This comes courtesy of our friends at Collectors, and even for them, it’s a little cheeky to ask $250 for a 1970 Rossi pump plinker in only average condition.
But that’s not the point, here.
What I want to know is this: why does nobody (except Henry) make .22 pump-action rifles and carbines anymore? You might say that they don’t move off the shelves anymore, which is a perfectly good reason to stop manufacturing them.
Okay, then the real question is even more puzzling: why doesn’t every home in America have at least one of these little beauties in a closet or gun safe?
The reason I find this inexplicable is that I don’t believe that there is any more fun to be had than plinking with a pump-action .22 rifle. This has certainly been my own experience — not just for myself, because I am a completely promiscuous shooter of .22 rifles — but for everyone I’ve ever gone shooting with, and handed them a pump rifle to shoot. Let’s just say that huge and I mean HUGE grins of delight have been universally in evidence, coupled with a look of utter disappointment when there are no more boolets left in the tube.
Everybody loves shooting a little model 62, whether a Winchester, Taurus, Rossi, or the Henry H3 (which costs new about $500, or double that of the Rossi). (You can’t shoot a Winchester 62 anymore because they are a Collector’s Item, i.e. they cost over a grand, regardless of condition, if you’re lucky to find one at all.)
Here’s what I think: if anyone were to get a .22 pump rifle, they’d never get rid of it. As stated earlier, there is no more fun plinking to be had, with any other rifle.
So why doesn’t everyone own one?
Here’s the one I lost to burglars, a Taurus Mod 62 stainless carbine:
Ooooh that little 16.5″ barrel… [pause to let uncontrollable sobbing die away]
I’ve looked all over for a replacement, but they’re like virgins in a knock shop: if you can find one, they’re too expensive to consider.