Here's a question for those smarter than I (pretty much most everybody! :D ) Anyway - here's the question - as I was putting away both of my Winchester M94 Trapper's last night into the safe, I noticed that the barrel on my 44 mag w/ the cross bolt safety is considerably thicker than the older 44 mag w/o the cross bolt safety (not tang safety).
If memory serves me correctly, the thicker (newer/cross bolt)one was approximately .763" and the thinner of the 2 was .673". I'm tying to remember these numbers off the top of my head, but to the best that I can remember, they are fairly close.
I bought the cross bolt, while looking for one w/o the safety, then I found the earlier one, so now a friend mine is buying the cross bolt. I'm still looking for a 357 M94 for my daughter, that will go w/ her Ruger single-six, when we go to woods to play. These little things are cute! (Is that a "manly" word? :p ) I also have a '94 in 30-30 and a Rossi '92 in 454 Casull. That thing is a THUNDERSTICK! I shot some 360 LFNGC out it, and boy is that FUN!! You definately know that you touched off something that can deal death and destruction when you shoot it.

Thanks
Mike
RLTW

Maybe I'm missing something...but I read your post three times, and can't find a question in there.

Winchester went with the larger diameter barrel on the trapper models in 1991.

Gringo - very astute observation. This only goes to solidify my 1st statement. You are correct, I worded this poorly. :o

However, DLS caught what I was trying to say. He answered part of my (poorly worded) question, reference the barrels. Now my other question is (hey I got that one!), I wonder why they did that?

Thanks for your help. Sorry for the poor verbage - I never did like english composition in school. :)

Mike
RLTW

More than likely because of two reasons.

I have an 85 vintage .45 Colt Trapper with the skinny barrel. It's ballance is fine fully loaded, but once the magazine empties it sucks.
So a heavier barrel will improve that.

Second, and this may be different on your .44s, the front sight is brazed, welded, or soldered to the barrel on my 85. If it gets broke it's a major PITA to replace.
The heavy barrels have dovetailed sights.

Joe