I found a 1894 Winchester Serial # 262XXX made in 1901. It is a 30WCF and has a short magazine tube and a half octagon/ half round barrel. The bore looks decent. Most of the blueing is worn off but is in fairly good shootable condidtion. I plan to go and buy this gun on Monday and was wanting some second opinions of what it maight be worth. I want unbiased estimates so I am going to keep the price a secret, but it sure sounds like a deal.

Bill C.

Nevermind, I bought it today. The price was $750.

Bill

Bill,
Good for you! It doesn't matter what anyone else thinks a gun is worth.... it's worth whatever someone is willing to spend on it!

Sounds like a good shooter with a great pedigree of history behind it! Have any photos?

Enjoy that centurion!

God Bless,

Good price for a special order 1894, you might want to look into having it lettered; http://www.bbhc.org/firearms/records.cfm

According to "The Winchester Book" your 1894 is from the latter part of 1902. Nice find, congratulations sir.

Called Waddy up today, should get the envelope in mail in 3 weeks. I'll keep you posted.

Bill C.

Thank you sir, please do.

Well I got my letter from The Buffalo Bill Museum today. Well I have mixed feelings about the feelings about the results. Apprently my 30WCF started its life as a 32-40 with a full octagon barrel. Which it is now a 30WCF with half round/octagon barrel. I thought the barrel might have been changed because there were some odd marks on the barrel. I'm not going to let this get me down because it looks like it was done so long ago that you cant tell that it didnt come that way, and natually I wanted it for a shooter not a collector. An I actually like my half round barrel better than a full octagon. What do you think

Not uncommon to replace worn-out, rotted barrels. Any idea who did the work? If done at the factory, that would be interesting.

Unfortunately Mike I have no idea. But I'm not going to let the barrel switch dicourage me. The deer will never know the difference. As mentioned I'm not treating it like a collector. It would be very interesting if it was a factory swtich though, but no way to ever find out.

Bill