• H. W. Cooey Machine & Arms Company: The Forefather of the Modern Savage Rimfire Rifle


    The history of the modern Savage Arms line of rimfire rifles dates back to long before Ron Coburn and Savage Arms purchased the Lakefield Arms company in Lakefield, Ont. Canada in 1995. Prior to this acquisition Lakefield Arms had been manufacturing the same line of rimfire rifles now wearing the Savage Arms brand under their own name since 1979. Yet even before that, the very similar firearm designs were actually developed and put into production by another Canadian arms maker - the H.W. Cooey Machine & Arms Company.

    I won't sit here and pretend to know much (or anything) about H.W. Cooey or his arms company, but the article in the link below provides a detailed look at this Canadian gun maker and the rimfire rifle designs that clearly had significant influence on the rimfire rifles that wear the Savage Arms name today. His Model 39 bares striking similarity in design to the Mark I, Mark II and 93R models of today and likely lent several design elements to the later Lakefield models. Cooey's Model 64 design on the other hand is the very same rifle that Savage Arms continues to produce to this day wearing the same model designation.


    Comments 3 Comments
    1. mark r's Avatar
      mark r -
      I have a cooey ACE1 .22 rifle (1929-1934) that was found in a old house and given to me, it's been in my possession the last 40 yrs and will hand down to one of my grand kids.
    1. PhilC's Avatar
      PhilC -
      Great read Jim, thanks for posting it.
    1. Buck_Up's Avatar
      Buck_Up -
      My first gun was a Cooey 75... growing up on a dairy farm here in Southern Ontario, not far from the Cooey factory in Cobourg, (which was by then, Winchester owned).

      Every farm had one or more Cooey rimfires, plinking off groundhogs each Sunday, nobody complained despite the Sunday ordinances. Saturday nights in the fall, raccoon hunting with a flashlight taped to the stock.

      The Cooeys were accurate, dependable, cheap and reliable. Great memories