Having an orphan '03 action (late NS, almost end of production), and the desire to put it to use, and being up to my ears in original and customized .30-06's, the plan is to build a .22 Hornet. My inspiration comes from Chapter 4, Volume II of Michael's book - an ersatz Griffin&Howe depression-era "econo sporter" such as what they did with NRA Sporters. (And by extension, what would've stopped a guy with a few dollars to spend in 1933 from ordering a new NRA Sporter from the Armory with orders to forward it directly to G&H for "the treatment", and at the same time ordering a .22 barrel from inventory via their parts list? And then instructing G&H to take it a step further and making it into a Hornet?)

I'll be utilizing an original orphan .30-06 NRA Sporter barrel. Fear not, the bore is utterly toasted so there's no sacrilegious destruction of an artifact here. I'll be lining it with a 1/2" OD .22 centerfire liner from TJ's (.224/1-14" twist), plenty of meat to accommodate a .22 Hornet. Further "fixings" include a repro NRA Sporter/M1922 stock (hence the desire to utilize the larger contoured original Sporter barrel), M70 buttplate, etc. - all in accordance with the protocols G&H followed 90 years ago).

Bolt face will be bushed for the small rim, and extractor hook extended likewise.

My main concern is how to get around the coned breech of the .30-06 barrel. Simply chambering for the Hornet will leave too much of the case unsupported, I think. Therein lies my question. Am I worrying needlessly about that or should I plan on installing a flat steel bushing in the coned breech of the Springfield barrel before lining it to create a flat breech to 100% support the Hornet case? (Leaving enough of the original cone, hopefully, to permit intrusion of the bolt head.) In other words emulating somewhat the breech end of an M1/M2 Springfield barrel.

I have the technology and skills to achieve this, but I need to have a game plan before I start - and this is uncharted territory for me. Thoughts?

Gary,
This will be an interesting project, but in the back of my mind, I think I remember that when they built the first Hornet, they used an M 1922. I guess that would have included the bolt. which may solve the "cone" issue. Either way some conversion work would need to be performed on the bolt. If that is incorrect, it wouldn't be the first time.
Mike

Indeed yes, they used an M1922 M1 .22 for the first one. You can see in the pic how the bolt face of a standard '03 is adapted to small rimmed cases. In this case it's been done to accommodate the R2 Lovell rim, with a tiny steel ring embedded in the bolt face.



A crummy pic illustrating how the breech of the R2 barrel is configured. Illustrates the half-flat faced/half-coned concept I put forth in my original posting. Again, my question basically is do I have to follow suit as per this example or can I just utilize a simple coned breech. May indeed not be the best forum for an answer (I've posed it several other places), but there's a lot of smart guys who hang out here!

Gary D, Yes, Install a bushing at the breach to support the Hornet case. Griffin and Howe built most of their Springfield Hornets on the 1922 action, but Sedgley built theirs on the center fire one. This may be over-kill, but it can't hurt to err on the side of caution.

I thought of emulating Sedgley, but to my knowledge they didn't massage stock NRA Sporters, retaining the original wood, like G&H did. Or did they?

Yes, Sedgley did modify some NRA sporter stocks into sporters. When Sedgley built Hornets and 2Rs on the full '03 actions, they made the back of the barrel flat to face the bolt, no cone.

Thanks.

I'm assuming that this will be a single shot. What to do with the magazine parts?

Sedgley used a piece of metal held in place at the bottom of the bolt to push hornet cartridges from a sheet metal magazine soldered to the floorplate - feed lips were bent into the magazine.

I have a Sedgley 22 Hornet if some kind of photos are needed or would be helpful.