Winchester 94 A Woman's Favorite Deer Rifle

Above, Winchester 94 .30-30 rifle. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

I have rarely, if ever, noticed articles on the Winchester 94 by women shooters/hunters.

One has just been posted at Outdoor Life by Alice Jones Webb. It is about her hand-me-down Winchester 94 that she inherited from her grandfather. It is her favorite deer-hunting rifle.

It is a pre-64 made in 1942.

Here's a snippet from her article:

A Hand-Me-Down Cowboy Gun

I was only 19 when I inherited my grandfather’s beat-up old Winchester 94. My uncle claimed the gun had a lot of character. I thought it looked like it had been dragged 100 miles through gravel, soaked in a mud puddle, and then left to rust in a dusty corner. 

I’d had my heart set on a shiny new semi-automatic rifle chambered in something fast and topped with some high-class glass. Mine would be a rifle that would turn heads at the deer check station and mark me as a serious deer hunter. But that fantasy was crushed by this rusty, scratched-up old cowboy gun that spit empty cases out the top, making a top-mounted scope thoroughly impractical. 

Now that I’m older, with decades of deer seasons under my belt, that Winchester 94 chambered in the immortal .30-30 is one of my prized possessions. I still think that flashy guns, hot rod cartridges, and shiny new optics are fun to shoot. But shooting isn’t deer hunting. 

I now realize that Winchester Model 94 was exactly the gun I needed. 

To read the full article, go here.