Shooting Galleries using Live Ammo

[Bill Jolliff]

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

Foto Friday's, so here’s a foto . . .



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 . . .



Marked for .22 SHORT’s . . .



Special loading port on the magazine tube . . .



Blue wear from Tie Down Bracket . . .



Tie Down Bracket minus the chain . . .



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



And Gallery Ammo and Loading Tubes . . .



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.

[Dean Romig]

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

[OH Osthaus]

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.

[Marshfellow]

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

[Dean Romig]

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.

[Bill Jolliff]

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.

[Dean Romig]

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".

[Bill Jolliff]

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.

[Dean Romig]

Nope - nothing like that. Much, much nicer.

[Roundsworth]

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.