silicosys4
Member
- Joined
- Jun 29, 2012
- Messages
- 3,666
So I'm giving an update on the thread I posted here:
https://www.thehighroad.org/index.php?threads/bought-an-antique1873-winchester.908077/
Its been an interesting few weeks, I took the rifle almost completely apart and cleaned 125 years of crud out of and off of the gun. It was pretty bad, by the time I was done I had a pile of crusty brown towels, but after cleaning and lubing, everything went back together and functioned properly. It does cycle much smoother now. The insides were in good condition, rust free and relatively unworn but with a patina covering everything.
I wanted to shoot it to see if it truly needed a reline in order to use cast lead. The bore looked pretty chewed up, and I wasn't confident it would bite and stabilize cast handloads.
Problem was, I couldn't find any .32-20. None. Zilch. There is literally no available .32-20 to be had online that I could find. Everybody locally looks at me like I'm crazy when I ask for it, and if they have even heard of it they haven't seen it in years. The owner of the shop I bought the rifle from knew what it was but his employees didn't and there was none in stock.
Ok, I reload, so I looked for cases and components. I found dies, shell plates, and projectiles but cases are nowhere to be found. I was able to backorder a few hundred cases but I have no idea when they will be available.
Dang. Complete roadblock.
In the meantime,
I installed a new front and rear sight on it because the original ones were pretty chewed up and unusable. Now mind you, I tapped them in to what looked to the naked eye to be centered, but that's it.
I found an original magazine tube cap as the original one was functional but pretty chewed up, and the new old one was...less chewed up.
In the earlier thread I was discussing sending it away for a reline and mechanical reconditioning, but I was lucky enough to reconnect with a semi retired local gunsmith that has done some work for me in the past, the real deal. He has a huge amount of experience with older firearms, and used to be a factory gunsmith for S&W. Walking into his workshop was a real treat, he makes cartridges for guns that are completely obsolete...and by "make", I mean in some cases he turns down brass bar stock to get cartridge cases that can't be found or made from other brass, and does a lot of case conversions. He swages his own bullets, which i'd never seen before, and he had some really cool stories about projects that he was working on, like a double barrel shotgun he turned into a double rifle...a 35-30 in fact, a wildcat 30-30 necked up to .35. He had a gunsmithing business open to the public, but closed a number of years ago and since he closed the shop i'd lost touch with him.
Anyways, back to the Winchester. He looked it over, said it looked fine to shoot, it functioned well enough to shoot, and by golly he had some .32-20 reloads and asked if I wanted to go function test it. So we drove out to a local gravel pit just to run a few rounds out. First shot I aimed at a paint can on the berm and wouldn't you know, hit it on the first shot. We shot it a few more times at the can just to make sure it fed out of the magazine and shot consistently.
The gun was as quiet as a .22lr, no hearing protection needed, cycled properly, and was sighted in at least somewhat, which was pretty dang good for newly installed irons. So I traded my gunsmith a pound of IMR 4064 and some cash for his time, and he was generous enough to give me a box of his reloads to test provided I return his brass. Suits me just fine, I have the excuse to go back and pick his brains a bit more that way.
Today I had the time to actually fire the gun in earnest, so to speak, and test for accuracy.
The loads he gave me were a 95 grain cast lead rnfp over 9.9gr of IMR 4227. Not what I'd load for the gun, but that's what I had, and I'm darn grateful for them.
I wasn't expecting much, and my bar was pretty low. Pretty please Lord, somewhere on paper and no keyholes. Thats it.
Set up at 15 yards and took three shots from a prone elbow rest
Ok, thats pretty darn good for two freshly installed sights and a rough bore. I brought the rear sight up one notch,
Moved out to 40 yards, prone on elbows again, 5 shots
Well, I guess I don't need a reline just yet.
I decided to stretch it, and go for 60 yards, but by this time the sun was behind the target, the wind was up, and my eyes aren't what they used to be. Still, I'm more than happy with the results and I think the gun is capable of doing better off a bench with a better rest
The blade front sight looks much better than the one that came on the gun (even though its new and unweathered), but dang does it disappear in anything but ideal light. I was lucky enough to find an original rear sight with the same patina as the gun, but I see why people replace them with peeps and such. Its not the best rear sight i've ever used, even after filing the notch a little deeper and wider. On a side note, the original rear sight had been cut down so short that it was hard to tell what it had been originally, and there are so many variations of Winchester rifle sights that I'm not even sure now if I found the right one, but it looks good and suits the rifle
Overall I just love this gun. Yea I know its cut down and not collectible, but boy is it fun to shoot and to be honest with you, I like how it looks even compared to an original sporting rifle. I like the carbine length octagon barrel, I like the dovetailed magazine tube hanger instead of the carbines barrel band, and the gun just personifies every western i've ever seen
I'm just bummed I have to wait 4-6 weeks to shoot it again. I finally found an online retailer, Custom Cartridges, who has all the components and will be able to send me some ammo...after they take care of their backlog.
Next step is to take some Murphys oil soap to the wood, Its pretty dark and grimy and I'm curious as to whats under there.
Anyways, thanks for looking.
https://www.thehighroad.org/index.php?threads/bought-an-antique1873-winchester.908077/
Its been an interesting few weeks, I took the rifle almost completely apart and cleaned 125 years of crud out of and off of the gun. It was pretty bad, by the time I was done I had a pile of crusty brown towels, but after cleaning and lubing, everything went back together and functioned properly. It does cycle much smoother now. The insides were in good condition, rust free and relatively unworn but with a patina covering everything.
I wanted to shoot it to see if it truly needed a reline in order to use cast lead. The bore looked pretty chewed up, and I wasn't confident it would bite and stabilize cast handloads.
Problem was, I couldn't find any .32-20. None. Zilch. There is literally no available .32-20 to be had online that I could find. Everybody locally looks at me like I'm crazy when I ask for it, and if they have even heard of it they haven't seen it in years. The owner of the shop I bought the rifle from knew what it was but his employees didn't and there was none in stock.
Ok, I reload, so I looked for cases and components. I found dies, shell plates, and projectiles but cases are nowhere to be found. I was able to backorder a few hundred cases but I have no idea when they will be available.
Dang. Complete roadblock.
In the meantime,
I installed a new front and rear sight on it because the original ones were pretty chewed up and unusable. Now mind you, I tapped them in to what looked to the naked eye to be centered, but that's it.
I found an original magazine tube cap as the original one was functional but pretty chewed up, and the new old one was...less chewed up.
In the earlier thread I was discussing sending it away for a reline and mechanical reconditioning, but I was lucky enough to reconnect with a semi retired local gunsmith that has done some work for me in the past, the real deal. He has a huge amount of experience with older firearms, and used to be a factory gunsmith for S&W. Walking into his workshop was a real treat, he makes cartridges for guns that are completely obsolete...and by "make", I mean in some cases he turns down brass bar stock to get cartridge cases that can't be found or made from other brass, and does a lot of case conversions. He swages his own bullets, which i'd never seen before, and he had some really cool stories about projects that he was working on, like a double barrel shotgun he turned into a double rifle...a 35-30 in fact, a wildcat 30-30 necked up to .35. He had a gunsmithing business open to the public, but closed a number of years ago and since he closed the shop i'd lost touch with him.
Anyways, back to the Winchester. He looked it over, said it looked fine to shoot, it functioned well enough to shoot, and by golly he had some .32-20 reloads and asked if I wanted to go function test it. So we drove out to a local gravel pit just to run a few rounds out. First shot I aimed at a paint can on the berm and wouldn't you know, hit it on the first shot. We shot it a few more times at the can just to make sure it fed out of the magazine and shot consistently.
The gun was as quiet as a .22lr, no hearing protection needed, cycled properly, and was sighted in at least somewhat, which was pretty dang good for newly installed irons. So I traded my gunsmith a pound of IMR 4064 and some cash for his time, and he was generous enough to give me a box of his reloads to test provided I return his brass. Suits me just fine, I have the excuse to go back and pick his brains a bit more that way.
Today I had the time to actually fire the gun in earnest, so to speak, and test for accuracy.
The loads he gave me were a 95 grain cast lead rnfp over 9.9gr of IMR 4227. Not what I'd load for the gun, but that's what I had, and I'm darn grateful for them.
I wasn't expecting much, and my bar was pretty low. Pretty please Lord, somewhere on paper and no keyholes. Thats it.
Set up at 15 yards and took three shots from a prone elbow rest
Ok, thats pretty darn good for two freshly installed sights and a rough bore. I brought the rear sight up one notch,
Moved out to 40 yards, prone on elbows again, 5 shots
Well, I guess I don't need a reline just yet.
I decided to stretch it, and go for 60 yards, but by this time the sun was behind the target, the wind was up, and my eyes aren't what they used to be. Still, I'm more than happy with the results and I think the gun is capable of doing better off a bench with a better rest
The blade front sight looks much better than the one that came on the gun (even though its new and unweathered), but dang does it disappear in anything but ideal light. I was lucky enough to find an original rear sight with the same patina as the gun, but I see why people replace them with peeps and such. Its not the best rear sight i've ever used, even after filing the notch a little deeper and wider. On a side note, the original rear sight had been cut down so short that it was hard to tell what it had been originally, and there are so many variations of Winchester rifle sights that I'm not even sure now if I found the right one, but it looks good and suits the rifle
Overall I just love this gun. Yea I know its cut down and not collectible, but boy is it fun to shoot and to be honest with you, I like how it looks even compared to an original sporting rifle. I like the carbine length octagon barrel, I like the dovetailed magazine tube hanger instead of the carbines barrel band, and the gun just personifies every western i've ever seen
I'm just bummed I have to wait 4-6 weeks to shoot it again. I finally found an online retailer, Custom Cartridges, who has all the components and will be able to send me some ammo...after they take care of their backlog.
Next step is to take some Murphys oil soap to the wood, Its pretty dark and grimy and I'm curious as to whats under there.
Anyways, thanks for looking.
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