FN SA22

[woodyb]

This is my newly acquired FN SA22 in .22 Short , a true browning design and one of his great successes.

It's an FN produced SA22 toploader with the splinter forgrip, the dong pistolgrip and serial 517xx. I paid what would be around 50 dollars US. It's in great shape with some blueing wear on the barrel and underneath the foregrip. The wood is in greap shape except for a small ding in the stock.

I've read these FN rifles are very hard to date, as there are no records left. I've noted this has an inspector X with * which means it was proofed by Reignier Alfred who worked at the Liege Proofbank from 1937 - 1964.

As the toploader was produced from 1914 - 1955. I can with certainty date this between 1937 and 1955.  Because of the low serialnumber  I'd guess it was probably made between 1937 and 1940.

Apparantly there were around an estimated 200.000 toploaders made by FN between 1914 and 1955.

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[woodyb]

These FN rifles go really cheap in Belgium, because they are an old design and there are loads of .22's floating around. In the old days you could buy .22 rifles without registration or permit and most people had one in their home.
People over here refer to them as "A long rifle". The only problem is obtaining .22 short as most european manufacturers have stopped making it, since it was replaced by .22LR for olympic shooting disciplines.
S&B has produced some, but I'll have to find out if they work in my SA22 since they are low velocity 850 fps. If it works then I need to stock up. American produced .22 short from CCI, Remington or Aguila seems to be scarce in europe.

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