Q: My mate owns a Winchester Model 9422M XTR in .22 WMR which is a really great little gun. I’d like to obtain one myself, but they are no longer being made. Why do you think Winchester stopped making them? Why don’t they get the 9422 made by Miroku, which produces the Model 92 and 94?
– Simon Weston
A The Model 9422 was the third .22-calibre lever-action that Winchester made. The first, the Model 1873, was introduced in 1884 and discontinued in 1904 after less than 20,000 were made; the 200 Series introduced during the mid-1960s was less than a blazing success and was dropped during the early 1970s.
Designed to handle the higher chamber pressures of the .22 WMR, the action of the 9422 was a lot stronger than it needed to be for the .22 LR. In fact, its bolt locks up more like a centrefire than a rimfire. When the massive breech bolt is levered into its locked position, a half-inch wide integral lug projecting from its top surface engages an abutment in the thick roof of the receiver.
Winchester called the 9422’s method of lifting a cartridge to the face of the locking bolt for feeding into chamber as being a “controlled-round”feed design, for as the carrier liftsa round upward, its rim is engaged by vertical slot in the face of the bolt.
The Model 9422 was carved from blocks of walnut and steel in the good old-fashioned way. Taking all these design features into account, I’d say the 9422 was an extremely expensive rifle to manufacture, probably more so than even a Model 94. This is probably why the company is not getting the 9422 made by Miroku, which is producing its centrefire lever-guns.
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