A Rifle For The Ages -- The Winchester Model 1894

Above, purchasing the Winchester 1894 rifle at Ron Peterson Firearms. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

When I was in Albuquerque killing time before my flight to Fort Lauderdale, Florida to catch the cruise ship to Key West and Havana, Cuba, I decided to go to Ron Peterson Firearms to browse around. Friends here had told me previously that Ron Peterson Firearms has a good reputation for thoroughly checking used firearms before putting them up for sale. That's why I decided to go there. Antiques Roadshow has featured Ron Peterson as a firearms expert on the show.

While there, I spotted a Winchester 1894 .30-30 lever-action rifle on a rack. I looked at the tag and it said it was a pre-1964 rifle. I confirmed this by looking up the gun's serial number online with my phone. It was manufactured in 1962.

I had been on the lookout for a pre-64 Model 1894 for a while and the price ($495.00) was reasonable. So I decided to buy it. Since I had a flight and ocean cruise immediately coming up, I put the rifle on layaway. After the cruise and getting back to Albuquerque, I went back and picked up the gun.

This morning, I was perusing around about Winchester 1894 rifles and spotted a good article on them from 2018. It was posted by The Register-Herald out of West Virginia and written by Larry Case. He provides a history of the rifle, including why pre-1964 Model 1894s are so coveted.

He begins it with:

Were it not for the Winchester Model 1894 rifle, and more specifically those chambered in .30/30 Winchester caliber, deer hunting in America might not be the same today. That’s a pretty bold statement and one that many will scoff at, but we have to start somewhere.

No other rifle in history would become as iconic, at least for deer hunting, as the old Winchester 94. Indeed, for several decades if someone referred to a “deer rifle,” to most hunters this meant the tried and true lever action Model 94. If you have a dad, great grandad, or even a great-great grandad who deer hunted, it’s very possible that you have a Winchester Model 94 in a gun safe or closet somewhere. Over seven million Model 94s were produced and sold.

The Model 94 was conceived in the drawings of the firearms genius we talk about here fairly often, John Moses Browning. Seemingly every well-known firearm from the past century came from the work of Mr. Browning. Browning may be best known for inventing automatic and semi-automatic firearms (the Colt 1911 pistol and the Browning Auto 5 shotgun, to name only two), but the Model 94 has been called the ultimate lever action design by more than one firearms historian.

To read the full article, go here.