Hey, Garnett and all Y'all,
I'm new to your forum, and am glad there is some entity out there who still cares about these fine little firearms. I just picked up an early Utica rifle that was originally chambered in .22 Hornet, and someone somewhere along the line rechambered it to the old 2R Lovell wildcat. This round is made from the even older 25-20 Single Shot casing, not to be confused with the much shorter 25-20 Winchester. The case is necked down to accept .224 bullets, and blown out nearly straight-walled during fireforming, with a much sharper shoulder and shorter neck, all for the reason of increased powder capacity. Back during the 1930s and up 'til the birth of the .222 Remington, the 2R Lovell just about ruled the roost in small-bore competitions. The birth of the .222 Rem. sung the death nell for about all previous .22 rounds. The 2R Lovell will push a 40g Hornet bullet to 3400 fps easily, and a 52g HPBT sierra MK to about 3100 fps, all through a 26-in. barrel.
This little rifle has had a tough life. It's got plenty of extra holes from a couple different scope mounts and a receiver sight at some time, but the inside of the barrel looks virtually unfired. These Hornet rifles were built with a 1-in-14 twist, which Berger and Sierra both say is just right for bullets of 55g and less. The rifle has been restocked at some point with a beautiful piece of Claro walnut off of a Ruger Red Letter shotgun (plenty of meat in the head of the stock to make the obvious alterations), and I'm doing some much-needed refinishing of the metal parts since the gun has no collector value as is, and never will have. I found a source of new 25-20 SS brass, all you want (!?!?), and now I am pokin' around for a set of dies and a shellholder for the 2R Lovell caliber. RCBS lists the dies, but they're pretty proud of 'em, at $151.00 without the shellholder. For an old fart on a fixed income, that's pretty steep.
I started reloading with my Grampa's help, at the age of eleven. We worked up all sorts of accuracy loads for the venerable 30-06 and .38 Spl., and I've been a group-shooter ever since. If this thing works out as I hope, maybe I can post a few pictures of it.
I got the little rifle's action apart OK, with nothing worse than a slightly bent firing pin, but I'd like to have a little help with the theory of puttin' it back together. Does anyone know of any verbal or pictorial help for that purpose? Much obliged, y'all
