Picked this up today, never seen one before looks well done. Any ideas on who did it , 1950-60's ? Crown grip medallion ? Thanks.


Brit22revolvr - Album on Imgur

IIRC (?) Parker-Hale

Sometime after the war. I think Great Britain started tightening the screws on gunowners and some rifles and revolvers were converted to 22 as larger calibers were banned.

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Usually Parker-Hale. Barrels were normally replaced with a new one in .22. There have been numerous postings here in the past.

Britain tightened the screws, but I don't think it affected handguns much by caliber.

When private handguns were all but totally banned in 1997, some 300,000 pistols were handed in. These were the LEGAL guns, whose owners had braved the obscene amount of red tape to own them.

I had a sub. to, South African Panorama in the 1980's, and that marvelous magazine had a feature on an old bush rat whose revolver was one of those Parker-Hale conversions. He probably couldn't afford a new K-22, even if it'd gotten in through the UN embargo of those days, as I guess the Parker-Hale gun did. He seemed happy with it, and liked the low cost of .22 ammo.

I don't know what all he shot with it. Another man I knew there said he used his Ruger .22 auto successfully on puff adder snakes and some small game like rabbits. But he found a .22 too light for easy kills on rock rabbits/dassies.

Those conversions got around.

Very cool .22

Looks pretty well done to me.

Parker-Hale did indeed do such conversions, but they usually machined a cartouche with their name into it. See attached.

This gun got a new barrel, with some interesting, likely older proofs on it, probably dismounted from another gun, and the new assemblage then had to be proofed again, as per the standard Birmingham Nitro Proofs on the other side of the barrel. So I’d think this came more likely from the shop of another Birmingham gunmaker; there was a cluster around town.

The grips are the standard style used by British converters of Victorys, primarily Cogswell & Harrison. They were likely sourced somewhere.

Attached Images

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The barrel appears to have Belgian proof marks on its RHS.

Peter

Thanks. I was hoping that someone would post that cartouche! I was baffled why the OP didn't show it. Maybe his gun was converted by another firm.

Peter probably has something with noting the Belgian proof marks, although the gun may have been converted in the UK and then sold in Belgium.

BTW, Belgians, unlike Britons, can still own handguns. Well, technically, a few Brits have them. Some 300 licenses are granted to people selected to kill injured animals, as in road accidents. They can have pistols to dispatch those animals.

But if a person so licensed uses his pistol to kill a fox in his barn, there's probably woe to come.

Can Britons even own handguns made for black powder, replica firearms from earlier times?

Hard to tell from photos but, chambers appear to be bushed down? Grips look more like Colts than S&Ws,
hammer is period center fire not rim fire.
Steve

The cylinders were always sleeved on these conversions.

No, it has been altered for rimfire. Look at the firing pin bushing in photo # 8.

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John 3:16
WAR EAGLE!

WELCOME TO THE FORUM, lite-box. THAT'S A VERY ATTRACTIVE REVOLVER, AND DOES APPEAR TO BE WELL DONE......

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Look at the firing pin on hammer in photo #9?
Steve

I did. It has been altered to hit the .22 rim.

__________________
John 3:16
WAR EAGLE!

Just a quick reply to Texas Star's comment about handguns in England. If I understand their laws correctly original black powder handguns may be legal to own under their antique classification, replicas are tightly controlled and require a FAC (license) for ownership (which is also required if someone actually wants to shoot an original). There are websites offering both original and modern replicas for sale in the UK and stating the requirements for each.

Curiously the laws actually vary in different parts of the UK, Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man and, I believe, the Channel Islands have different regs. Some years ago I read that many competitive pistol shooters belonged to clubs on the Isle of Man so that they could store and practice with their guns there.

Thanks for replies.

Foreign exchange controls made dollar imports scarce and expensive in postwar Britain for anyone who wanted a Model 17. But there were plenty of war surplus revolvers to be converted.

We have seen a few pop up over the years,
IIRC the parker Hale conversion guns all began life as former WWII British Military Lend Lease Victory revolvers originally chambered in .38 S&W.
I had a nickel version of the bottom one in the above photo with added front site barrel rib , The one I briefy owned was refinished in nickel and had the lanyard loop plugged,
It was converted to fire .38 Special by reaming the cylinder, unfortunately the .38 S&W casing IIRC is slightly larger which caused the .38 special cases to expand and sometimes split.