The Squirrel Rifle

I was back home in Illinois the other day and thought about something I had read in The Wild West magazine. It was a story about a Winchester Model 1903 .22 Cal. Automatic Rifle that Buffalo Bill Cody had presented to the young son of one of the managers of his Wild West Show. Seems Buffalo Bill really liked the boy and even had the rifle engraved, "Presented to young son of so and so by Buffalo Bill Cody". The rifle recently sold at auction for $17,100!

Well, it so happens that my father had the exact same rifle. He used to hunt squirrels with it. Rockin' Randall has it now safely locked in a gun case. When I was home I told the story about the Buffalo Bill rifle and the big price tag. We laughed that dad's doesn't have the inscription and isn't worth the 17 G's. But I have found that it's worth between $850 and $1,250 dollars! Not bad for a .22 caliber rifle that they stopped making in 1932.

As I took the rifle from the gun case and looked at it RR says, "It doesn't shoot." I said, "What do you mean?" He said that David had borrowed it to run a raccoon out of the attic of his house and it wouldn't shoot. Had to bring it back and get a shotgun to dispatch the critter. I said it might be dirty from all the years of standing around.

When I got back to California I got to thinking. The only time I had ever shot the rifle was at least 30 years ago and I remember that I couldn't get it to shoot either. I took it apart and found that it was very dirty. Full of years of powder discharges and wax from shell casings. I cleaned it up and bought a box of CCI Stingers (the cool thing to shoot at the time). The rifle jammed about every third shot. I didn't want to be blamed for messing up the squirrel rifle so I put it back in the gun case and never shot it again. Dad soon after bought a brand new Marlin Model 94 .22 Cal. squirrel rifle with a four-power scope. He never did say why.

I decided to research the rifle to find out how much it was worth. As mentioned above, I found that out and much more. I got on a chat site about the Model 1903 and everyone was complaining that the rifle didn't shoot well, that it always jammed, and that it just wasn't a very good rifle. Then the guy with the knowledge got on line. Seems Winchester made their own special .22 caliber ammunition for the Model 1903 and manufactured it from 1903 to 1932 when they stopped making the rifle. They called it Winchester .22 Cal. Automatic. Not .22 Short, not .22 Long, not .22 Long Rifle, Winchester .22 Cal. Automatic! They have antique boxes of 'em for sale on the internet for $325 per box. Only two companies still make it and they are very pricey. You can get them at Old Western Scounger at $12.95 for a box of 50. That's $0.26 a shot! No wonder it never would shoot worth a darn!