Discontinued” is a dreaded word in the rimfire lexicon. Too many fine rimfire firearms have been sidelined by the major ammunition makers who dropped cartridges from their lines. Yet, there’s hope. Companies like Navy Arms still supply .22 Winchester Automatic and .32 Long Rimfire through their Old Western Scrounger branch. Winchester still turns out .22 Winchester Rimfire (WRF) ammo. The latest good news is Aguila in conjunction with Centurion Ordnance and DKG Trading is bringing back the 5mm Remington Rimfire Magnum.

Being an ingenious lot, shooters, too, have demonstrated their resourcefulness in working around the problems of rimfire obsolescence. Bolts for the .41 Swiss Rimfire and the 5mm Remington are routinely converted to handle formed centerfire brass. Centerfire breechblocks for Civil War Spencers have become available. And of course, there’s the old single shot trick of welding up the rimfire pin hole and drilling out a new one for a centerfire pin.

Creative Rimfires

Maybe the most radical solution I’ve seen is one done by Bob Hayley. Hayley is the man behind the Old Western Scrounger’s smorgasbord of obsolete cartridge offerings. He owns hundreds of bullet moulds and can recreate almost any cartridge ever chambered.

Pictured is his solution to getting those wonderful old .32 rimfires shooting again. He takes a centerfire .32 Long case, bores it off center, and inserts a rimfire RWS “Acorn” blank that extends out to the edge of the parent case rim.

Hayley also provides the proper 90-grain heeled bullets and loading data for the .32 Long Colt. Similar case head conversions I’ve heard about use .22 caliber “Level 4” nail gun blanks without any powder to propel roundballs or buckshot downrange at about 300 or 400 feet per second.