Otony
Member
I have always liked the Browning SA-22, always. There was no room in the budget for such a thing in our family, so as a kid in the Sixties, my first trip to the range after receiving a Remington Nylon 66 for Christmas was somewhat marred by the excited kid at the bench next to me shooting "his" Christmas rifle, a bottom eject Browning.
Don't take that the wrong way, I wasn't jealous (well, OK, maybe a little). It was more the nuisance of his brass showering me at the bench while he shot from a standing position. At least that was how I justified my 11 or 12 year old discomfort at the moment. And that Buck Rogers Nylon 66 grew on me immensely. I shot many a squirrel around our place with that little popper. It also instilled a love of light weight, handy little rifles in me that lasts to this day.
Flash forward quite a few years. I saunter into a now long gone gunshop in San Jose, California to find a Japanese Browning grinning at me from the rack. It was brand new, the store was having a sale, and I decided to quell that little voice in the back of my mind. Why I hadn't done so years earlier is another question, but suffice to say that Browning box riding home with me instilled about as much excitement as the Remington box all those years previously.
Playing with the Browning was everything I could have hoped for. It was nicely made, accurate, worked well, and a pleasure to look at. But the tinkerer in me kept thinking it could become something else all together.
I wanted to shorten the barrel to 16.5", remove the pistol grip, and mount a small red dot on the barrel just ahead of the receiver. But I couldn't bring myself to alter such a nice rifle. A few days ago the solution arrived, a Norinco ATD-22.
I had actually owned one of the Norincos prior to buying the Browning. Indeed, it was the stimulus for the purchase of my "real" bottom ejector. It worked well and was fairly accurate, but didn't have the pride of ownership that the Browning brought to the table, so I foolishly let it go on down the road.
The latest Norinco to grace the stable has some rust and pitting on the exterior of the barrel, about the last 3" to be exact. So I decided to shorten it as per my idea above. Next I removed the wood and sent it to a good friend in Oregon for reshaping. He is a very good stock-maker who indulges my whims from time to time. He is removing the checkering, plus straightening out the grip. The existing stock lines dictate a sort of swan neck effect rather than a perfect English shape, but that is fine with me.
I already have a Weaver base that will be shortened so as to just hold a Burris Fast-Fire knock-off that has worked well forme in the past.
The result should be more than a match for a Marlin Papoose, which was the inspiration for the whole idea in the first place. The whole thing will slide into a two-pocket scabbard my wife is sewing up, one of the benefits of having a professional seamstress for a wife! The scabbard is being set up with eyelets so it can be lashed to a pack in a jiffy.
I just love messing around with little projects like this. Pictures to follow!
Don't take that the wrong way, I wasn't jealous (well, OK, maybe a little). It was more the nuisance of his brass showering me at the bench while he shot from a standing position. At least that was how I justified my 11 or 12 year old discomfort at the moment. And that Buck Rogers Nylon 66 grew on me immensely. I shot many a squirrel around our place with that little popper. It also instilled a love of light weight, handy little rifles in me that lasts to this day.
Flash forward quite a few years. I saunter into a now long gone gunshop in San Jose, California to find a Japanese Browning grinning at me from the rack. It was brand new, the store was having a sale, and I decided to quell that little voice in the back of my mind. Why I hadn't done so years earlier is another question, but suffice to say that Browning box riding home with me instilled about as much excitement as the Remington box all those years previously.
Playing with the Browning was everything I could have hoped for. It was nicely made, accurate, worked well, and a pleasure to look at. But the tinkerer in me kept thinking it could become something else all together.
I wanted to shorten the barrel to 16.5", remove the pistol grip, and mount a small red dot on the barrel just ahead of the receiver. But I couldn't bring myself to alter such a nice rifle. A few days ago the solution arrived, a Norinco ATD-22.
I had actually owned one of the Norincos prior to buying the Browning. Indeed, it was the stimulus for the purchase of my "real" bottom ejector. It worked well and was fairly accurate, but didn't have the pride of ownership that the Browning brought to the table, so I foolishly let it go on down the road.
The latest Norinco to grace the stable has some rust and pitting on the exterior of the barrel, about the last 3" to be exact. So I decided to shorten it as per my idea above. Next I removed the wood and sent it to a good friend in Oregon for reshaping. He is a very good stock-maker who indulges my whims from time to time. He is removing the checkering, plus straightening out the grip. The existing stock lines dictate a sort of swan neck effect rather than a perfect English shape, but that is fine with me.
I already have a Weaver base that will be shortened so as to just hold a Burris Fast-Fire knock-off that has worked well forme in the past.
The result should be more than a match for a Marlin Papoose, which was the inspiration for the whole idea in the first place. The whole thing will slide into a two-pocket scabbard my wife is sewing up, one of the benefits of having a professional seamstress for a wife! The scabbard is being set up with eyelets so it can be lashed to a pack in a jiffy.
I just love messing around with little projects like this. Pictures to follow!
