Ugly Sauce
Member
- Joined
- Oct 26, 2020
- Messages
- 6,261
I tend to favor a longer barrel over a short one, and usually say so, but I don't want y'all thinking I'm anti-trapper. So here's my M94 trapper, with the Rossi just to show the difference between a lever action "trapper" and a carbine with 20" barrel.
The 94 (.30WCF) I picked up in Missouri quite a few years back, found it in a pawn shop. It was a little beat, very patchy blue, showed lots of use, but I don't think it had ever been fired much. The shop (and it wasn't that long ago) only wanted $275 for it, and when I bought the guy said that $250 would do. !!??!! Well that turned out to be because it didn't feed. !!
So I fixed that, had to weld some extra metal onto some part of which I forget now, and while I was at it, being a beat cheap gun, and having a nice 1949 94, and a nice Savage 99, I decided to make it into a half magazine. Also removed any remaining patches of blue on the receiver. I like the natural grey. It's a post-64 or course, and I think it might have been made right after the change over, on a Monday morning. The bottom of the receiver was very square compared to my 1949, and was kind of uncomfortable to carry, so I attacked that with a big file.
She was a half-magazine for some time, even took it bear hunting once or twice in that configuration, but decided one day that "heck, this would make a cool lightweight trapper". So I trapper-ized it. It turned out okay I think, (this was a couple of years ago) and she's gone berry picking quite a few times with us. I load it with a 180 grain RNSP on the theory that the heavier bullet, being intended for faster calibers, should penetrate Mr. Grizz with minimal expansion, and get to the vitals.
I'm not sure what the velocity loss is between 20" and 16.25". Is the "handiness" worth the velocity loss? Many will say the target will never know the difference, but I tend to think that when it comes to defense against animals that can bite, scratch, kill and eat you, that maybe every FPS helps. ?
I can see where an actual, real life trapper would tend to favor the shortest rifle possible, as it would still be more powerful than a hand-gun. Or anyone that worked where a rifle needed to be "right there", for close up defense, or need to carry one on a dog sled, snowmobile, or something like that. For hunting, I think an extra four inches would be more better. ?