If your Winder will chamber 22 LR cartridges and will stabilize the bullets at 50 or 100 yards, rejoice and shoot it as is. Some were made with proper 22LR barrels. I have 2 Winders, one with the fly that leaves the hammer at half-cock and one that comes up with the hammer cocked. I find I shoot the latter much more frequently.
I have also heard that reversing the fly would allow the hammer to stay at full cock. If that works, at least the parts would not get lost.
Remember that the Winder was intended for introductory marksmanship training of military recruits, many poorly-educated conscripts who had never before seen a rifle. An automatic safety device was probably desirable from the instructors' point of view. I doubt if anyone thought that we would be shooting the Winders 90 years later.
