Why I love $50, 22RF rifles, a story of one such Beater

[Red Tornado]

.45 Guy, what kind of scope is that, is it an old Weaver? It looks great! The old straight body scopes had a certain charm to them that I find really appealing for some reason.

I'm getting way too inspired. I'm afraid that I'm going to be looking for a beat up old .22 now. Between this and Mosin thread going right now, you guys have even got me fired up to try recrowning. My initial goal will be to not destroy a rifle worse than has ever been done before. I'll raise my sights as I go along.
RT

 

[.45Guy]

Red, it's marked J.C. Higgins as well, but I'm fairly certain Weaver made the 4x scopes for Sears. And since everyone is telling the stories associated with their rifles, here's mine. Many moons ago when my father still ran his trap line, he was walking through one of the black raspberry fields on a frosty morning. He happened to see a nice red go tearing down a row, and took it with a single shot to the head at approximately 25 yards with my grandpa's rifle.

 

[deputy tom]

My first shooting experience some 40 yrs ago was with a Ranger .22 rifle.These things are great fun and a must have IMHO.tom.

 

[Spiggy]

there you have it, I broke down this afternoon and cruised around my niche of CA looking for another same-type .22. Got nothing :banghead:. Very least, interested in finding one that uses the same mags

 

[Red Label]

Rob, One thing I noticed that hasn't been brought up is the nice clean carpet that you laid that dirty "new" rifle on! My wife would have had my hide Nice project though

 

[Rob62]

Red Label – Thanks for the compliment. The carpet is much dirtier than it looks. Seems like every time you turn around carpets need cleaning. Specially if you have small or messy kids.

Below are a couple of pictures of what this project has become. The surface rust cleaned up better than I thought it would, even the bolt knob, which was pretty rusty.

At this point I don’t think I am going to re-finish the original bluing on the barreled action. I had played around with the idea of the using a spray on bake finish. However, I think I am just going to leave the metal as is. Maybe I will change my mind about this in the future, if I do, I will update this thread with what the new finish looks like.

My youngest daughter who has claimed the rifle as hers did not want me to use any wood stain on the stock. She wanted it a fairly light shade, so after removing the old stain and finish, only super fine wet/dry sand paper along with Birchwood Casey’s Tru Oil was used on the wood. I think it came out ok. The recoil pad used is the original one. It had enough material so that it could be fit to the stock. Overall length of pull is at around 10 or so inches. If I had to do it again I would have left more wood on the fore end. IIRC I cut off about 2”. Retrospectively, I probably should not have cut any wood off of the fore end at all. But I thought scale wise I would need to remove some to match the much shortened butt portion of the stock.

If I could legally, (without SBRing – i.e. paying for the tax stamp) cut down another 4 or so inches of barrel I think this project would be perfect. But of course that is not an option – at least not one I am willing to pay $200 for.

Not sure if I will install the original sling swivels. I think I have some sling swivel studs laying around. I may install those. Also don't know if I will free float the barrel. Right now the barrel channel is as it was. With the fore end being so short and this being a kids gun after all, I will most likely leave it as is. When the gun was fully apart I did polish up the trigger/sear contact points and that helped a lot with the original trigger pull weight. Its a lot better now than it was, but still very safe for young shooters.

The Simmons 2.5X scope is what I expected for something that cost $20 plus shipping.

Regards,
Rob

 

[Essex County]

Dam! I hate threads like this.....

They make me want to take the hundred bucks I have tucked in the far corner of my wallet and prowl a few gunshops......Essex

 

[Hemicuda]

Doesn't EVERYBODY need a .22 bolt action beater?

I have been known to buy these, pretty them up a bit, and give them to friends/family, and neighborhood kids as needed...

SM mentioned doing this a time or 3 too...

 

[Sistema1927]

That Winchester 121 in post #9 sure bought back memories. Back when I was 12, I wanted my own .22 rifle. After looking under the Christmas tree I was very disappointed. It was hard to get excited opening the obligatory sweater, socks, etc. After everything else was open I had one small box under the tree with my name on it. I opened it, and there was the bolt to a Winnie. Dad told me that they couldn't afford the whole rifle, but after about 5 more minutes of torture he produced the rest of the rifle and gave me a brick of .22 ammo.

I sold the thing to pay for something stupid when I was in college, I need to find another one.

 

[WFR]

Nice guns!
I just picked up a Marlin 880 for $85.
Not quite in the $50 range but for a walnut stock and blued steel I thought I did ok. It was missing hte rear sight leaf and the front sight.
I knocked the rear sight out completely, filled the front sight holes with filler screws and mounted a used Nikon 4X on it that I picked up for $35.
Just a little over $130 but I think I got a nice little shooter.
Maybe later I can get some pictures up.

 

[Davo]

I love my 25n, it was my first project rifle. I bedded the rifle with acraglass, floated the barrel, polished the action, and put in the sear from a marlin model 2000 target rifle (drop in fit). That thing is one sweet shooting rifle and it balances great.

 

[Rob62]

And to close this saga out.

Below is a target I shot yesterday with this rifle. The range was 25 yards, this is a 5 shot group. Shot off of a bench. I was using Remington Bulk Pack "Golden Bullets" - basically a generic HV cartridge.

Not too bad of a group if I do say so myself. I am already contemplating my next project. Maybe I will do a short barrel (16") .22RF rifle for myself. Whatever I end up getting and tweeking will be cheap and used.

 

[sm]

Great Thread!

I have shared this thread with others, including some kids.

The kids wanted me to say "thank you!" . Some of these kids have guns they received , rescued from old pawn shops and gun stores and such.

The adults, of these kids express their appreciation as well.

I want to add my thanks and appreciation as well.

"Okay cool but nobody has a Teal blue one like mine...."
"NASCAR stickers make them shoot good too..."

Uh, yeah that would be a young lady with a teal blue and young man with - you get one guess at to what kind of sticker is on his gun.

Steve