I have had for some time a lovely Walnut Hill. It's an  engraved, 22 short, swiss butt, DST, 30" oct/round barrel with no sights ever mounted, no holes, proper Stevens scope. All in all I've always assumed it to be a gallery gun for the type matches shot in NYC early 20th century but would appreciate any thoughts by this esteemed body.

A 44 1/2. Half the reason I got it was because it was a short. At 30 yards [max inside testing range] it will drill a little round hole with ELEY match shorts.

Mr. L P Ittel with Stevens Pope In.22 Short with Stevens 6X scope. Won the 100 shot 1905 gallary shoot at the Zettler Rifle Club in NYC with a score of 2468 at 25 yards on reduced(1/4 inch) 25 ring target. Peters .22 short cartridges.

Have a fair amount of info on the Zettler Bros. shop/gallery but am clueless as to the extent of this type of shooting elsewhere and my rig is the only one configured like this I think I've ever seen...hence the questions?
Love the photos, were they from the ASSRA piece?

   Quarter Bore:

   That was a great posting on your part.  The history of our sport is fascinating and I wish we had more of it circulating.

   Thanks for doing your part in keeping the original period rifles, particularly the .25 's at the forefront of what we do.

   Creedmoormatch

slumlord44, Congratulations on your new aquisition. Enjoy!    Good Luck,         ...MIKE...

Does anyone know if .22 Shorts were required for the gallery matches, or could any .22 rimfire be used?
In my old Stevens catalogs I see a loading refered to as a .22 Stevens-Pope Armory R.F. load. Was this a light .22 LR load for indoor use?

Steve

The plot thickens.  The Stevens-Pope Armory load was intended (IMHO) to be used in the converted Krags that led to the Model 1898 Gallery Practice Rifle.  I was ranting about that one on another post.  You could, of course, have used it in another rifle, which people undoubtedly did.

I think the 414 came along just a year or two later, but I could be wrong about that.

Does anyone have any of these cartridges, still in the box, in their collection?  Or any other 22 Short cartridges from the same era?  I am trying to learn what the bullet diameter was.  And also if there were special match cartridges back then.  Were all those groups shot with run-of-the-mill factory ammo?

The picture on the box looks a lot like a 22 LR.

The Krag I have been shooting has an 18" twist & is apparently chambered for 22 Long.  It has a very uniform .226" groove diameter, hence my interest in the diameter of the Stevens-Pope Armory bullets.  40-grain 22 LR bullets are stabilized, but the large groove diameter precludes any tack-driving accuracy.

My Winders in 22 Short have conventional bore & groove diameters but have a 25" or 26" twist.  They will chamber a 22 Long or Long Rifle with ease, but will not stabilize the Long Rifle bullet beyond about 25 yards.  At 50 yards, you cannot reliably hit a piece of 8.5 x 11 paper.

Would those of you who have target rifles in 22 Short please report on the twist?

If one of us had a Stevens chambered for the Stevens-Pope Armory cartridge, how would we know?  Twist?  Groove diameter?  Are they marked?

I just received a copy of Brophy's Krag Rifle book from Boats.  Brophy did not quite get the historical part about Stevens-Pope barrels and the National Guard or Militia units quite right, but he quoted a part of a Stevens-Pope brochure for their Krag barrels.   

Paraphrased, it goes like this: Stevens-Pope Armory cartridges had the bullets crimped in place.  Ordinary 22 Long Rifle cartridges did not have the bullets crimped in place.  Extracting a live cartridge frequently left a bullet in the chamber (and presumably powder sprinkled through the action).  Ordinary 22 LR cartridges could be used, but S-P advised the shooter or range officer to keep a cleaning rod on hand to remove stuck bullets.  The shooter was advised to make sure that the cleaning rod was straight and not bent.   

The cartridges intended for the Model 1898 Gallery Practice Rifle were put up in boxes marked "22 Cal. Krag-Armory" (if made by UMC) or ".22 U.S. Armory Gallery Practice" if made by Winchester.

If anyone has an open box of these cartridges in their collection, please measure the bullet diameters and tell me of the results.