So, I have had this bronz receiver Zulu trade gun hanging over the fireplace insert for a number of years. The TV is mounted above it and its a nice decorator with its big ass Elmer Fud hammer sticking out. Not long ago I run across an Article about it claiming that the reason this particular gun has a bronze receiver is that in 1870 when the Franko Prussian war was going on, the French had no way to receive receiver material to keep building these 1st model Snider cartridge guns since the Germans had cut off the factories supply. So the Churches from the French countryside supplied the Arms factory with their bronze church bells. Another article claims that once these 1870 refit guns were obsolete, the French removed the French proof marks and stamped Belgian proofs on them after they converted them to 12g "Zulu" trade guns. I have another steel receiver 12g unit that is nicely stamped ZULU on the top of the barrel. With such an interesting history on this Originally French model of 1857, I thought the ol girl needs to be reborn again but this time in 22LR.
Here I had to rebuild the broken FP and bush it in with a fine FP tip.
I had an older Marlin model 70HC barrel that I turned to a 1/2" diam end to end. Then made a center bushing for its 12g muzzle bore and a carefully measured off set chamber bushing to put the FP hit where it needs to be along with extractor cuts
A little mig weld magic & lathe touch up.....
Here you can see the chamber off set and extractor extended along with an ejection port in the belly of the receiver. Fired or unfired cartridges drop cleanly into your palm or ground threw the exit port Infront of the trigger guard bow.
The downside to the gun is the hammer & spring use the same massive V spring. I trimmed it down some but you cant go too much since the half cock notch is very shallow and if the hammer is too light in tension, you could easily trigger the hammer out of half cock and onto the FP. The trigger is crisp with no take up whatever but its 13 lbs in pull weight. A slight handicap there on the target paper but if you cradle the trigger, it only feels half as heavy. Either way, this gun is a hoot to shoot. I'v got steel one that I'm thinking on 410 but only if I can figure out a functional auto eject with a pivot pin mod catch & release of sorts.
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