For sale is a Winchester 52 The Sporting Model in .22 LR. Serial number- 35925. This Model 52 was manufactured in 1936. Comes with a magazine. Features a peep sight, checkered wooden stock and a 24" barrel with an excellent bore. Please refer to the photos as there is finish wear present on this rifle and rust spotting on the barrel.

The Winchester Model 52 was a bolt-action .22-caliber target rifle introduced by the Winchester Repeating Arms Company in 1920. For many years it was the premier smallbore match rifle in the United States, if not the world. It was known as the "King of the .22s."

Around 1931 Major John W. Hessian, a friend of new Winchester president John M. Olin, had a private gunsmith remount his Model 52 in a custom lightweight "sporting" stock. Olin was so impressed that he ordered the development of a 52 Sporter as a production model, which made its debut in 1934.

The Sporting Model had a lightweight 24-inch barrel and an elegant gloss-finished stock of figured walnut with a slender, tapering capped forearm, pronounced pistol grip, high comb and cheekpiece, and fancy checkering. The action was identical with contemporary target models, except that the receiver top was left round rather than milled flat. Weighing only 7-1/4 pounds, it came with Lyman 48-F aperture sights standard, and retailed for the substantial sum of $88.50 (the equivalent of nearly $1520 in 2012).

The Sporter was in all respects a deluxe rifle. While Winchester already had a reputation as the Cadillac of American arms manufacturers, the 52 Sporter was produced with a degree of fit and finish appropriate to a custom gunsmith's shop. Esquire magazine called it "the piece de resistance of all sporting rifles. It's a diamond in a field of chipped glass– the rifle for the connoisseur." Field & Stream named the 52 Sporter one of the "50 Best Guns Ever Made," calling it "unrivalled in beauty and accuracy."

Understandably the Sporter represented only a small percentage of Model 52s produced between 1934 and its discontinuation in 1959: it is today the most collectible of all 52 variants.
V1-B1
Barrel Length: 24
Bore condition: Excellent
Year Manufactured: 1936