It is going to take a lot more dry practice before I can smoothly thumb a shell out of the sidesaddle, brass up, and roll it under the gun and into the ejection port. I can do it a lot easier over the top, and I'm beginning to wonder if the odds of someone sneaking into my house and putting an optic on my gun make it worth continuing to work on the under-the-gun version.
Bobbi's friend brought along a couple of neat old pieces that I'd never fired before: A Whitney Wolverine and a Winchester 1903. The Wolverine pointed well and, with Remington Thunderbolts, shot into a tight little cloverleaf somewhere behind the front sight blade and just under the bull. If Flash Gordon needed to shoot beer cans on Planet Mongo, this is what he would have used.
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| WOLVERINE! |
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| Sorry for the unaccountable lack of focus. Blame Samsung. Or me for not having snapped more than one pic. |
I simply adore the Wolverine. It's what a gun designed by Raymond Loewy would look like. Good to hear they can shoot good as well.
ReplyDeleteAnd speak to me not of the newer plastic model. It is to the original what the '78' T-Bird was to the '55 porthole.
I'll take one of each (well, I'll start looking, anyway).
ReplyDeleteI have always loved the tubefeed through the stock. One of the oldtimers at my club used a 1903 for an appleseed- he used mcDonald's straws as 22 speedloaders, something I have recently attempted, and found to work perfectly.
ReplyDeleteNice finds! And it's ALWAYS fun to shoot classic guns!
ReplyDeleteThe .22LR drought may be easing, but I have not seen Remington Thunderbolt for sale in a year. There was a recall on one or two batches recently announced.
ReplyDeleteRemington Thunderbolt is my favorite reliable "cheap" .22LR. I wonder why I can't find it in any quantity anymore?
Tam, I recently inherited a 1903 and it certainly is fun to shoot, but I'm experiencing lots of failures to feed/eject. What ammunition did y'all use in it?
ReplyDeleteThanks...
My boss was in Gander Mtn. over in Hattiesburg, MS last week and texted a picture of a section of their ammo shelves. Crammed slap full. It was more commercial ammo than I've seen in one place since December.
ReplyDeleteA bit pricey though. 100 round packs of WWB 9mm were $39.
Boss is looking to buy his first gun so he's always hitting me and the other guncrank on the team for advice.
I want a Wolverine in 9mm or .45 - or even .380 - that would be a hooter-shooter! I suppose someone would-might say something (dumb) like "Beretta Neos" but that's not the answer.
ReplyDeleteI haven't shot any Thunderbolt since I started seeing keyholing out of my Ruger MkII. I used an aluminum cleaning rod, and drove an almost perfect rifled cylinder of soft lead out of the barrel. That was after only 75 rounds of the stuff through it. Maybe it's gotten better since 15 years ago, but I'm not willing to try it again.
ReplyDeleteJustin,
ReplyDelete"What ammunition did y'all use in it?"
This stuff. The gun ran like a pneumatic nailgun except for one failure-to-feed, probably due to my riding the charging knob.
Remington Thunderbolt is my favorite reliable "cheap" .22LR. I wonder why I can't find it in any quantity anymore?
ReplyDeleteI just scored a old brick of Thunderbolt and a brick of Win. Wildcat. $20 each. Now, do I put them on the table at the gunshow this weekend? Naaa, I think I'll save them or when the grandkids come up. Nothing beats a range trip with the boys. They aren't very good yet, but we're working on it.
FWIW, the modern plastic Wolverine is staggeringly like the aluminum predecessor. A little lighter, mildly less sleek around the trigger guard; but they are both nice-shooting Buck Rogers guns.
ReplyDeleteData Viking had feed/eject issues with his 1903 at first, too -- a good cleaning/relubing of the moving parts took care of it.
I have a Remington .22 AutoLoader and can't find ammo for it anywhere. Bought the thing about 30 years ago for 15 bucks, and at the time a surplus store in Redding had 2 boxes of 50 and wanted $20 per box. I occasionally fire .22LR as a single shot. Seems that if I load the magazine with modern stuff, the poor gun has a tendency to "stutter" a bit.
ReplyDeleteRob J
The Wolverine pushes my jealous button, too.
ReplyDeleteDefense shotguns: I've never found a satisfactory side-saddle, or any other way of handling on-the-gun spare rounds. On my project list is: "Make one."
Maybe the way to go about it is to saw some dummy buttstocks from scrap 2 x 6 and start experimenting with holes, grooves, Velcro, +good+ elastics. What ever.
I managed one of the new Wolverines. Only cane with a single mag, and that one barely works--jams if you put more than 6 rounds in.
ReplyDeleteLove the gun, though. Anyone know where to get extra mags that actually work so I can shoot it more?