gunsandgunquestions:The Plinker: Hamilton Model 27 - .22 S/L/LRAlright, this is an odd one as most o
gunsandgunquestions:The Plinker: Hamilton Model 27 - .22 S/L/LRAlright, this is an odd one as most of the guns I’ve covered have been mostly military and police guns, but let’s throw a curveball and talk about this…thing. This is a Hamilton Model 27 rifle. While this looks like a lot of cheap .22 caliber “boys rifles” made in the early 1900′s, the Hamilton’s interesting as it has ties to a company we know a bit more nowadays.The story begins with Clarence Hamilton, a watchmaker and in-general inventor who moved to a little town in Michigan by the name of Plymouth. There he began making an invention of his, the vainless windmill at a two-story factory named the Plymouth Iron Windmill Company. However the fact Plymouth had no rail access and relied on wagons made transportation difficult, and the company was almost liquidated in 1888.So Hamilton decided to make a little incentive to help move windmills. The Hamilton rifles were one of them, the other being an all metal air rifle. This began in 1886 and by 1895, they were selling so many of the .22′s and air rifles that they stopped making windmills. In 1895, the board of directors voted for a name change, and after one production manager’s comment on the air rifle, the Plymouth Iron Windmill Company became the Daisy Manufacturing Company.Yes, this little .22 rifle is related to the most common air gun manufacturer in the world. In 1898, Hamilton sold his portion of Daisy away to make the Hamilton Firearms Company and from there began mass producing .22 rifles. Clarence and his son Coello made a method of manufacturing barrels that was absurdly cheap and used that to their advantage.Hamilton’s guns were some of the cheapest on the market, and were of similar quality to models by Stevens and Savage, Winchester and Remington. And even better, they were commonly gotten for free as a bonus for a number of companies and products.Everything from Cloverleaf Salve to candy bars used a Hamilton as a prize. They were cheap, they were reasonably accurate and they worked. Hamilton cranked out half a million .22 rifles before stopping production during WWII and closing up shop for good in the 1950′s.Daisy on the other hand bought out a number of rival companies, moved production to Arkansas and became the highest selling air gun company in the world, famous for the Red Ryder and still making air guns to this day. As for the Hamilton, most guns you’ll see today aren’t in the best of shape, with many kids tending to fix their guns themselves rather than an actual gunsmith, but if you get one that works, “Boy is it a Daisy!” -- source link