22rf converted to centerfire?

[princerobin]

Just wondering,

Would a pre 1898 pistol converted to a 22 centerfire (like 22 velodog) be considered an antique?

My thinking is yes,

A handgun manufactured before 1898 that is capable of discharging centre-fire cartridges, other than a handgun designed or adapted to discharge 32 Short Colt, 32 Long Colt, 32 Smith and Wesson, 32 Smith and Wesson Long, 32-20 Winchester, 38 Smith and Wesson, 38 Short Colt, 38 Long Colt, 38-40 Winchester, 44-40 Winchester, or 45 Colt cartridges.

It's a handgun manufactured before 1898 and can't fire any of the above mentioned cartridges.. and would not be capable of firing any rimfire cartridges.

Am I missing something?

Robin

 

[jethunter]

It sounds like a reasonable assumption to me. Call the CFC and ask to be transferred to talk to a firearms tech in Ottawa. Then you'll know for sure.

 

[Musketfire]

22 centerfire sounds like a big pain in the arse.

But 22 pinfire......we might have something there.

 

[mooncoon]

You would want to be sure that the cylinder was thick enough to take the slightly larger diameter of the 22 velodog and what I would presume to be the additional pressure. A better choice I think would be to sleeve a .32 down to .22 and bush the chambers to accept the 230 - 297 Morris except that in a modified form that loaded .22 slugs

cheers mooncoon

 

[princerobin]

Well, it's all academic anyhow...

Was browsing through the flea market and came across a little blank pistol, at first I'd thought it was a 22 that someone had just plugged the barrel and that got me thinking...

If I were to do something like this I'd probly make centerfire brass on the lathe, to the same external dimnsions as 22lr.

I'll start a different thread on the blank pistol.

Robin

 

[H Wally]

A couple of things having seen your other thread with pics of the pistol.

1) They made those as starter guns long after they were discontinued as pistols. Make sure yours was pre 1898.

2) I looked at conversting a 30 cal pistol in that style to a smaller cal - mooncoon has it right - the morris shells are your best bet, though I believe only the short morris will fit if memory serves right. Then you have a centerfire cal, with dies available etc. Would likely have to cut the old barrel off and drill/tap the current frame for a new barrel, and either make a new cylinder or, if the cylinder is large enough will small enough chambers, ream it out for the morris cartridge. Would also likely need to alter the hammer for centerfire. I don't know if this would be possible on yours as it might be a smaller frame.

Edit - from looking at the pics again there're positive and negatives.

Negative is that your cylinder looks too small for the morris, so you're stuck with some proprietary centerfire .22.

Positive is that they didn't mill out the cylinder over the chambers like some german starter pistols I've seen, so you can in fact bore out the cylinders.

 

[princerobin]

The starter pistol will remain a starter pistol I'm afraid. Though I'd love to convert it to some proprietary 22 centerfire cartridge, and think it would be fairly easy to do so (I have a resonably well equipped shop) two things prevent me from doing it;

I have no way of proving it was made before 1898, as a blank pistol it has no proof marks and like H Wally said, they made these long after 1898.

As a blank pistol, it is not and never was a hangun. Converting it over now would be making a prohibited handgun! At least that's the way I see it.

Robin