Need Guidance on Winchester 1890 .22 short

[swan hunter]

I recently purchased this rifle from someone on this website and they failed to mention that the bore was gone on it. It is a neat little pump rifle and I took it to a gun smith to see about having the bore relined. He thought it was too valuable to mess with and thought we would mess up the collector's value.

It was made in 1903 and is in good mechanical condition but it isn't a show piece. I would hate to mess up the value but, I want a shooter. Right now, it shoots about a 6" group @ 15 yds!!!

Thanks

 

[Sunray]

Give it a really good bath before you do anything. It could be just leaded from long use with little cleaning.

 

[swan hunter]

Tried That

Looks like might have been corrosive powder or something like that worked it over.

 

[Jim Watson]

Not corrosive powder, corrosive priming.

Lots of rusted out .22s around. A black powder gun will last pretty well, the fouling dilutes the potassium chloride residue from corrosive primers and everybody knows you have to clean up after BP in short order. But an early corrosive primed smokeless .22 had a lot of priming compound relative to the powder charge and the bore area. They LOOKED clean after shooting but had that KCl on naked steel; they could be rusting before you got home from the squirrel woods.

Anybody tells me a gun is too valuable to repair had better have a profitable cash offer in hand. I'd check the resale prices and probably have it relined unless it was some unusual variant worth big bucks.

 

[rcmodel]

+1
In the poor condition it is in now, it is no more valuable then the sum of it's parts to a collector.

I'd shoot it enough to make sure it functions perfectly, then send it to Redman and have it relined.

http://redmansrifling.com/relining_prices.htm

I had him do an 1890 .22WRF a couple of years ago, and only an expert could tell it has been relined.
And it shoots like new rifle now!

rcmodel