Over the last few months I’ve been cleaning out my gun collection and getting rid of anything I don’t shoot much which has led to me cutting down my collection nearly in half. I still have too many guns though so there will be more purging coming.
Most of what I’ve sold is mildly interesting but nothing that unusual. Things like a Norinco SKS, couple shotguns, Ruger 243, Ruger 44 Mag and so on. One more on my list to get rid of is a bit more unusual and was actually my first gun purchase too.
It is a Daisy Model 2203 Semi-Automatic 22 LR gun. Yes, Daisy the air rifle company. They made a couple models of 22 guns in the late 80's but were not a big success so they stopped.
I bought it in a pawn shop when I was 18, I looked back at the shelf and saw something unusual there and asked for it. I was baffled by what I saw and it was only $60, so I bought it.
Part of the reason they weren’t a success is they’re genuinely strange guns and I’ve never encountered another quite like this one. I’ll go into some of the oddities below.
First oddity: Plastic barrel with steel lining
This has definitely been done before but it’s not something you see on everyday rifles. I do have another that does this, but it’s a Henry survival rifle which packs into it’s stock and weighs nearly nothing.
Second Oddity: Painted instead of blued receiver
I guess this was to make the gun look more seamless between the black plastic barrel and the steel receiver but it makes even the slightest mark on the gun look terrible and start to rust.
Third Oddity: Plastic Magazines
The magazines are literally molded plastic. This gives them a ton of flex and they feed terrible.
Fourth Oddity: The action
The bold action is genuinely strange. There isn’t a prawl or handle like you’re used to on a rifle to cycle the action or release it. It is a rod under the barrel that you push back towards the buttstock to open or cycle the action and a button back on the stock to close it.
This all adds up to a genuinely strange gun, especially since it was only made 30 years ago even though the basics of a semi-automatic rifle has been understood for a very long time.
It also shoots terribly - it jams constantly and bullets literally come tumbling end over end out of the end of the barrel.
The end of this gun’s life is coming though, while doing some research on it before I was planning on selling it I came across a recall.
So I contacted Daisy and they’re sending me a shipping label to send it back to them to destroy it since they’re not fixing them anymore. They’re even going to send me a $100 check for it.
Thanks for coming along with me in this exploration of a strange gun that I still own but haven’t shot in 17 years.