GUNS Magazine The Bronco .22 LR Survival Rifle

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The Firearms International Bronco is perhaps the world’s most austere .22 rifle.
However, Will says his copy is surprisingly well made.

“Will, it’s for you,” my mom shouted as she pulled together yet another fantastic meal. I was occupied in my bedroom painting a 1/35-scale plastic model of a German PzKpfw V Panther tank. I was cool like that.

The phone was the size of a brick and tethered to the wall. Ours was extra neat because it had buttons rather than a dial. The year was 198 and life was awesome.

I was in 10th grade and worked after school as a janitor in a local drug store. I made $56.26 every other week and had no expenses beyond gas. My buddy Mike was on the phone. Mike had a problem.

Mike needed girl money. Many folks don’t realize this, but there are three major types of currency in the world. Regular money pays for stuff like rent and groceries. Gun money is what it sounds like, going to guns and ammo. Girl money is used to initiate and maintain relationships with the fairer sex. These three types of currency look the same and can potentially interchange, but they are fundamentally quite disparate. It is amazing this stuff is not taught in the major Economics schools.

Mike’s girl fund was depleted, yet he had a pending date with a cheerleader. Mike desperately didn’t want to look lame in the drive-through at the local Wendy’s. He also knew I had a job.

Mike had a beat-up old .22 rifle he could live without. He described it over the phone and explained he needed $25 to get through the weekend. Could I help a brother out?

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The Firearms International Bronco .22 survival rifle is admittedly not much
to look at but Will says, “Like me, it’s so ugly it’s almost cute.”

Gun Bro Economics

Live in this quirky little world long enough and we will all get these calls. As a point of honor, never take advantage of anyone’s misfortune. If some widow calls you up trying to get rid of her dead husband’s German machinegun collection, pay the lady a fair price. Play this one wrong and you’ll forfeit your soul. However, when your buddy Mike reaches out in desperation wanting to sell a gun, it behooves you to hear him out.
The gun sounded delightfully weird. It was a single shot .22 rifle with a skeletonized stock and pivoting barrel. I was certainly intrigued. We agreed to meet in the school parking lot after class the following day.

Nancy Pelosi, if you’re reading this, you might want to sit down. I was 16 years old and bought a gun out of the trunk of a friend’s car in the parking lot on my high school. I paid him cash. I didn’t undergo a background check or endure a waiting period. We didn’t do any paperwork. I just gave my pal two 10s and a five, wrapped the gun in a towel so as not to garner undue attention, and retired to a nearby cotton field to give it a whirl. And yet the world kept right on spinning …

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Rotating the barrel assembly opens the action. The heart of the gun is a
casting reinforced with a length of steel rod while the barrel lies underneath

The Gun

I couldn’t find much out about this quirky old rifle at the time. In 1982 Al Gore was 34 years old and hadn’t yet invented the Internet. I just knew it looked cool and the price was right. I’ve since learned a bit but not a lot.

These nifty little rifles were first built in Accokeek, Md., in 1967. Those early examples bore neither markings nor serial numbers and sported an MSRP of $9.95. That’s about $91 today. The guns were available in .22LR, weighed 2.5 lbs. and had 16.5" barrels.

In 1968 the Gun Control Act mandated guns be serialized so the price climbed to $14.95. Dealer cost at the time was a flat $11. In 1970 a company called Garcia took over and christened the weapon the Bronco. Garcia offered the guns in .22LR, .22 WinMag, .410 and a nifty .22LR/.410 over-and-under combination. The shotgun variants had 20" tubes.

They eventually sold under the trade name “Bauer Rabbit.” Production wrapped up in 1978 at which point the retail price had climbed to $45. I’m told the shotgun version actually packed a fearsome recoil.

The forward trigger cocks the action and releases the barrel assembly for loading and unloading.

Technical Details

The Bronco was loosely based upon the Hamilton Number 11 Boys Rifle. Introduced in 1900, the Hamilton Number 11 was a skeletonized inexpensive .22 rifle marketed toward children. Their marketing catchphrase was “So you want to be a Real Boy?” The guns were advertised in comic books. These little rifles were also sometimes called bicycle guns.

Clarence J. Hamilton sold around half a million of his skeletonized utility rifles. Retail companies gave the weapons out as incentives to kids selling products like costume jewelry and magazines door to door. Feed companies would drop a Hamilton rifle randomly in sacks of meal as a promotional gimmick. It was obviously a different time.

The Bronco orbits around a cast receiver reinforced with a length of steel rod. What looks like a second trigger upfront actually cocks the firing pin and releases the barrel assembly to rotate for loading and unloading. There is a manual extractor for removing empties. The safety is a serrated pushbutton.

My gun is of the early unmarked solid sort. Later versions sported a rotating lever allowing the barrel assembly to be removed for easy portage or storage. The front sight is heavily fenced. The rear sight is a stamped steel V secured with a machine screw. I have read most Broncos shoot high as they were designed in the days before high velocity ammunition.

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Ruminations

My Bronco represents a Spartan design exquisitely well-executed. The fit remains glassy smooth despite more than half a century of hard use. Retiring to the range with my old Bronco and a couple boxes of ammo is, and always shall be, a ton of fun.

I hope Mike got the girl. We were never really close and we lost touch afterwards. However, while teenage dalliances might come and go, guns are forever. My little Bronco is immutable proof.

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