Winchester 1885 Low Wall - 22 Hornet question please

[Sirius1963]

Good afternoon,

Im looking for an older rifle to replace my recently sold CZ in .22 Hornet. I've found a Winchester 1885 Low Wall rifle dated from the late 1880s by its serial number. On the barrel is stamped .22 W.C.F. This rifle also shows English proof marks BNP with a crown over, for Birmingham Proof House, I believe. The rifle is sold as a .22 Hornet, which the seller confirms as the correct cartridge for this rifle. The stock is also stamped " London Armory Co." Can anyone out there explain what's gone on with this firearm please. The proof marks indicate it can be fired with nitro based ammunition, I think. My guess is it has been re barrelled at some later point, given the age of the original serial numbered rifle.....

Thanks

R

[gewehrfreund]

You'd have to do a chamber cast to be sure what you have. While similar, the 22WCF and 22 Hornet are two different cartridges. The major difference is the bullet diameter used (.228 for the WCF and .223/4 for the Hornet.
A low wall from the 1880s was designed (i.e. metallurgy) for cartridges using black powder. While it may be Ok for most 22 Hornet loads, I'd only want to shoot light, low pressure loads (though the nitro proofs would suggest otherwise).

[Gewehr-Guy]

The original 22WCF used a .227 dia bullet, if I remember correctly, so unless it was re-barreled , finding the proper dia. bullets might be a problem. I have one that was rechambered to K-Hornet, has a rough and worn Winchester barrel, and doesn't shoot .224 bullets with any kind of accuracy. I have not tried any oversized lead bullets yet, and I should just rebore it to .32WCF.

[gnoahhh]

I recently acquired a Stevens 44 that had started out as a .22 LR rimfire which somebody had cut a .22 WCF chamber in and converted the breech block to centerfire. The bore was excellent so I thought "why not?" I loaded .223 diameter lead bullets with my .22 Hornet dies, using 2.5 grains Bullseye. Voila, great accuracy, at a pressure level that shouldn't harm the relatively weak Stevens 44 action.

I've messed with an original Low Wall re-barreled to .22 Hornet and got away with it, but I never hotrodded it because the action was never intended for 40K psi stuff, even with the tiny area of the Hornet head exerting limited thrust against the breech block.

If you use .22 Hornet dies to load for a true .22WCF (and you can), all you have to do is replace the expander ball in the sizer die with one suitable for the larger diameter bullets. That or acquire a suitable expander button for an M die. Perhaps maybe even you're lucky enough to have a minimal size chamber that doesn't allow much case expansion and you can get by without sizing at all - just seat the larger diameter lead bullets in the case as-is. A lot of older Lyman/Ideal .22 molds drop bullets far in excess of .224 - I would investigate one that drops large enough to use un-sized in the .22WCF. (I do that to create bullets for a couple Savage .22 High Powers which have .227-.228 groove diameters.)

Note: before the 1920's the standard .22 centerfire groove diameter was .227-.228, in what few .22 CF's that were floating around. That changed when the boys at Springfield Armory started cooking up what came to be known as the .22 Hornet. They used M1922 and M1/M2 .22's as the test vehicle, with chambers cut with altered .22WCF reamers to accommodate the smaller diameter .223 bullets necessary for use in those rifles. A new day in the world of .22 CF's was born and the .223-.224 diameter bullet took hold.

[John Taylor]

The 22 Hornet pressure is listed at 25,000, may be a bit high for an old black powder action. For some reason I have seen quite a few blow primers. First thing to do after getting the barrel chambered and fitted is to bush the firing pin. The early black powder firing pins are larger than the later ones and even the later ones may give problems. Early rifle made by Winchester used the same barrels as 22 LR and took .223 diameter bullets, most later rifle used the .224 diameter.

[Bigslug]

As other have indicated, the .22WCF is basically the Hornet's grandfather shooting an oversize bullet. A bore slugging will tell the true tale, but molds can be had for casting the larger diameter - - you're just out of luck if your plan is to shoot commonly available jacketed. Wiki (referencing Cartridges of the World) says the round was introduced with the 1885, so it may be an original barrel. If it's rotted out from corrosion, it's not uncommon to have them re-sleeved for .22 Hornet, making the .22 WCF stamp on the barrel only a bit of a white lie, though I'd personally be inclined to overstamp it with an "H" myself for future clarity.

I would not worry about shooting smokeless Hornet-level loads out of any solid 1885 - that's basically the equivalent of setting off a small firecracker inside a large bank vault.