Winchester 94 .30-30 Review

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    Trapper Jim

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    22   0   0
    Dec 18, 2012
    2,676
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    Arcadia
    Spent today going back to yesterday working out with my Winchester Model 94 Model 94 - Current Products (winchesterguns.com). I just love taking the Levers out in the snow. Priceless. This review covers my Winchester Model 94 Saddle Ring from 1918. I went to two different ranges today as I had some other shooting to do that was better suited to my projects. It appeared that my truck tires were the only one making tracks. With the first snow cover of the season, it was just plain pretty.

    Oliver Winchester and John Marlin both forged a gun industry that would run side by side in the quest for the guns that would chisel out an American Frontier. Arthur Savage put his spin on it as well. Just as the fight between Ford and Chevy, or Edison and Westinghouse, these industrialists were very forward thinking men. It is fulfilling for me to enjoy lever rifles as much as I do because of them.

    This particular rifle indicates a manufacture date of 1918. A 20 Inch SRC appears to be all original, has a fantastic bore, and can shoot small groups at a 100 yards. If you are going to get into shooting real antique rifles, a few warnings first. I found this listing 1918 Winchester 1894 94 30 SRC Saddle Ring Carbine 20" Lever Action Rifle - Lever Action Rifles at GunBroker.com : 882285605 and can tell you that something is not kosher here. Beware of bad information. Also, if you plan on shooting your antique, (I shoot everything I have or what good is it), then have it checked over by a qualified gunsmith. Check for metal fatigue, misfit parts, bad headspace etc.

    The 30WCF is a fantastic cartridge in itself. I know, it is anemic by modern standards, but it is the rifleman than can get more out of this cartridge than the layman. The nick named .30-30 can generate over 40,000 PSI and put itÂ’s common load of a 150 Grain bullet downrange at over 2200FPS if needed. Further speaking, I can not explain it, but for the power I get out of this cartridge, you couldnÂ’t tell by the felt recoil. Maybe thatÂ’s just me, but my levers are all pleasant to shoot without the propotioned noticeable felt recoil.

    My favorite loads in these .30-30Â’s are the Winchester 150 Gr PP X30306 | Winchester Ammunition. Of course I have a Factory Duplication Load and a Plinker Load. I use the Plinker load for Basic Lever Gun Training, targets and the occasional yote. It consists of 16Gr of Hercules (Alliant) 2400 under a Speer 110 Gr FPHP Bullet Varmint Hollow Point Bullet (speer.com) . You will note as evidenced by todayÂ’s targets that the lighter load prints a little lower that the factory round. There is less recoil and energy generated by this load that muzzle rise under recoil is not as much. But it is a good round to train off hand shooting.

    A drill that we do at our Advanced Lever Gun stages is the Rider Dispatch. This is borrowed from my StreetWise stage designs. At 100 yards, we place a couple of targets sideways and one vertical to simulate a horse and rider. Then at the signal from the rack and unchambered, the shooter has a 6 second par time to bring the carbine up, chamber a round, get a sight picture and take the rider off the horse so to speak. After all, the horse has done nothing wrong and we know I like animals more than people anyway. You fail the course if you hit the lower horse targets or go past the par time. We run this 5 times for a perfect score of 25. Below is a Rider Dispatch target from a different day. We just shot paper plates today at 75 yrds as we had a lot of ground to cover. We do not do the drill in Basic Lever Gun training as many have to learn the proper way to load and work the action of a lever before we can get into a rifleman skill set.

    This 1918 Winchester has many bumps and bruises that sometimes I think of sending it off and having it restored. Then I ask myself why, It wonÂ’t shoot any better than it does now and besides what are all the character marks worth that are on the gun? Each one has a story and overall reads like a novel spanning over 100 years.
    One thing that bothers me on many levers, is the NW corner of where the stock goes into the receiver. This is an intricate cut and fitting of wood to metal. No one said that John Browning made the gun EASY to manufacture. Oils running into this part from the receiver and shooters hand along with noobs trying to take a stock off of a lever gun and damaging the very thin milled wood in this area, more often show up on each side of the tang in the corner. It is cosmetic only but it is like the slide stop scratch that noobs put on 1911Â’s. Just not necessary with a little education.

    The front sight is pinned and replaceable but notice it is not dovetailed and the rear is a ladder sight that gets me some long range shots when I need them. All right on and in working order. When gun manufacturers stumbled across dovetailing front sights, some used it to ship the guns without them being registered right down the middle and hoped no one would complain. Still do today. Winchesters lever action linkage on the 94 is not as smooth as the Marlin action, but they both have merit. When the linkage of the Winchester comes out of the bottom, one is not sure when itÂ’s going to stop. It just hangs there like a bent up traffic sign or the three point hitch on one of my farm tractors. The MarlinÂ’s action of course is totally housed inside the receiver. Two distinct ways of achieving the same thing. Kinda like Phizer and Moderna scientists.

    Finding brass in the snow is always easy as I try to find the plus side on everything including cold weather. If one notices, back in the day Winchester fit the Saddle Ring to the receiver and did not just elect to attach it with a screw. Also, the hammer and trigger are all steel with a half cock notch as well. The trigger breaks very clean at 4LBS which is where all my levers hover. Levers are not bench rest bettsies, however, I have no problem getting great accuracy out of them without a 2lb trigger.

    I just love the fitted steel butt plate on these guns. It is just proof that some jaws may need jacking once in awhile even 100 years ago and there wasnÂ’t even FaceBook yet.

    As a footnote, it is this authors opinion that the quality was indifferent and good between Marlin and Winchester up until 1964. Marlin tried to stay with family and real people running it rather than financial conglomerates and licensees taking over the Winchester name. It is ironic that Marlin lost the battle in 2010 and may be going down the same road that started for Winchester in 1964. I hope not. I have had a lot of post 64 Winchesters made by different plants, companies and foreign countries and along with all their faults, they were still good guns. Not quite as refined as my old ones mind you but good enough that I look forward to tomorrow when I can go back to yesterday.

    Good Shooting INGO!

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