Opinions on Winchester 94 AE for Blackpowder

[RPRNY]

I'm more of a Marlin guy but have a line on a Winchester in 45 Colt at a good price. My last 94 was in 32 Special and I never shot black powder with it but recall the linkage on the lever being a bit trickier/fussier to clean. Bad memory, no such issue, or spot on? I don't find black powder clean up particularly onerous but haven't used it in lever guns to date.

 

[Driftwood Johnson]

Howdy

45 Colt is not the best cartridge for the Winchester Model 1894. As you probably know, the 1894 was designed for a longer cartridge like the 30-30 or 32 Special and putting a shorter cartridge like 45 Colt into it is a bit of a compromise.

All that said, yes, you can load 45 Colt with Black Powder for any lever gun; with a caveat. Any lever gun is nothing more than a pipe. It is not like a revolver where fouling gets blasted out of the barrel/cylinder gap and gets everywhere. The trick in any lever gun is to chose a cartridge that will expand properly at the relatively low pressures developed by Black Powder to seal the chamber. If you don't seal the chamber, you will get blow back into the mechanism and will have to clean fouling out of the mechanism.

Many, many shooters in CAS load Black Powder for their various lever guns chambered for 45 Colt. 1894 Marlin, 1892 Winchester, 1873 Winchester, 1866 Winchester, 1860 Henry, and yes probably a few 1894 Winchesters. The common thread among all those shooters is that 45 Colt does not obdurate very well at Black Powder pressures to seal the chamber. This is because the case walls are relatively thick, around .012 thick at the case mouth. So what usually happens is they get some blowby into the mechanism that has to be cleaned up. Certainly not the end of the world, but it does have to be dealt with.

There are several strategies for dealing with this. First off, no light loads. You want to develop as much pressure as possible to completely seal the chamber. Use a heavy bullet like 250 grains, and fill the case with powder so that when the bullet is seated the powder is compressed by between 1/16" -1/8". No fillers, you want to develop as much pressure as possible to seal the chamber. And be sure you put a heavy crimp on the bullet.

Another trick that is used is to only size the case partway, so that the rear of the case remains in the expanded condition, better sealing the case. And some guys anneal their brass so it remains soft and seals the case better.

All this is why 44-40 is the darling of Black Powder lever gun shooters. The case is thinner, only about .007 thick at the case mouth, and seals the chamber better at the relatively low pressures developed by Black Powder.

Bottom line, go ahead and load up some BP loads with Black Powder, but be prepared to do some cleaning in the action.

And be sure you use a bullet with a Black Powder compatible bullet lube. Modern Smokeless bullets with modern hard lubes can be troublesome.

 

[Don McDowell]

Yup those Winchesters are fine rifles. Been shooting mine in 45 colt for over 25 years. Blackpowder loads work well in the 45 colt, so long as you avoid the mousephart stuff the CASS boys think they need to shoot.
Clean up is simple, just blow a few breaths into each end of the barrel and then push a cleaning patch on a jag down the tube, with the rifle action open and turned over so that anything that pushes out ahead of the patch falls to the ground and not into the action. Even if some crud does get into the action with the design of that 94 it's no big deal to clean the action out. After that first patch just use your regular cleaning routine.

 

[foureyeshenry]

I have a generous chamber in my '92, so I had my sizer die reamed out to .472 and use magtech brass with a 200 gr Big Lube bullet, even with 18 gr BP no blow by.

 

[Prairie Dawg]

Ok, I'll be the lone voice of dissent.
Driftwood's post has some good info if you decide to go with it.
Here's my humble opinion.
The 1894 is a fine rifle, but not for pistol cartridges.
The .45 Colt is a fine cartridge, but not for BP in rifles.

Not that it can't be done........but the hassle is not worth it when more suitable cartridges and rifles abound for not that much $$.

When these guns were made in the BP era, all the cartridges were thin & bottlenecked.
The 44-40 & 32-20 feed well and keep the action clean.

Straight-walled cartridges like the .45 colt & 38/357 will dirty the action and feed-jam much more often.

Yes, you can take steps to prevent it, but if you shoot the gun alot, you will tire of it.

When, for just a few dollars more, you could have gotten one in 44-40 that avoids all the problems of BP in a .45 Colt long throw '94.

There's a reason why most dedicated BP CAS shooters don't shoot .45 rifles and most CAS shooters (pistol caliber rifles) don't shoot '94s.

As with all things, you weighs yer choices, and makes yer decision.

However..........If you do decide that you should have gotten a 44-40, you can always sell the '94 and get a rifle better suited to shooting BP.
--Dawg

 

[RPRNY]

As usual, the wealth of knowledge and willingness to share on here is hard to credit. I had a chance to do a little research on this elsewhere and there is a consensus that while the 94 is a great rifle, it may not be ideal in this caliber and application. I'm going to rethink my strategy. I already load for 45 colt so sticking to one cartridge was my thinking.

You learn something new everyday. I have an H&R Carbine Classic reamed to 454. The 45 colt is generally regarded as being a bit sooty and us H&R boffins always assumed it was H&R cutting a capacious chamber. But funnily, they all seem to clean up when reamed out to 454. I never gave the brass a thought but when you figure that 454 loads are considerably stouter and bullet weights often heavier, it certainly explains it.

Thanks again

 

[Don McDowell]

With something over a 1/2 centuries experience with the 45 colt, sooty cases has just never been much of a problem except with exceptionally light loads. When the granddevils were young and liked to come visit gramma, I had to keep a generous supply of 45 colts loaded with a 200 gr bullet and 8 grs of 231 on hand. Those lil buggers could make that little 94 ae go almost full auto and obliverate all manner of old buckets and cans etc, without a hitch or glitch... The case mouths on those loads would be a touch blackened, but as some of those cases are over 40 years old I guess it never hurt anything..