Not another Winchester 94 thread

[MLB]

Sorry, that's the way it goes sometimes.

So opening day of deer season is this coming Saturday and I figure I'll take the Winchester 94 out again this year. Mainly because I didn't get anything with it last year. Sooner or later even a blind squirrel gets a nut they say.

While giving it the pre-season cleaning and lube, I was reminded of the terrible trigger on it. It breaks nice and clean; and very little creep, but when the hammer is cocked the trigger just dangles there on it's pin until it travels back to where it engages the sear. All is very nice from there on back.

I can't imagine that it was designed that way, and since this one is rather old, I figured that perhaps there was a trigger return spring broken.

I do enjoy taking my firearms down to see exactly how they work. Fortunately, the Win94 really isn't all that complicated. It got the best cleaning that it's had probably since it was purchaced by my wife's uncle ages ago, but I didn't make any progress on the trigger. There's a leaf spring that returns the sear. Seems to work as it should until the hammer is installed.

Unless the trigger - sear mating has worn so much as to leave that much play (unlikely), I'm wondering if someone worked on it and put mismatched parts in. I'll have to research that one.

[TMan]

MLB, is this a 94 or a 9422? They are different. Let me know, and I can take a look at mine (I have 2 - 94's and 1 - 9422 (don't know who talked me into that one). ;D

Since you weren't the first owner, no telling what is inside. Sometimes some "hack gunsmith" gets in there and really can screw things up. Wait, "hack gunsmith"... "screw things up" - I just described me.

[Callahan]

mlb said:

Sorry, that's the way it goes sometimes.

So opening day of deer season is this coming Saturday and I figure I'll take the Winchester 94 out again this year. Mainly because I didn't get anything with it last year. Sooner or later even a blind squirrel gets a nut they say.

While giving it the pre-season cleaning and lube, I was reminded of the terrible trigger on it. It breaks nice and clean; and very little creep, but when the hammer is cocked the trigger just dangles there on it's pin until it travels back to where it engages the sear. All is very nice from there on back.

I can't imagine that it was designed that way, and since this one is rather old, I figured that perhaps there was a trigger return spring broken.

I do enjoy taking my firearms down to see exactly how they work. Fortunately, the Win94 really isn't all that complicated. It got the best cleaning that it's had probably since it was purchaced by my wife's uncle ages ago, but I didn't make any progress on the trigger. There's a leaf spring that returns the sear. Seems to work as it should until the hammer is installed.

Unless the trigger - sear mating has worn so much as to leave that much play (unlikely), I'm wondering if someone worked on it and put mismatched parts in. I'll have to research that one.

MLB:
I had considered taking my Winchester Model 1886 out of the safe to take a deer this year, using it just as it was since the turn of the century. I looked up prices on .45-90s on the Internet and now I'm having second thoughts about that! I do have some PMC cowboy action shooting loads that PMC was doing a few years ago that are not as powerful as the original load.

Using the Winchester with its pronghorn sights and my old eyes would limit my shots to probably 50-75 yards. I think 100 would be pushing it.

The trigger on it is pretty good. Actually better that the post-WWII FN Mauser sporter in .30-06 I inherited a few years ago.

So, your season starts on the 18th. How long does it run? I grew up back East but I was too young to remember the seasons. Is it pretty much the same in N.Y. and the New England states?

In Texas, gun season runs from the first Saturday in November through the first weekend in the new year. Archery season starts a month earlier, first Saturday in October. There is no special muzzleloader season.

I think the season runs a little later in South Texas, where the rut starts later in the year.

Anyway, good luck to ya this year. Get a good night's sleep so you aren't dozing off by 8 a.m., as I was doing on the 4th. I have not gotten a deer yet. Missed a wild hog before dawn and got one of two coyotes, but no deer.

[MLB]

It's a Model 94 chambered in .30-30. I'll have to look up the S/N on the thing. They changed something somewhere around '63 and I understand that the older ones are more valuable for some reason.

Before last year, I have always used a Rem 870 Express with 3" slugs (nothing like launching an ounce of lead towards your dinner). It's probably the better tool for the job, but I'd like to take one with the Winchester. I use open sights anyway. In the dense woods I hunt in, the shots are short.

The season is open for about 4 weeks. Archery starts about a month before, but I'm not sure when (I'm not patient enough to hunt with a sharp stick.) Interestingly, muzzleloaders start about the same time. They have rifled sabots for those things now don't they?

[TMan]

Yeah, the muzzleloaders have become very hi-tech. My cousin always gets at least one deer (if he gets a doe permit in the lottery, he gets two). I don't think he leaves his property to do so either. There is a large stream that runs through his property. The last time I was up there, he was showing me all his stuff, and it was all muzzleloader stuff.

Reminds me when I worked at Sterling Forest, NY. The company owned quite a bit of land, and hunting wasn't allowed on company property. During hunting season, we used to get a lot deer up by the building. The glass was the kind that reflected as a mirror from the outside. The deer would walk right up to it.

[MLB]

OK, mine is S/N 4,067,xxx. From a Winchester parts diagram, after 4,580,000 they went to a coiled hammer spring instead of the leaf type. Not sure if that's the "pre '63" thing or not.

[5ontarget]

the pre/post 64 thing has to do with winchester cutting production cost to restore profit margins, in 1964. Sheet metal and roll pins were swapped out for stuff that was forged/machined. I've also heard they put a cheaper finish on the 94's after 1964.

I believe they did something similar to the model 70 as well at the same time. (many consider a pre64 action one of the best examples of the classic Mauser bolt action ever made)


Edit:
I remembered reading in Xavier's blog a while back about a 94 he happened upon.
xavierthoughts.blogspot.com/2006/04/pawn-shop-circuit-ignorance-old.html

[MLB]

Well, mine has roll pins here and there, and the finish is nothing to speak of, so I may have a not so old one. Thanks for the link. I'll take a look.