Hopkins & Allen

This neat little rifle just followed me home Tuesday. Overall, it's in nice condition, the wood has been replaced with some genuinely nice walnut by someone who was a competent wood worker. It needs a serious cleaning and rubbing out to bring out the grain. The flat brass butt plate is "different", and I think I'll keep it. An improvement would be to get it checkered or traditional horizontal lines groves.

It locks up tight, the trigger is great, original sights are almost too fine for my eyes. It's tapped for a Lyman receiver sight, and I need to figure out which model and get on the hunt.

The metal is going to need some cleaning, polishing, and re-finishing. With a removable barrel that should be easy.

I have test fired it at 25 feet on my basement range without any prior cleaning. If I can hold the sights, it will print 1-hole groups using CCI Quiet ammo. I need to fire it again to verify as the borescope shows a rusty, pitted mess in the bore and chamber. If it is a shooter despite the bore than all the better.

To be perfect a reline or a new barrel should be in the cards. As a take down a new barrel is easy to make, I think, from a 10/22 blank. Mounting a scope on that would be a great Sunday afternoon fun shooter.

Any other ideas?

Attachment 291684

C Sharps made a tun if these pre covid that were very nice. but none since I was on the site the other night and while they show it now new runs appear scheduled also noticed the hepburn action is listed but no rifles.

The Hopkins and Allen was listed at $830.00

Looking at the shape of the lever, it is one of the later ones. They are one of the best "Boys rifle" class of firearms in my judgement. The sight holes on the tang should be the same spacing as Marlin and Ballard, I think it's 1-1/2". I have a Marble sight, marked with a Marlin code on one and it works perfectly. A Wollensak scope really fits and works well on one. I would suggest it to be a prudent course of action to limit it's use to standard velocity ammo or lower. The design is plenty strong but there was inconsistent quality control regarding hardening of components. I have one with a very good case hardening and one soft as can be but the colors are pretty.

That's the H&A Model 922. Very nice rifle and a sturdy build for a 'Boys Rifle'.
Kootne' is correct in that the Marlin tang sight fits these. One from a MArlin Model 97 or Model 39(A) fits .

Simple to fit another bbl as they are just a slip fit into the frame. You need a cut out for the extractor. The later models have a 6 o'clock extractor. The earlier editions use a 7 o'clock extractor.

These 922 rifles use a link betw the breech block and the under lever.
These were also made in 32 cal (Model 932) and 38cal Model 938.

The link on many has two positioning holes to attach the link to the breech block.
Using one or the other holes allows the rifle to be used for RF and CF on the 32cal and 38cal rifles.
The repositioning of the link screw simply changes how far the breech block is raised into final position. That places the firing pin either in position to fire the RF or the CF cartridge.
The CF cartridges are the 32 Colt and the 38Colt.

They also made a Target rifle on the action called the 3922 (22rf caliber),,and in 25-20 Single Shot cal (not 25-20WCF) as the 3925

You can see that it is quite easy to change a .22rf Model 922 into a CF version as well. with a linkage modification and a bbl change or reline.

Very nice!

2152hq, that is good information, thank you. It will save me a lot of time reading old Lyman sight catalogs. The tiny notch in the original rear sight is just not compatible with my eyes.
I fired more test rounds yesterday and the results are the same, it will shoot very well.
An extra barrel that I can put a scope on is part of the plan for this rifle, having a shooting, original barrel and a target barrel just makes sense.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by kootne

Looking at the shape of the lever, it is one of the later ones. They are one of the best "Boys rifle" class of firearms in my judgement. The sight holes on the tang should be the same spacing as Marlin and Ballard, I think it's 1-1/2".

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Marlin and Ballard are 1.125" spacing.

a beauty!!

I've repurposed Marlin Model 60 takeoff barrels for H&A builds. Set back and used a Lilja reamer, they shoot real well. Tend to run around $60-$80 on Gunbroker. Out of five or six that I've bought only one was less than mint inside.

Thanks USCRA112, I can easily find one, I think I may even have a junk Model 60 around here.