I have an old Winchester 1894 that has seen much better days and has likely worn itself out of reliable action. It started life as a 32-40 in 1902 (as from Cody Museum), but at some point had been rebarrelled to a 30WCF with a 26in half-round barrel. This is where I come into the picture. The gun is worn out in many ways internally. Shells will not cycle through it easily, it locks up very loosley and it will fire sometimes when half-cocked. Overall the internals are pretty worn. The plus is the barrel which is in reaonably good shape and very good rifling. Now referring to the subject...the barrel is not proofmarked. It has the especially for smokeless label but no circle with the P and W. Could this pre-date the proofing? Since this rifle has long passed its prime my hope is to replace all the internals with newer parts and quasi turn it into a reliable shooter as a small project. My question is.. is this barrel safe to use with modern factory loads?

Bill

The barrel may, or may not, have been installed by Winchester. To my knowledge Winchester has been proof marking their barrels since before the turn of the 20th Century.

Sounds to me the barrel could probably stand the modern 30-30 factory rounds, but the innards of the action may not.

Yeah the internal are in desparate need of replacing.

Bill

Just wondering if Winchester didn't proof barrels that weren't installed on a receiver at the factory? That would get them off the hook if some so-called gunsmith messed up when he installed the barrel.

Bye
Jack

Perhaps, there are extremely minor marks on the barrel that may have been made while screwing the barrel into the reciever. The marks look as though they were made by a rotational force akin to a rounded off bolt. This may put the rilfe in the realm of a gunsmith rebarrel. I imagine that this would ruin any collector value and leave me free reign to mess with this gun.


Bill