White Horseradish
Member
I picked up this Sears-branded Winchester for a ridiculously small amount of money. It's in great condition, with bluing worn where it would be carried and a perfect bore. This is a pre-safety gun, possibly from the 1970's. Store-brand guns are apparently not worth a lot to collectors, but I didn't get it to look pretty, I wanted a working lever gun.
The major differences between this and a standard 94 seem to be the buttplate and the bands. A regular 94 has steel ones, where these are aluminum. I'm pretty sure that if the fancy strikes me I could put steel ones on, but I would need to get a different forend.
I took it apart and gave it a good cleaning. It didn't have a whole lot of crud. The mag follower was in backwards.
There are a couple of things I noticed that may be problems, but not having any experience with leverguns I can't tell. First, loading seems to be a bit tough. The gate/spring seems pretty stiff and if I put in a cartridge all the way in it is very hard to get the next one in. Is this something that is inherent in the design or can it be remedied by different loading gate?
Second, if I don't cycle the action quickly enough, a cartridge pops under the lifter instead of above it. This requires a slight disassembly to fix. Is this common? Is there a fix for it?
The lifter and the loading gate are stamped steel.
The major differences between this and a standard 94 seem to be the buttplate and the bands. A regular 94 has steel ones, where these are aluminum. I'm pretty sure that if the fancy strikes me I could put steel ones on, but I would need to get a different forend.
I took it apart and gave it a good cleaning. It didn't have a whole lot of crud. The mag follower was in backwards.
There are a couple of things I noticed that may be problems, but not having any experience with leverguns I can't tell. First, loading seems to be a bit tough. The gate/spring seems pretty stiff and if I put in a cartridge all the way in it is very hard to get the next one in. Is this something that is inherent in the design or can it be remedied by different loading gate?
Second, if I don't cycle the action quickly enough, a cartridge pops under the lifter instead of above it. This requires a slight disassembly to fix. Is this common? Is there a fix for it?
The lifter and the loading gate are stamped steel.