 LR cartridges. (It shoots S,L and LR but LR is all I have on the shelf.) The bluing is really nice and the wood has the common-for-the-time high gloss finish without a bunch of dings.
The top of the receiver opens up to extract-eject so there aren’t any drilled or tapped screw holes to mount a scope up top. The sights are a simple dovetail front and a square-notch rear with an elevation ladder. It came set just past midway, so I left it as is to see where it would hit.
Now it’s not a target rifle, and I left my dedicated shooting glasses at home so I was a bit handicapped focusing on the front sight, but at 25 yards slow-fire offhand I didn’t do too badly with standard velocity 40 gr solid and a 36 gr HP high velocity load. The sights were hitting pretty high and right, plus I chunked a few flyers, but with another range session I should be able to bring the shots closer to poi (center Orange bull).
All in all it was a decent day. Holding, loading and firing this new-to-me rimfire allowed me to hop in the wayback machine to a time and place where I was utterly carefree... if only for a little while.
Anyone else have a “time machine” rifle that brings back youthful memories of long summer days perforating tin cans?
Stay safe.
![IMG_7165[1].JPG](/data/attachments/941/941989-4b1bb7acb6654480df650f6d5b10d12a.jpg)
![IMG_7167[1].JPG](/data/attachments/941/941991-ea0d8feb00804222e1409f49f5b3b373.jpg)
. No collector value but dang is it fun to shoot.
