Shooting Galleries using Live Ammo
 

(Warning: this submission ended up being a little long. Sorry!)

Foto Friday's, so here’s a foto . . .

http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i1...pse6aa7fbd.jpg

That’s me in the above picture. It was taken May of 1956 at the shooting gallery at Coney Island. Yeah, using live ammo. If the shooter hits the bulls eye, your picture was taken, and thus the above picture. I do not shoot left hand and former U.S. Navy sailors (like Gunners Mate Chief Roundsworth) will note that the crow/rating patch is worn on the left sleeve, not the right sleeve as pictured. Suspect the negative got flipped before the picture was printed or another possibility is the picture was taken using a mirror to protect the camera. That alert looking sailor on the left is my shipmate Mike Pore, I think from Ohio.

At the time I was assigned to the USS Gen. H. W. Butner T-AP 113 home ported at the Brooklyn Army Base. We were basically a troop (US Army and US Air Force) and dependent carrier transporting them to and from Southampton England and Bremerhaven Germany. If any of our PGCA members were in the Army or Air Force during the 1950’s and got shipped off to Europe, you may have had the pleasure of our services.

I don’t know what the gallery gun was and I can’t tell by looking at the photo with a magnifying glass but it is not a Winchester pump .22 Gallery Gun. I own a bunch of Winchester .22’s including two model 62A Gallery Guns. Often people mistakenly call pump .22’s Gallery Gun’s but a Gallery Gun has some very specific features. It will usually be a pump action with external hammer with a tubular magazine, chambered for Shorts (not Short, Long and Long Rifle), have a special loading port on the magazine tube to accommodate loading using loading tubes and usually have some sort of tie down device.

Like this . . .

http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i1...psmbb7q6qt.jpg

Marked for .22 SHORT’s . . .

http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i1...G_1850_1-1.jpg

Special loading port on the magazine tube . . .

http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i1...IMG_1861_1.jpg

Blue wear from Tie Down Bracket . . .

http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i1...1853_2_1-1.jpg

Tie Down Bracket minus the chain . . .

http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i1...G_1874_1-1.jpg

“WINCHESTER” roll marked on the left side of the receiver is a plus . . .

http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i1...G_1848_1-1.jpg

And Gallery Ammo and Loading Tubes . . .

http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i1...psesh09som.jpg

I’m a very recent PGCA member and at the present time, I don’t own any Parker’s but I’ve had some real good ones in the past. In addition to all my Winchester .22’s, I’ve been collecting Fox doubles for more than 46 years and do have a very nice selection of those.

So if you’ve read all the way down to here, you’re pretty tough and I would like to Thank You for your forbearance.

Anyway, some foto’s for Friday.

Hi Bill. I have a nice Winchester 90 with a 16" barrel and a 13" LOP stock. it is chambered for the .22 WRF.

i wonder if any of these galleries survive in the saner parts of the country

when i was a kid, we used to go to an amusement park in the city of Elmira (when your town is small enough that the sign says welcome on both side, Elmira seemed like a city) the park had a gallery with 22's - i never cared for rides, but spent a lot of time and money in there.

I'm sorry that I missed that part of our country's history!!! Thanks for sharing Jolly!!

When I was a kid they had a shooting gallery at the Topsfield Fair where we shot .22 pumps but I never took notice of what they were. They were rigged though. With each new shooter the gallery attendant would give the sight adjusting knob a couple of twists. A boy would be lucky just to hit the paper. "A fool and his money are soon parted" in games like that.

Hi Dean,

Does your model 90 with 16 inch barrel and short stock look original? Similar to the Winchester model 67 Boy's Rifle with short barrels and stock. Gotta be a neat gun.

I've never seen a 67 that I know of so I can't compare them.

It is a neat little carbine though and everything looks original with the exception of the R on the top of the octagonal barrel which I am told means "replacement".

M67 Boy's Rifle
 

Dean,

Here's a couple pictures of a Winchester Model 67 Boy's Rifle. It has a 20 inch barrel, 11 1/2 inch LOP and 33 1/2 inches total length.

A simple single shot .22 bolt action that the shooter manually pulls back the bolt to cock the action. Normally found chambered for Shorts, Longs and Long Rifles. Winchester made the Model 67 for the .22WRF also but pretty rare especially in the Boy's Rifle. Another rare variation are the 67's with smooth bore, no rifling, for .22 LR Shot.


http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i1...psfpmt393x.jpg

http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i1...ps2oedsxtg.jpg

http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i1...pspxbfkiv1.jpg

Nope - nothing like that. Much, much nicer.

Hi Bill! In reference to the cartridges in your photo....are the bullets lead, or some other material? I seem to recall reading many years ago about gallery bullets made of different substances to enhance their non-ricochet capabilities.

:cheers:

The "Spatterproof" bullets are of a clay substance as I recall. Our local shooting range was not a travelling carnival, but a 12 month a year amusement park called Glen Echo Amusement Park. It still exists as a NPS facility with the original dance hall and carousel still active. Glen Echo is a riverfront town adjacent to DC and Bethesda, MD. It was a real treat to have a day at Glen Echo when we were kids.

Yes Dean, your model 90 (1890) would be much nicer than a M67: your 90 would be a pump action, outside hammer, tube magazine, octagon barrel and crescent steel butt plate. Similar to my model 62A in the above pictures. Your M90 shortened for a boy or make it more like a carbine. Originally, the 1890/90's had 24 inch octagon barrels.

Chief Roundsworth - you're right. That "WINCHESTER SUPER SPATTERPRUF rim fire cartridge is specially designed for use in shooting galleries. The bullet is specially compounded to disintergrate into fine particles and dust on striking a metal target or backstop in properly constructed and maintained shooting galleries . . ." according to the back panel on the box.

They are much lighter than a standard .22 Short and look different: 24.5 grains for the gallery short vs 38.3 grains for the standard .22 Short according to my powder scale. Likely that dense clay material that Bill Murphy describes?

In the late 60's, my Dad bought a box of .22LR "Frangible" shells for shooting woodchucks in a semi rural area. I think they were made of small lead particles somehow glued together. The projectile would disintegrate when it something solid.

My Model 90 in .22 WRF with 16" barrels and 13" LOP. I bought it for my grandkids at a show a couple of years ago and they've had some fun shooting it with me.




.

Dean,

That's a very neat Model 90, especially with the tang sight. The 22WRF ammo is not common but still available. CCI makes it.

Yes, it has to be fun shooting it.

Bill

Right, I've bought some ammo for it but not CCI.

mighty nice little 22....my dad had a little 22pump winchester with short barrel many years ago that i hunted squirls with...dean i bet those grandkids will tell there children about their getting to shoot the little gun with you to their kids... charlie

Winchester no longer catalogs the WRF. The first limited run was in 1986 with a follow-on in 1994. It was produced for quite a few years, only recently being discontinued. I am glad I built up a nice stash!

Notice that Winchester ammo box says "Splatterpruf".

Remington Special Gallery .22 shorts were "Spatterless" and the Western Cartridge Co. gallery ammo was "Kant-Splash".

When I was in grade school the students were given a news paper,I think it was called weekly reader.It had an add for 22 shells that break apart on impact.I think they were called Remington Rockets.Probably same as gallery rounds.

Peters made Krumble Ball .22 short rounds for gallery shooting.

I really love these old slide action .22 rifles.

Here are a couple photos of a Model 90 Deluxe .22 wrf upgrade that I built. I actually bought the donor gun from Bill (the OP). He sometimes sets up a very impressive slide action rifle display at our local gun shows.

Attachment 40450

Attachment 40451

Attachment 40452

Attachment 40453

Attachment 40454

This gun started as a standard late model 90 that had a great bore and rust/put free metal. But it had a pretty badly broken stock that also bent both the upper and lower tangs on the action. I figured that since I had to straighten the tangs anyway, why not make a deluxe out of it. A new buttstock was made out of the perfect piece of wood (in my opinion), and all metal parts were polished out and blued. The original forend was kept as is.

Beautiful Model 90 Brian.

Now would that be classified as a Woodward grip or a Prince of Wales grip?

Both. The actual factory catalog pictures show the ribbed forend on the Deluxe model. There may be checkered forends out there, but not in my salesman's portfolio. Brian's gun is a dead ringer for the 90 Deluxe in my portfolio.

Yes, most of the 90 deluxe rifles used the standard ribbed forend. I think that checkered forends were fairly rare on "normal" deluxe guns. I am sure that checkered forends were more standard fair on the custom engraved guns.

That is beautiful work Brian.

To Bill Jolliff:
Your first post mentions that you served on USS Butner, a troop ship during the 1950's. In early 1953 my father, 1st Lt Bill Day USAF, was posted to a iistening post in the Fulda Gap. Dad was a WWII Army vet, enlisted then, then went to college on the GI Bill and ROTC. He was recalled for the Korean War, then stayed in.
My mother and I joined him later in 1953 and were shipped over to Bremerhaven on Butner. I was 6 years old and my mother's diary mentions the ship's sailors playing with the kids. we returned from Germany in 1956 and flew then, hoping across to Iceland and Gander.

A small world sometimes. Thanks for your service .

Bruce,

Your trip on the Butner was two years before I became a crew member.

One of the things I did as an Interior Communications Electrician was to show movies every afternoon to the kids in the dependents chow hall.

And in about two weeks will join other Butner crew members for a ships re-union in Wabash Indiana.

Sorry I didn't see you note earlier. My wife and I just got home last night from a 10 day vacation to southern Arizona to get away from the weather we were having here in upstate NY.

Bill

Funny you all were just talking about these on here and I was thinking how I'd never owned a box. Just bought these at an estate sale this morning.

Some really neat rifles here. I have a Winchester Model 61 that my brother gave me, and I remember running plenty of .22 shorts through it back in the day (though not the splatter bullets). It's a S, L, LR model. He bought it at an auction sometime in the late 40's or early 50's. He and my dad were there and didn't find out until the auction closed that they had been bidding against each other from opposite sides of the room! I think they drove the price all the way up to $40. It's been a good gun.

500 22 Shorts for $6.50. Sheesh

Here's a gallery I would love to restore...

http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/h...y/DSCN1782.jpg

http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/h...y/DSCN1784.jpg

http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/h...y/DSCN1785.jpg

John, DO RESTORE IT!!! Mount it on a flat bed trailer and take it to the bigger matches and shows as a portable gallery side event. You should be able to make back the restoration costs in short order. I know I would schedule a half a day to shoot on it myself.

Great suggestion Fred! John, that's something I could get into when I retire. I think they would be lined up tp shoot this at the major shoots. Instead of bringing their vintage doubles they would bring their vintage or modern .22's.

But where would we find gallery ammo that won't ricochet of spatter?

Why, RST of course.:whistle:

Daryl, I more envisioned folks bringing their vintage .22 rifles in addition to their vintage shotguns. The .22 gallery could run during the evenings "under the lights", just like most of the original galleries. Add a synthesized surround sound system playing vintage amusement park background noise. I agree that the waiting line would be long. Perhaps an additional restored portable amusement ride could be brought in to accommodate those while waiting. No "Fun House" or "Tunnel of Love" though, the long term liability is far too great for any insurer to underwrite.:).

Can anyone recommend a gunsmith doing Parker Snow musket conversions and sleeving to .22 short? I need to start getting ready for the team event now!

Dean is correct!

Look at this box of Disintegrating ammo which Destry recently sold on this forum. Notice anything special, like the word Disintegrating? :rolleyes:

Let's be careful out there!
Mark

Ricochet
 

Seven yards is deemed safe for steel in USPSA. Those small silhouettes could be troublesome at that distance. It would be fun to have a chance at them with my 62 gallery. Bob
I use CB caps from CCI for silhouettes at home. 29gr at 710fps and no hearing protection needed.

Some of those animal targets look cast. Standard .22 ammo could break them, in addition to ricocheting. Without anti-spatter ammo, that gallery is just a museum piece.