winchester model 1894, bullet hole in mag tube
- Thread starter superpelly
- Start date
stubbicatt
New member
I have a soft spot in my heart for old Winchesters. Some say the soft spot is in my head! LOL!
When I look at the quality of the fit and finish of some of my old timers from the 1800s and early 1900s, it is difficult for me to equate these work-a-day rifles from yesteryear with the ubiquitous AR15 of today. But that's what they were, rather simple, unembellished, reliable, accurate enough, mass-produced, working firearms. The filled the role of today's AR15.
OP I hope you enjoy your rifle. IIRC, 1906 was the first year they put the proof mark on the receiver ring and the barrel, near the receiver ring.
When I look at the quality of the fit and finish of some of my old timers from the 1800s and early 1900s, it is difficult for me to equate these work-a-day rifles from yesteryear with the ubiquitous AR15 of today. But that's what they were, rather simple, unembellished, reliable, accurate enough, mass-produced, working firearms. The filled the role of today's AR15.
OP I hope you enjoy your rifle. IIRC, 1906 was the first year they put the proof mark on the receiver ring and the barrel, near the receiver ring.
NoSecondBest
New member
"Old West History" and 1906 are a bit of a contradiction. Any bullet able to penetrate the mag tube didn't lose enough energy to keep it from damaging the barrel. This is simply an old, damaged gun someone is trying to pass off as some type of collectable. It's not.
FrankenMauser
New member
...Says the man from New York.
I guess it could depend upon your point of view...
Aside from many other arguments that could be put forth...
There were cities in this part of the country that were only accessible by foot or horse (or tracked steam engine) as late as the 1940s.
The "Old West" did not simply die out in the blink of an eye at the turn of the century, just because that's the definition you get in a dictionary. It was a very slow, incremental process.
It was a bit like "creeping incrementalism". ...Except, instead of talking about slowly taking bites out of gun rights, we're talking about ever so slowly adding mobility and accessibility, while reining in the lawlessness.
NoSecondBest
New member
Really? Name a couple of cities that were only accessible by foot or horse as late as the 1940s. I'm a history buff, I'd be quite interested in knowing about them.
Technically yes but all they did was steal some horses. 1896 is considered the end of hostilities. True the old west didn't end at 1900. Horses were the main mode of transportation. Outlaws still robbed banks and escaped on horses. For me the old west ended in the 1880's. Don't know why, it just is.
FrankenMauser
New member
Right off the top of my head:
Vernal, Utah, didn't even have a stagecoach running to it until a mining company blasted a road for their trucks to get to the nearest railroad in 1938. Which, of course, meant jumping right past horse transport to gas engines. Even then, it was only passable in the summer, and wasn't paved until the road was absorbed during a US Hwy 191 re-routing in the late 1960s / early 1970s.
Be sure to read the little blurb about the "Parcel Post Bank" at the bottom of the Wikipedia page, when you google it. The Uintah Railway, while a mining railroad, was contracted to deliver mail to its own rail towns as well as Vernal. During the summer, they usually used horses for the job. But during the winter, they often resorted to using their tracked tractors or hand carry it on snowshoes. Fresh snow was too deep for horses (and sometimes the tractor(s)) when combined with the nasty terrain. (42 miles each way - as the crow flies.)
Interesting note: The US Post Office paid the railway $1.50 per 50 pounds of goods, but only charged customers a maximum of $1.08 per 50 pounds of goods. So the railway wasn't happy about their service being delayed for weeks while shipping bricks, but was at least getting paid for it. The Post Office, on the other hand, was furious about having subsidized at least $0.42 per 50 lb on a 35 ton delivery ($588, minimum).
NoSecondBest
New member
That's true. I'm originally from PA and back in the early part of the 1900s these roads weren't very good, but they were still roads. My grandparents had cars back then and I used to hear a lot of stories about the roads back then. Even today, some old timers (like me) refer to these roads as "Pinchey Highways" named after a long ago governor of PA who simply black topped these winding, narrow roads with no shoulders on them. Still, very very few historians consider the Old West to be around into the 1900s. To get back to the OP, this gun wasn't a vestige of the Old West simply because it was made in 1906 and had a hole in the mag tube. The old adage comes to mind when I think of the asking price of this gun: A fool and his money are soon parted Maybe someone on here who thinks it's part of the Old West will pony up the money for it? Yes, there may have been some place out west in the 1940s that was accessible by horseback, or foot, but to make the statement without citing a source or facts doesn't substantiate the statement. If it existed at all, it was an extreme rarity in the 1940s. I guess that sounds old to someone born in the sixties or seventies?
Some parts of the West (and the East?) were pretty wild until fairly recently. I know rustling was a problem in the early 20th Century, and of course armed robbery still occurs. An article in the Rifleman a few years back pointed out that even the Texas Rangers had some rather un-professional elements in the early 20th Century.
When I saw the OP and the hang-tag, I thought that maybe the man who passed away didn't keep good records or tell anyone about his stuff, and maybe, rat-holed away in his place somewhere, was a document telling how the rifle had been hit during a high profile arrest and shoot-out, or some other colorful event.
When I saw the OP and the hang-tag, I thought that maybe the man who passed away didn't keep good records or tell anyone about his stuff, and maybe, rat-holed away in his place somewhere, was a document telling how the rifle had been hit during a high profile arrest and shoot-out, or some other colorful event.
superpelly
New member
I put a round in it and it shoots just fine
2damnold4this
New member
Cool image of the steam tractor.
The early 20th century saw a lot of change in the west. Pershing's expedition against Pancho Villa in 1916 and 1917 saw the use of thousands of horses and mules but also hundreds of cars and trucks and a few aircraft.
The early 20th century saw a lot of change in the west. Pershing's expedition against Pancho Villa in 1916 and 1917 saw the use of thousands of horses and mules but also hundreds of cars and trucks and a few aircraft.
Art Eatman
Staff in Memoriam
There was still a good bit of Old West in the counties along the Rio Grande, upriver from Del Rio to near El Paso, into the WW I era. Horseback Mexican bandidos onto the ranchers, for instance.
http://www.rimrockpress.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry080824-100349
Paving south from Alpine to Terlingua began in 1952. FM 170 from Study Butte to Presidio was completed in 1961. Electricity to Big Bend National Park around 1950, +/-.
http://www.rimrockpress.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry080824-100349
Paving south from Alpine to Terlingua began in 1952. FM 170 from Study Butte to Presidio was completed in 1961. Electricity to Big Bend National Park around 1950, +/-.
foolzrushn
New member
superpelly
Glad you are going to fix and use it. From the angle of the hole, I'd guess that it was laying on a table just like in your picture when shot in the mag. Could easily just have been someone cleaning or fooling around with another weapon that shot it.
And then they made up a story to not seem foolish.
Glad you are going to fix and use it. From the angle of the hole, I'd guess that it was laying on a table just like in your picture when shot in the mag. Could easily just have been someone cleaning or fooling around with another weapon that shot it.
And then they made up a story to not seem foolish.