Please - A Couple of Win. 94 Questions

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2@low8

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I wanted a Win. 94 carbine for a long time and put it off until “one day”.
Next thing I know, Win. stopped production of the 94 and used ones promptly started commanding $600+ in my neck of the woods.

A short time later I went to a gun show and a guy at a private table was asking $250 for his gun that was in pristine condition. Not really knowing about the 94 I bought it, but later it was pointed out to me that the gun had a palm-swell stock (like the Marlin 336) and a safety mounted on the receiver.

First question: When did Win. start putting palm-swell stocks on the 94?

Second: When did they start putting the safety on the 94?
 
What's a "palm swell stock"?
Which safety?

The crossbolt was added in the 90s, the tang was incorporated in the past three or four years.
It's on current production 94s.

The features you mention were pointed out to you "later"? You didn't see them when you bought the gun?
Denis
 
Not being mean, but if you wanted one of a long time ,I would have thought you would have learned more about the 94 while waiting.

Goes to doing your home-work on any subject. :)
 
2,
If you're referring to a pistolgrip wrist on the stock, those have intermittently been offered for many years. It's just one configuration; less common, but certainly not new.
Denis
 
I think you are right on the money Denis. I bet he is talking about a PG. Winchester 94 are great rifles and for $250, you can't go wrong.

Enjoy your new rifle and post some pics when you get a chance.

Thanks,

Matt
 
Another thought occurred to me, he could mean a monte carlo cheek piece stock, a few later guns had them.

....or, he means a fore end that's thick?

In any event, cross bolt safety or not, it was a good price in todays market.
 
I think they used cross bolt safeties from around 1992-2002 and then tang safeties from 2002-2008.
 
Sav .250 - Not being mean, but if you wanted one of a long time ,I would have thought you would have learned more about the 94 while waiting.

Goes to doing your home-work on any subject.
Click to expand...

I grew up with the early black & white western movies on TV (circa 1949) where many of the cowboys were totin’ some model of the Win. lever action carbine. I had no interest in collecting these guns, but instead I wanted a facsimile of the guns the “heroes” of my childhood had. Because it was a Winchester carbine and it had a lever action was good enough for me and no homework was necessary. The 94 was beckoning me with what I thought was a very reasonable price and I brought it home.


DPris - What's a "palm swell stock"? Which safety?
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I was a shotgunner way before I got into shooting rifles in the USMC and my stock terminology is derived from that. There are four basic stock shapes that I am familiar with on shotguns. 1- The straight stock, aka English stock; 2- the palm-swell stock that has a pistol type grip melded into the stock and the hand cannot completely encircle it; 3- the pistol grip stock that your hand can completely encircle the grip similar to an M-16 and unlike the palm-swell stock; 4- Folding stocks. There might even be a thumbhole stock for shotguns, but I’ve never seen or heard of one. Oh yeah, I almost forgot, so make it 5- The cross-over stock. I've only seen one of those and that was at the Trail Glades Range in Dade County Florida around 1969.

The safety goes through the receiver from the left side to the right side.


DPris - The features you mention were pointed out to you "later"? You didn't see them when you bought the gun?
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My knowledge of the 94’s model history is shaky, but not my eyesight. Of course I saw those features and they were of no consequence to me and I was very pleased to have it. However, some of my “purist 94 owner” friends chided me on not having one with a straight stock and no safety. I could care less because I really enjoy walking around my property with it and shooting pests and on an occasion... a deer.

I would like to post pictures of it, but I have not been able to reduce my camera’s smallest file size to fit THR’s limit. On my previous computer I used “Picture It!” for that purpose. I now have Windows 7 and it won’t let me install “Picture It!” on it. Any suggestions?
 
When I transfer from my digital camera to my lap top and decide to upload a picture,
I open photo files in MSPaint, go to "View-Zoom-Custom-"50% (or whatever fits);
picks the Select tool, crop what I want to show,
go to "Edit--copy to" and save the scaled, cropped selection
and upload that.



(I am a dinosaur: I keep a PC that has a USB port, Windows 98SE from the program developer package, and the set of programs I was accustomed to using at the Press (including dozens I wrote in C). I use a flash drive to transport files back and forth, but keep my archives and work on the off-line stand-alone.)
 
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It sounds to me as if you have the "Legacy" model. If you do a google search for images you will see plenty there. I have one myself in .357, It's a pretty little rifle and shots well for a lever action but I have had some problems.

On the .357 there are regular problems with the ejector breaking and spares seem in very short supply, almost impossible to find now here in the UK. The .44 version doesn't seem to suffer from the same problems though.
 
2,
On a conventional wood stock (not a more modern AR15-style synthetic) what you're calling a palm swell is generally referred to as a pistol grip style wrist.

Been around on the 94s a long time, hundred years or so.
The crossbolt safety was early 90s.

Your gun is most likely also an Angle Eject version & probably has a rebounding hammer, both of which are departures from the original 94 design.

If you don't care about the features, it doesn't matter what your friends' opinions are.
If you want a more traditional 94, you'll need to go older.
Denis
 
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Carl N, Brown - Thanks for your input, but when I searched my computer for MSPaint and also for Microsoft Paint no results were found. Do you have another direction for me to go in? I have the Home Premium edition of Windows 7.

1066 - I looked up the “Legacy” model and came up with this 99% rifle on Gun Auction that sold for $445. It looks similar to mine but there doesn’t appear to have the crossbolt safety. Nice gun at what looks like a very good price. See: http://www.gunauction.com/buy/10724...ae-legacy-30-30-win.-20in-bbl.-rifle-with-box


DPris - "On a conventional wood stock (not a more modern AR15-style synthetic) what you're calling a palm swell is generally referred to as a pistol grip style wrist."
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DPris - I did a search on your definition, “pistol grip style wrist” and I didn’t find anything with that specific wording.

However a search for “palm swell stocks” ( https://www.google.com/#q=palm+swell+stock ) produced many links of info on that definition which included mild forms of it from Browning like this:

attachment.php


To more pronounced forms like this:

attachment.php



To some more radical rifle styles at H-S Precision:

https://www.hsprecision.com/shop2/catalogsearch/result/?q=Rifle+stocks+with+palm+swell


DPris - "Your gun is most likely also an Angle Eject version & probably has a rebounding hammer, both of which are departures from the original 94 design.

If you don't care about the features, it doesn't matter what your friends' opinions are. If you want a more traditional 94, you'll need to go older. Denis"
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DPris - Yes, it is an AE and it does have a rebounding hammer. As a matter of fact I do prefer the palm swell stock, but I think that the crossbolt safety is a visual testament to incompetence. If a safety is demanded by product liability it could have been made a lot less obvious. I would have preferred no safety, but I could live more comfortably with a tang safety.

My search is over and other than the crossbolt safety issue I am still pleased with the rifle because I feel that I'm ready to ride with Red Ryder, Tom Mix and company. Frankie
 

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2,
Regardless of what you didn't find, the term pistol grip stock is appropriate for that style.
I've made my living with guns for four decades, I've worked with several Winchester leverguns over the years, I've always heard that called a pistol grip & never heard of a palm swell on a rifle till you mentioned it here.

One of the classic early Winchester references, The Winchester Book by Madis, has photos of early 94s with a pistol grip wrist & refers to it by that name.

It is the conventional term & usage.
You may have noticed nobody here knew what you were talking about when you mentioned your term.

The Browning photo you show appears to have a palm swell on the right side of the pistol grip wrist.
Palm swell traditionally means a thicker or larger section of grip area on the side of the gun that rests in the strong side shooting hand, not the curved wrist itself.
Denis
 
A factory "palm swell" on any rifle would be very unusual (though there have been some) and on a Model 94, unheard of (at least in my experience). Palm swells are usually associated with shotgun pistol grips.
 
If You Like It, It's Good!

It sounds like you got something you wanted, except for some minor cosmetic issues. If you're happy with it, enjoy it! Don't let the naysayers get to you. No matter what you get, someone won't like it.
 
Yeah, who cares what anyone else thinks. I have a 9422 from the 70s, but I wanted a 94 30-30 trapper. I figured I'd pick one up new when I saw it on the rack, but that day never happened. Right after the plant announced the closing, I scourged the internet and gun stores, and found exactly what I wanted for a great price that was essentially brand new. It has the tang safety, but it's exactly what I wanted. Enjoy it.
 
Marlin rifles ordered from the Sears Roebuck & Co 1897 catalog could be had with the pistol grip stock as an option. The standard models were all straight grip like the typical Winchester '94. I have also seen Winchester leveractions with pistol grip stocks in very old catalogs.
 
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