For a variety of reasons, the history of the gun industry in Canada is somewhat abbreviated. While our neighbours to the south lay claim to such storied names as Horace Smith, John Browning, Eugene Stoner, and even one of our own in John C. Garand, Canada’s own experience in the realm of gunmaking has been generally sporadic and typically short-lived. Sure, we had the Ross rifle for a while there, but we all know how well that turned out. Then came John Inglis, who’s huge manufacturing firm did turn out massive quantities of legitimately excellent Hi-Power pistols and a myriad of machine guns for the Allied war effort... but now produces far less exciting products in the form of home appliances. And, of course, today we have Colt Canada, nee Diemaco - just don't try and buy anything from them.
But a few decades ago, long before the socio-cultural and political attack on gun ownership began in this country, one company rose from a single ignominious machine shop in Toronto to a mainstay of our national firearms industry: The H. W. Cooey Machine & Arms Company.
Like almost all great gunmakers, the story of Cooey begins with the story of a single man: Herbert William Cooey. After dropping out of an apprenticeship with the Grand Trunk Railroad and quitting a job on an assembly line, the then 23-year-old H. W. Cooey opened his first machine shop at the corner of Queen Street and Spadina Avenue in Toronto in 1903, referring to himself somewhat boastfully as a “mechanical expert and practicing machinist.”
But by 1907, he’d proven his own rather arrogant statement to be at least partly true when he took the wraps off an automobile of his own design that incorporated a number of innovative features, including a pre-heated fuel source (it was Toronto, after all) and double exhaust valves. At the same time, he’d also proven a shrewd businessman, and after just four years in business, the H.W. Cooey Machine Shop outgrew its Spadina Avenue location, and was forced to move across town into a larger shop at Bridgman and Howland Avenue in order to meet the demand for young Herbert’s talents.
But it wouldn’t be until the First World War that Cooey would turn his prosperous machine shop towards the manufacturing of firearms. Called into action to make various small rifle parts, including the folding rear sight assemblies fitted to the aforementioned ill-fated Ross rifle and other parts for Canadian small-bore training rifles, Herbert Cooey’s firm rapidly set about gaining a reputation for building extremely high-quality parts at reasonable prices. By the time hostilities concluded, Cooey had amassed a substantial amount of knowledge regarding firearms design and manufacture, as well as a significant sum of capital, and he summarily dedicated both to a complete rifle of his own design.
Debuting in 1919 as the Cooey Canuck, the product of his efforts was a single-shot .22 bolt-action rifle, and it was an overnight sensation; immediately proving to be one of the most popular rifles of its time in Canada. Considered highly accurate but very affordably priced, the Canuck even gained international acclaim in 1924, when the rifle won the Certificate of Honour at the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley Park; an industrial exposition created “to stimulate trade, strengthen bonds that bind mother Country to her Sister States and Daughters, to bring into closer contact the one with each other, to enable all who owe allegiance to the British flag to meet and know each other.” And that victory was no small feat either - the Exhibition was the largest ever in 1924, costing 12 million pounds and being attended by 27 million people!
But not one to rest on his laurels, at the same time as Cooey’s Canuck was earning fanfare at the Exhibition, Herbert himself was working towards earning some accolades of his own at the 1924 Olympics held in Paris, France. Not only supplying the Canadian national team with the guns they would use in no less than 10 shooting events, Herbert himself ended up with a seat on the Canadian men’s trap team, and would go on to win silver at the games.
By this time, the company known as H. W. Cooey Machine & Gear had committed itself wholly to the manufacture of sporting arms, and changed its name to reflect that, becoming the H. W. Cooey Machine & Arms Company. Advertising the ever-popular Canuck (later renamed the Ace) in a myriad of papers and magazines, Cooey continued to put forth an image of excellent quality and wasn’t afraid to say so with ads that read “Make mine a Cooey - I want the best,” and “Don’t Take a Substitute.” But it was the ad in a 1922 issue of Rod & Gun Canada that perhaps best defined the Cooey rifle as “The ideal Christmas present for the red-blooded boy, whether he lives in the city, the town or the country.”
The Cooey Canuck set the stage for what would become, over the course of literally decades, one of the most iconic of Cooey firearms: The single-shot .22. Best known as the Model 39, this action would end up being licensed to a variety of brands ranging from Winchester (eventually) to Sears, and result in probably a dozen different specific models with names like Ace, Bisley Sport, and Model 75. It is, without a doubt, the most widely rebranded rifle in Canadian history.
The first of Cooey’s designs, this single-shot action that seems so rudimentary today was quite innovative when new, due in large part to the unique automatic half-cock safety. Billed by Herbert as a “patent pending system” (although there is no evidence of patents having ever been filed), this system captured and locked the trigger as the bolt was closed, meaning the gun could not be fired by simply cycling the bolt. Instead, the shooter would have to cycle the bolt, and then pull the tail rearward to fully set the striker, and in doing so, release the trigger from captivity. As a result, the Cooey Canuck was considered one of the safest rifles of its day and this, combined with its diminutive calibre and affordable price, made it popular among younger shooters and more importantly, their parents.
But don’t let that fool you: This is no toy (obviously). Although various models were aimed at (no pun intended) younger audiences of the day, plenty of adults flocked to the early single-shot Cooey rifles due in no small part to their exemplary reputation for accuracy. Even today, well-used examples are easily capable of shooting with accuracy that is on par with or better than many modern bolt-action .22s. And since they are some of the most simple, slow-shooting guns you’ll ever come across, it is highly unlikely that anything will have been worn out through too much use!
By 1929 demand for Cooey rifles, largely driven by Canuck sales, had outgrown the production capacity of Herbert’s facility at Howland and Bridgman, so the new Cooey Machine & Arms Company left Toronto in favour of a new facility in Cobourg. Taking over what was Cobourg’s largest industrial building and the former home of the Ontario Woollen Mill, the new building offered four and a half stories of square footage, and gave the firm the increased manufacturing capacity Herbert desperately needed in order to grow. And grow he did… by creating yet another iconic Canadian rifle: The Cooey repeater.
Known as the Model 60, Cooey's repeating rifle featured what is best summarized as a new front half; it married the successful (and safe) striker and trigger assembly of the Model 39 to a new bolt and magazine while making seemingly as few changes to the overall construction of the rifle as possible. For example, while the Model 60 was Cooey's first rifle with an external safety (a notch in the receiver that the striker could be rotated into), it still featured the Model 39's half-cock striker-engaging safety; no doubt the result of simple parts sharing between the two. Of course, the half-cock safety no longer engaged every time the bolt was cycled (you need to pull the bolt slightly rearward to engage it), the Model 60 being a repeater, but its seemingly superfluous existence speaks to how heavily Cooey's designs were driven by price.
In terms of what was new, the Model 60's party piece was obviously its magazine; allowing owners to load and fire their Cooeys much more rapidly than the single-shot Model 39 ever did. But unlike today's smallbore rifles, when the Model 60 was being conceived, there was no clear winner in the rimfire war: .22 Short, Long, and Long Rifle were all still commonly available and widely used. Herbert knew his repeater needed to be capable of carrying, chambering, and firing all three, and that meant one thing: He needed a tubular magazine. So, slung below the action and fed by a loading port at the 6-o'clock position was the Model 60’s magazine, long enough to swallow 11 rounds of .22 Long Rifle ammunition.
But that desire to remain compatible with three very different lengths of ammunition also meant that rounds would need to feed from the magazine directly onto the bolt face, rather than loosely into the action in what's known as "controlled round feed." This brings us to yet another significant update to the venerable Cooey design; the spring-steel extractor. A simple formed piece, the extractor's dual claws (at the 3- and 9-o'clock positions) grab rounds as they slide out of the magazine tail-first, and holds them by their rim against the bolt. By effectively loading rounds in this manner, by the rim, the overall case length is unimportant and so the Model 60 could feed any length of 22 ammunition with equal ease. During extraction, those same dual extractor claws provided a ton of gripping area to pull the fired casing out of the chamber, after which point it would be popped off the bolt face and out of the action by the next round rising out of the magazine and into its place.
As one of Cooey’s most popular rifles, the Cooey Repeater (best known as the 60 and 600 but also having been available under numerous other names) was rugged and reliable, and brought the same level of accuracy Cooey’s single shot rifles were known for to a much more practical package. However, there is no getting around the fact that these are far more complex rifles, and they can be incredibly frustrating when they start to break down. Key parts to keep an eye on include the spring steel extractor, the magazine tube, and the follower. Usually, problems of unreliable ejection can be traced back to shooters too softly working the action, as the rifle’s ability to properly eject and feed rounds is directly related to the force with which the action is manipulated. However, be judicious in your heavy-handedness, as you obviously don’t want to beat the gun up unnecessarily.
Having created the wildly popular Model 60 repeating rifle in 1939, Cooey very quickly found himself once more embroiled in another war-effort economy and again, he tooled up to support the effort - albeit as a gunmaker this time. Creating the Model 82 training rifle (which earned a contract for the procurement of 34,810 rifles by the Canadian Army and R.C.A.F. Air Cadet Corps) by dropping a Model 39 action into a Lee Enfield-shaped stock, Cooey provided the military with a rifle that largely provided little more than drill practice but its historical relevance and relative rarity make it something of a collector’s piece today - if not exceedingly exciting design-wise. But, just as in the months and years following World War I, the Cooey firm was keen to keep growing after the war. So, with Herbert’s son Hubert taking on much of the design work at the company, the two Cooeys directed their engineering talents towards the senior Cooey personal passion: Shotguns.
It is somewhat fitting that one of the first guns designed by Hubert Cooey would also represent a massive departure from the Cooey tradition of rimfire rifle manufacturing. However, as disparate as a smoothbore may have been from Cooey’s bread and butter, Hubert was obviously raised in the Cooey culture and so knew that any shotgun bearing the Cooey name needed to marry practicality, reliability, and value. The best solution? A single-shot break-action.
A massive change from the usual Cooey production, the Model 84 debuted in 1948 as a svelte and compact single-shot break-action shotgun in .410, 28-, 20-, 16-, and 12-guage. Simplicity was at the forefront of Hubert’s mind while creating the 84, as the simple single-shot design kept the lockwork separate from the action, requiring the shooter load the gun and then cock it in a separate action - reminiscent of his father's Model 39 design. As a result, shooters were expected to keep the gun broken or uncocked until ready to shoot, so there are no external safeties. Barrel lengths varied greatly from 26” to 36” long, and although early models were restricted to 2-3/4” long chambers, later Model 840s (the nomenclature change denoting guns made after the 1961 acquisition of Cooey Machine & Arms Co. by Winchester) had 3” long chambers.
The ethos of simplicity is even more evident in breaking the Model 84 down. Unlike most other break-action guns, there is no latch under the fore-end to secure the forestock to the barrels; it is simply held in place by spring tension. Simply pulling the forestock away from the barrels releases it. From there, the gun is further broken down by opening the action (which, coincidentally, can be done by pushing the lever left or right) and pulling the barrels off their pivot, like one would any other break-action.
The Model 84 and 840 remained exceptionally popular throughout the gun’s 31-year production run. Over 1.9 million of these shotguns would leave the Cobourg factory before the Cooey brand was mothballed, and Winchester would follow up on the 84/840’s success with their own Model 370, 395, 168, and 37A; all based upon Cooey’s design. And it’s not hard to see why. With a slender receiver, a reliable action, an excellent balance and most of all an exceedingly low price tag, it is a very sought-after shotgun.
Unfortunately, tragedy would befall the Cooey family in the late ‘50s, with Hubert passing away suddenly and unexpectedly in 1957. Herbert would come out of retirement to head the firm that bore his name for a few brief years before selling Cooey Machine and Arms to the Olin Corporation in 1961, shortly before his own death in February of 1962 at age 80. Two years later, Olin had already placed Cooey under the management of their Winchester-Western Division, and Cooey would launch the last project of Hubert Cooey and one of their most successful designs to date and the only Cooey design still in production today: The Model 64.
Officially launched in 1964 (the same year Ruger launched the 10/22), the Cooey Model 64 had roots in the mid-50’s, when Hubert Cooey recognized Cooey’s need for a semi-automatic repeater to join their strong bolt-action lineup.
Borrowing heavily from his father’s work on the Model 39, Hubert took a similar bolt, receiver, and trigger design and matched it with a simple direct-blowback system operated via a small action spring mounted to the tail of the bolt assembly. Then, he fitted the trigger group with a simple lever-style safety not unlike that found on the Remington Model 700 (introduced in 1962), and designed a simple but effective 10-round box magazine from which the blowback action would reliably feed.
Unfortunately, as mentioned, Hubert passed away before the project was seen through to completion. Likewise, the aged Herbert was somewhat overwhelmed when he came out of retirement to take command of the company after his son’s passing; a fact that many indicate as a key motive behind his sale to the Olin Corporation. But Olin, the conglomerate behind Winchester, recognized the value in Hubert’s design and ordered Cooey to put the lightweight and simple Model 64 into production to give the brand something with which to compete against the likes of the Marlin Model 60 and equally new Ruger 10/22.
Like all Cooey firearms, the Model 64 was immediately regarded as simple, efficient, reliable and most of all, a bargain. Even ten years after its introduction, the Model 64 would still be available in Canada for less than $50. Sadly though, even with the long track record of producing excellent products, it wasn’t long before both political and labour issues forced the closure of Herbert’s long-lived Cobourg facility in 1979. But, through some fortunate happenstance, the machinery and hardware used within the Cooey plant would find a new home down the road in Lakefield, Ontario with the aptly named Lakefield Arms Company; a company where many former Cooey employees would also find their next job.
But Lakefield Arms didn’t just get Cooey’s hardware. They also got the rights to Cooey’s Model 64. So, with the machinery moved and many of the same people manning it, Lakefield Arms retooled the production line and began production of their own Model 64; the Lakefield Arms Model 64B. Even after Lakefield Arms was purchased by Savage Arms in 1995 the production of Hubert Cooey’s Model 64 continued right up to the present day. Now known as the Savage Arms Model 64, it remains one of Savage’s most popular offerings, with no less than six different sub-models currently available.
Before Cooey was dissolved entirely, it is estimated that approximately 12 million firearms would leave Cooey’s various factories. From 1919 until April 1961, production schedules remained a relatively steady 20 firearms per day, which increased dramatically when the firm was sold to Winchester, who in turn replaced the Cobourg facility’s aged machinery with modern hardware. This increased the plant’s production capacity to 2,000 firearms per day. Over 67 different models of firearm would fill the Cooey catalog eventually, with numerous other firearms produced for other brands such as Hiawatha, Iver Johnson, Winchester, Mercury and various others.
That Cooeys are basic, affordable guns cannot be debated. But there’s something about them. They are part of our nation’s shooting heritage. For many of us, they’re the first guns we ever laid hands on, and undoubtedly for many more they will provide a similar service again as we introduce our own young ones to the shooting hobby. They’re rugged, they’re reliable, and they represent a time in Canada’s past when it wasn’t untoward to give a young boy a rifle for his birthday. So if you happen to be lucky enough to own one of these rifles, hold onto it. Look after it. And use it. It’s what they were designed for.
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