Thursday, July 24, 2008

Rimfire Ammo


Rimfire Ammo
With the resurging interest in old guns there is one area that the ammo makers are missing out on. That is the rimfires of yesterday. The rimfire was the first modern looking ammo to come out in 1858 by S & W as a 22 short. During the civil war others started to make an appearance namely the 44 Henry & 56-52 Spencer. They were used in the Civil War to an extent. For many years they were popular in various rifles and handguns from small revolvers to rolling blocks. Many people used them for small game hunting and target practice. There are quite a few guns out there that need this ammo but none is made on a regular basis. Calibers such as the 25,30,32,38 and 44 calibers need to be made to satisfy the market. If someone would do it they might hit a gold mine. There are a couple of foreign calibers such as the 10.4 Swiss Vetterli and the 12 X 42 just to name a few. I am in the ammo business and I get calls and inquiries about these all the time. The only way to get some one interested is for everyone to contact the ammo factories and ask about getting them in production. You can start with Winchester and Remington as they both made rimfires at one time and may still have the tooling in a basement. Without those calls it will never happen.
Bob Shell
at

1 comment:

To the Board of Directors,

Gentlemen I`am writing to present you with an idea that i think you may possibly find advantageous to your company. As i`am sure you are aware there is a great interest in whats called "Cowboy Action" shooting in this country and more and more guns of yesteryear are being resurected by the companies that make reproduction firearms.
The sport is growing constantly and the gun makers are constantly looking for ways to take even more advantage of this ever growing market. Guns like the Henry rifle,Spencer carbine, Colt and Remington conversion revolvers and the Colt 1872 Open Top and others are on the market and doudtless other guns of history will be made in the future.
The arms makers try to be as authenic as possible in their copies but one thing keeps them from being "true" copies.The majority of these guns are being made in calibers that the original guns were never made in.The Henry, Spencer,the majority of early Colts were made in rimfire calibers. Ammunition that has`nt been made by American companies since the 1920`s and early 30`s.But with the resurgence in interest in the old guns of our history and boost in ammo sales that go along with it i think it is time to resurect the original ammo these guns used as well. I ask you to think about it and concider this.
The new guns are generally offered in 2 and sometimes 3 caliber options, none of which were ever used in the originals to begin with. If the original rimfire calibers were offered as an addtional caliber option and the ammo for those calibers were available i believe both the guns and ammo sales would skyrocket.
Authenticity is what it is all about with the cowboy action crowd and the collectors and other shooters of these guns.What could be more "authenic" that having a repro in it`s original
chambering rather than a caliber that never was used in the original? Not to mention the fact that if ammo were available once again people that own originals like myself would love to be able to shoot them as well.
i believe that if arrangements could be reached between the gun makers and your company in that they would make the guns with their original calibers as options and you in turn make the ammo available i think it would be a boost in sales for both. I ask both of you to do this.
The gun makers offer the guns in their original calibers as a limited trial. You in turn make a limited run of the ammo. you both market the availablity of guns and ammo and see how it works. I believe you will find a gold mine has been discovered.
About 20 yrs ago i wrote a letter to your company asking that you concider making various rimfire ammo available again for people like myself who own antiques and would love to shoot them if ammo were available.My letter made it into the hands of someone { can`t recall who}
but he was a higher up in the company at the time.
He wrote me back saying he personally thought i had a good idea and he had presented my idea before the board and they turned it down saying they did`nt believe there was enouht of a market out there
Well things have changed quite a lot since then and i think that my idea might be worth concideration once again. I hope you agree as well.

Sincerely,
Robert Heins