doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion Classic & Custom Single Barreled Sporting Rifles @ doublegunshop.com Converting .22 LR caliber Springfield to 22 Hornet

Can anyone tell me in broad strokes what the process is for converting an M1 or M2 .22 caliber Springfield to 22 Hornet? I am not looking for as step by step techinical conversion guide, but rathere more of a list of things to be done and considered. Obviously G&H and others did a few of these decades ago. I assume that these conversions were successful and that they worked. However, I have never examined one of them so I do not know if they then had to be a single shot or if the magazine was altered or replaced to allow proper feeding. Beyond altering the bolt face, what are the things that need to be done to the basic barreled action?

Thanks in advance for sharing what you know about this.

I owned a couple of them many years ago. To me, the most difficult part of the conversion looked to be the milling of the action to feed cartridges from what appeared to be a Model 70 Winchester liner box. If I was doing the conversion now, I would use one of the wonderfully designed .22 Hornet Anschutz clips and alter the M2 trigger guard to retain it. One of those rifles, that Buckstix now owns, has the original Springfield stock with a beautifully inletted G&H cheekpiece. The other has a newly made G%H stock.

That is I project worthy of the effort. I always thought the M1 & M2 conversions made the nicest .22 Hornet sporters ever.

I seem to remember reading that the Winchester M54/M70 .22 Hornet magazine box assembly was used for some of the conversions but I'm not positive that G&H did that. I suppose a Winchester .22 Hornet magazine box assembly could be found with some effort.

Personally, I would prefer that system to a detachable clip unless it was something Like a Sako L46 that didn't protrude below the trigger guard.

May I suggest that you get a copy of the Gun Digest for 1998 for the excellent article 'The Armory Hornet" by Mark Benenson.

I have seen G&H 1922's converted to .22-3000 Lovell, .22-3000 R-2, .22-Hornet and .25-20 Single-Shot.

Michael:

Thank you. That is exactly the kind of source information that I was looking for. I deeply apppreciate the lead.

A G&H in .22-3000 Lovell.

Modern Gunsmithing by Howe has a rundown of the work involved. Don't recall offhand which volume it is in.

I've seen them by G&H, Neidner, Sedgley, and Hart. The Neidner appears to have been converted by G&H. If not, then they sure did a good job of copying the G&H conversion. They are not Winchester magazine box's.

I always thought these made a heavy rifle for a Hornet. The Hart Rifle has had the barrel recontoured and is a much better walking varmint rifle.

John

I have one (not a G&H or other identifiable gunsmith's conversion, sadly), and they are pretty neat. Likely a bit heavy for a Hornet, but when they were being done, big game rifles generally weighed 8 pounds or so without scopes, so they didn't seem so out of line.

Thanks to all. I have Howe upstairs and will check it out just after I press the "submit" icon. I appreciate Michales pictures and the information that gasgunner and Remington and the other posts provided.

Volume II, a chapter written by on of the Armory guys who developed the Hornet. Woody, perhaps? Coincidentally I just re-read it the other night, but already the name escapes me.

I had an M2 converted to a single shot .22 K-Hornet, but whoever did the conversion designed his firing pin wrong and I couldn't fire more than 20 shots before the pin would break, necessitating me making a new one. Several different steel alloys were tried, as well as jockeying the dimensions and heat treating. Nothing worked so I gave up on it as a bad design, replaced the bolt with a rimfire one, and re-barreled to .22 long rifle.