Well, Hawley's patent is dated 1869, Haviland & Gunn's first patent appeared in 1871, and Hawley's Kalamazoo was already being sold in 1870 in .22 calibre, so I think we can safely say that Hawley pre-empted H & G in introducing the .22 calibre onto the airgun scene. However, we still can't say yet if there were .22 calibre rimfires around before Hawley, which might have inspired him to adopt this calibre for his air pistol. We need someone with very early (pre-1870) firearm catalogues to do some research.Originally Posted by chieffool
Whoops.... my apologies: so - Quackenbush seems to now be down in at least 3rd place on the leaderboard.
But does this make HAWLEY the first .22?
Or does the Haviland and Gunn catalogue predate?
Although there are a lot of pre-1870 airguns known, these are in all sorts of weird calibres, usually very large. I have never come across mention of .22 calibre in any of these.
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