Marlin Model 50

In 1976 my grandfather, Lambert Bartolini, gave me my first .22 cal. rifle. It had sat in the back of his closet on the east side of the back porch since sometime in the '30's. He told me he had taken it as payment for working on some one's car during the Depression and had stuck it in the closet. I don't know if he ever shot it. Probably not...he wasn't the type.

It was a Marlin Model 50 .22 cal. semi-automatic that fired from an open bolt. Very unusual for the time. It was almost scary at the thought of walking around with an open bolt, ready to slam a shell into the chamber and fire it at the same time. I don't think that was common practice then and it wasn't common practice for me although I only shot the rifle one time.

I was only fifteen and wanted to shoot the gun real bad. There wasn't a place to safely shoot it around town but I knew where there was...Plumfield! So, me and Billy Russell got on our English Racers with the rifle in an old gun case and headed on the back roads to Plumfield.

First we made our way to Denning school, then to Orient Road, and on to Denning Cemetery. Road by all the Wallace and Lucus graves then down the hill past the dairy farm, past Lil' Betty Ann's trailer, then left toward Cambon Lake Road.

Heading south we soon made the right turn onto Cambon road and past Ellis Clausen's house to the lake. Not much of a lake but it made for a great place to go motorcycle ice skating and making out on Homecoming night! Another left turn and you were headed to Gordon Hammon's house. At the knobby-headed tree in front of his house you turned right headed to Dennis' house. Fly past Dennis' house, over the hill, through the woods and power-slide into the Swinging tree.

There, at the Swinging tree, Billy and I shot my rifle for the first time, smoked some Cool cigarettes, swung off the big oak tree into the Big Muddy River, and generally had a great time. The five or six miles in July weather across chat roads was worth it! I have never fired that rifle since.

I recently found out this rifle was made between 1931 and 1935. And only 5000 were made. That makes it at least seventy-five years old!

A page out of the patent for this rifle.

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!