The Knocabout Revisited:

I was casting about at a garage sale some years ago and my eye caught what I first thought was an air pistol of some sort. When I picked it up, I realized it was a single shot, break-barrel .22 with an external hammer and decent looking safety. When I peered at the name stamped on it I was surprised, as my first impression wasn’t far off. It said “Sheridan” — famous for their line of airguns, and the classic .20 caliber pump-rifle you likely grew up with as I did. As I recall, $20 later (“Oh that? It’s just a broken pellet pistol,” she said), I had my own “Knocabout.”

I soon found out it was “broken” in the sense it was missing a firing pin. I nosed around, found an idea of the shape online then made one (well, actually three, before I got it right), using my small lathe and a good nail. I scrounged a firing pin spring from a ballpoint pen and I was in business.

I started with shooting some low pressure Aguila “Colibri” .22 rounds, then moved up to shorts, then standard pressure .22 LR. No use pressing the issue. I found the little gun to have a good trigger, solid safety which cammed the hammer back, a reliable extractor and a strange but highly functional lever in front of the trigger guard to break the barrel open. The grip angle felt great and the fixed sights (on the barrel) were close to point of aim. I fixed this later with a bit of TIG weld on the front sight and some filing.

Frankly, it turned into one of my “funnest” shooters and the group in the picture is at 15 yards, just goofing off. It shoots like gang-busters and I think the single barrel, single chamber and fixed sights on the barrel help matters. According to my research, Sheridan made the guns from 1953 to 1960 and they made about 10,000 or so. Price when new was about $17, about $150 today, so it would still be affordable. At the time, the “new” Ruger auto .22 sold for about $37, for comparison. It seems Sheridan quit making them, though, when corporate policy dictated they just make airguns, not “real” guns — so that was that.

The barrel is 5″ long, for scale, and the gun weighs about 24 oz. Note it’s held together with rivets so you’d need to drill them out to take it apart! They seem to go for about the $300 mark and you can find a pretty good one for that. I saw a minty one with box, instructions and all the fixins advertised at $800 though.

What Were They For?

Remember, at the time, camping, hiking, hunting and a general “outdoors” life was encouraged and the boon in trailers and campers had begun in earnest. While many campers weren’t really gun people, they still knew a handy .22 might be a good thing when fishing, hiking the trails, plinking or even taking small game, so the “Knocabout” (Sheridan’s spelling) was cheap, of good quality and actually worked great.

Out of curiosity, when I was shooting the paper target for the picture here, I took a few shots at my 80-yard gong. Damn if I didn’t get it dialed in and began to hit it easily. It’s a safe gun to use too. Rotate the safety on, pushing the cam between the hammer and the firing pin. This allows the firing pin to move back as you open the barrel. Load a round, snap the barrel closed, raise the gun, cock the hammer, take the safety off, aim and fire. Repeat as needed. No recoil, no magazines, no chasing brass around, no muss, no fuss.

All this still applies today too. Campers, hunters, hikers, fishing, farmers and ranchers, trappers, plinkers, new gun owners — and the list goes on and on. The Garcia Bronco single shot .22 in the pic is sort of the same idea. Cheap but good, it’s easy to shoot, tough as an old goat and lives in my truck. Need a .22 to handle some chore? There it is. There’s a couple of options today, like Chiappa’s “Little Badger” break-open .22 — a sort of cult-classic — but at around $300 is a bit much for the concept, if you ask me.