The Gun That Won The West

For ME, the Winchester rifle has always been special, even "romantic" in a way. The Model 70 bolt action has been called the "rifleman's rifle" over the years, and a lot of great shotguns have come out of that New Haven, Connecticut factory.

But it's always been the old lever actions, that most people think of when they hear the name "Winchester." It's the rifle that came west with the pioneers, rode in the saddle scabbards of lawmen and outlaws alike, and put a lot of meat on a lot of tables to help get families through the winters.

At the battle of "Little Big Horn", the Sioux had Winchester repeaters. Custer did not. (you can't feel TOO sorry for Custer though......he had THREE Gatling Guns at his disposal and chose NOT to take them, because having to pull them would "slow him down").

The Winchester was NOT the first lever-action" rifle, but was an improvement on the Henrys that DID come first, and their initial 1866 Winchester was smoother in operation, (although an original Henry TODAY commands a staggering price).

One of those improvements was an enclosed tube magazine. A lever action rifle is loaded through it's spring-loaded side gate, and the cartridges are pushed up through a steel tube under the barrel. In the old Henrys, there was a thin slot cut all the way up the tube, where the feeding spring is housed, so the shooter could see at a glance how many cartridges he had left.

Good idea (in theory)......but that open slot was also open to DIRT getting in there as well, and "plugging" thngs up if you weren't really mindful of it. Not good.

The early Winchesters were chambered for pistol cartridges, whereas a cowpoke could carry his 44-40 Colt revolver, a 44-40 Winchester rifle, and only have to carry one type of ammo. Worked pretty well, and a pistol cartridge in a RIFLE bsrrel always produces a little more speed and power, than it does through a short-barreled handgun (where powder is still burning uselessly in the atmosphere after the projectile is on its way).

Later on, they started building the rifles a little "beefier" to accept rifle cartridges for more power and distance, and there was a variety of loads. In those early days, they weren't shooting modern smokeless powder like they do today. It was always "black powder" that was sulpher-based and a bit salty and corrosive, and if you didn't clean your gun until the next day or so, you ran a risk of the bore becoming "pitted" and ruined. There was an old saying that "The sun MUST NOT SET on a dirty gun."

Still makes sense today, even though today's powders & primers are pretty much non-corrosive. (When I shoot, it's usually in the mornings when the winds are the calmest, and Donna will be the first to tell you that "Mike doesn't even stop for LUNCH, until those guns are thoroughly cleaned").

In the black powder days they used "double-figure" caliber designations, like 44-40....38-55......25-35.......32-40....and eventually the 30-30 that we all know today. Those figures were used to identify the caliber of the gun, and the safe powder charge.....ie: 38-55===a 38 caliber bullet with a cartridge load of 55 grains of black powder.

Our old favorite 30-30 of today, started out life as a 30 caliber bullet/30 grains of black powder. Now TODAY......it's still called a "30-30" because of the size of the case, but they don't use black powder anymore, and I'm not sure what the powder charge IS with the newer, cleaner & more potent powders are.....but it probably isn't 30 grains.

So anyway, if you ever pick up an old Winchester rifle with 40-82, 38-55, 44-40 or something like that stamped on its barrel...........that's what it means------caliber, and the blackpowder load it was originally designed for.

The Model number of the rifle, referred to the year some kind of "improvement or modification" was made. The last "update" was in 1894...........and the "Model 94" became THE rifle from OUR earliest childhood memories, until Winchester finally sold out and closed their doors a few yars ago. It is now "U.S. Repeating Arms Company", and they are still allowed to use the Winchester name, but many feel that the GUN ITSELF isn't as good. OLD Winchesters of course, have risen in value since then.

And there are MILLIONS of them still out there. It's hard to imagine a deer hunter ANYHERE who hasn't owned one, or at least shot one, and there's another astonishing fact here as well...........

We live in a hunter's world of Magnums, these new "Short Magnums" and other wildcat calibers out there, but would it surprise you to know that even TODAY, there are STILL more deer killed annually with 30-30's than any other caliber?

It's true. We can't even FOCUS on that out here in Idaho, where you might have to shoot one at the great distances out here in open country, but according to every statistic I've read.....the MAJORITY of hunting areas in the U.S. are still in deep woods, where the distances are much shorter, and you can't get a big bolt-action scoped rifle onto your target as quickly as you can with an open-sighted lever.

I killed my first deer with a Model 94, 30-30 over in Oregon, where I used to hunt with my Uncle Dean. (this as in-between my Marine Corps and Air Force careers). When I joined the Air Force and was stationed at McChord (just south of Seattle), I'd still drop down into Oregon to hunt with him. He always hunted with a lever action 300 Savage.

When I got stationed at Mountain Home for the first time, though, it was obvious that a deer shot was just as apt to be from ridgeline to ridgeline. Lever action rifles HAVE to use round-nose ammunition for safety reasons, as they are loaded in the tube "one behind the other", so you do NOT want the sharp tip of a "spitzer" bullet pushed up against the primer of the sheel in front of it!

Additionally, the lever action receivers are not as strong in design as they are in a bolt action, so the powder charges have to be kept down a little. While they kill deer reliably out to 150 and even 200 yards, the round-nose and decreased speed of the 30-30 is LIMITED in distance and power. From about 350 yards and beyond, most lever guns have a trajectory like a rainbow.

So......"When in ROME".......hunt as the Romans do.....I bought a 7mm Mauser and deer hunted here in Elmore.

I still have a 30-30 though. 5 of them including a Marlin 336, and while I don't hunt anymore, I still enjoy getting out there with one of them and just "puttin' a few through it." I have TWO that I don't shoot at all. I have a couple of Winchester "Commemoratives" that are worth more to collectors if they are in "un-fired" condition.......although I don't intend to sell either of them.

Winchester made a LOT of "commemoratives" over the years-----honoring "this & that"------some of them VERY ornately decorated, and some were gold or silver inlaid, with special medallions in the stock, etc.

As a rule, I never buy a gun that I'm afraid to shoot, but like with that 41 magnum I just wrote about....."every now and then, you HAVE to do something------well......."just because."

I bought A Winchester Model 94 "Buffalo Bill" commemorative about 3 years ago.......big, heavy, 26" octagon barrel. I just got it out and stared at it for months, then finally, I decided I just HAD to! Took the video camera out to "my spot", and put 3 rounds through it at water jugs out there. 3 rounds, 3 hits, no sight adjustments. It was BEAUTIFUL. Brought it home, cleaned it carefully as to not scratch it anywhere, and put it away, where it will sit in a nice clean safe environment.

(Some of my friends thought that would automatically "ruin" the value, but you know....when you really THINK about it....there AREN'T any "un-fired" guns out there, as they all HAVE to be "proof-fired" at the factory before they're ever shipped to the dealers.)

Last year I did it again. A HIGHLY ORNATE & engraved Model 94 "Oregon Trail" This thing is GORGEOUS, and number TWO of 500! (which means whoever the Governor of Oregon at the time, most likely got "number 1"). It is one of the prettiest Winchesters I've ever seen. It will NOT be fired, and when I wiped it down and got ready to put it in the safe, even DONNA insisted that I put it in a soft-lined case, and THEN put it in the safe!

One of my Winchester 94's is a 1946 vintage gun, and it shows its age, but will still put 'em where you want 'em! Those good ol' boys at New Haven knew their trade and built good rifles. Every now and then, I get a chance to handle a Winchester with a 5 or 6-digit serial number......which dates it BACK to when the oldtime cowboys were actually using them.......and like with the old World War II war rifles, I always wonder "where THIS one's been?"

I work the lever to verify the chamber IS empty, then shoulder it and take aim on something on the back wall of the shop. And if it's an "1800's" Winchester, I can only imagine that at one time, these sights were trained on a cattle-rustler, bank-robber, or in a gunfight with a sheriff's posse. Or NONE of the above..........who knows where it's been?

The older ones are rich in history (and priced accordingly), and the ones AFTER that, are merely the standard by which all other lever action rifles are measured, and always WILL be.

I have 7 lever action rifles altogether, 2 of them are Marlins and one is an old 300 Savage (like my late Uncle Dean's). The Marlins are excellent guns, a little larger-framed and probably a bit more stout than the Winchesters, but they are not as smooth in operation.

The Winchesters......well, they are what they are. They go up into your shoulder like they just "naturally" belong there. They look right, they feel right, they shoot right, and they only quit when they're empty.

That's what made them the gun that won the west.