Win 94 30-30 Restyle

Sharps40

Sharps40

Price, it's all about the price
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Pekin, NC.
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Inbound, arriving today or tomorrow.

Win 94 Ranger, 20 inch barrel, 30-30, 1986 YOM, in excellent condition.

Work in the planning stages envisions conversions necessary to make for a snap shooter.....good for still hunting deer (not sure why its still hunting since its actually that so slow walk that you never have to look down at your feet.) and those coyotes that often visit.

Goal is to reproduce something akin to the old Ranger Compact which came in 30-30 and 357 Mag.

Pros: 30-30 caliber in near like new condition, forged 4144 receiver, angle eject, potentially the coil spring with half cock model, no safety, cheep wood for banging around or hydro dip.

Potential changes and upgrades:

Bushnell Elite 4500 1.5-4x on weaver bases with vortex rings.
Removal of iron sights.
Shorten barrel.
Shorten mag tube to match barrel length or, possibly to half mag capacity (if said length will yield 3 or 4 +1 capacity).
Convert to coil spring half cock if its a rebound hammer model, but it shouldn't be.
Shorten butt-stock to my length of pull.
Action smoothing as needed.
Dark stain wood refinish or perhaps hydro dip.
Sling swivel studs.
Hollow butt-stock as needed.
Glasbed stock and/or forend.
11 degree recrown.

Items not on the list:

Leather wrapped lever.
Big loop lever or lever mods for increased size/shape.
Buttstock shell carrier (4 or 5 in the action is way more than plenty)
Tacti-crap of any form including but not limited to threaded muzzle, way too far forward "optical" devices, batteries, flashlights, lasers, photon-maser, glock-pickatinny-bayonette-mount, bipods, breacher muzzle brake flash hider with MRE bag opener, frame mounted side saddle spare ammo carrier, buttstock cleaning kit, solar panel forend for satellite phone recharging, etc..... (Its definitely not going to be one of the "oh so popular" kiddy rifles that wind up being dumped on the board a week after the happy feeling wears off.)

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Because a 16 inch with half cock in like new condition is not available at dirt cheep, this one was. And if it was a commemorative, id shoot it, and if it was a pre 64, I'd mod it and shoot it.
 
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Scope and mounting hardware arrived. Thoughts are.

Heavy solid feel, though shorter than a typical 3x9x40 this 30mm 1x4 feels fully as heavy and more solid.

Very clear, out to the edges.

Fast focus eye piece and a 100 yard parallax.

Cross hairs are no where as heavy as I'd like on a hunter but I think the clarity and brightness will compensate.

Generous eye relief and so far, it appears that throughout the magnification range there is no blurring of the target or the reticle or around the circumference of the lens.

I like the Vortex aluminum rings, these are low mount. Again, they feel much more solid than the Weaver brand rings. At first, I thought they might be steel but alas, no. Fine matt finish on them. At a lower price point than many of the weaver products, I'm impressed so far.

The weaver bases are standard for this version of the Winchester 94. I've used them previously on the Big Bore 307 and they held up well.

So, guess I'll have to pick up the rifle and get busy "loosing" the iron sights I can't see well anyway!

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Arrived. Essentialy new in box. Still has the sharpie sequence numbers on the interior parts.

Today was likely it's first shots. The rebound hammer breaks clean after a yard of take-up. Have to fix that, but the hard cci primers all went off first try.

Scopes on and is super quick and clear. For half off from midway.usa, I'm tickled.

TIme to shorten barrel, mag tube and stock and see if I can get it all in under 7 lbs. Maybe 6.5 ish. Currently it's 7.2 lbs, scoped, empty.
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94’s are top eject. Is that scope not in the way?

*edit, just saw where you said the receiver was angle eject. First I’d heard of it.
 
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Factory magazine tube for the 20 inch barrel is 19" and change. The factory magazine spring is 29 inches and change.

Here are the cut offs and removed/no longer needed components.

The shortened magazine tube is now 9.625" long and the spring is now 19.75" long. With the sights and barrel band, 3.7 ounces were removed and the gun has now met its empty weight goal of Under 7 lbs. More to follow.

New capacity is 3+1, fine for me.





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The magazine tube was cut 9.625" long with a tubing cutter. The cut end, chamfered and deburred. A shallow #31 hole was drilled at the appropriate location in the barrel for the magazine cap screw....this holds in the spring and keeps the entire assembly from coming out of the forend. The hole was drilled slightly deeper than the length of the retention screw so that there is no upward pressure on the barrel from the magazine assembly. With the elimination of the barrel band and screw the barrel is less likely to move when heated from shot to shot, potentially providing slightly improved accuracy/consistency from shot to shot. Just forward of the magazine tube cap, I plan to fit a sling swivel mount for carry. (Though the magazine is well retained, this closely fitted sling swivel mount will also provide peace of mind against the mag tube ever jumping clear of its mount. Forend will be glass bedded anyway, so I enjoy solid mounting/no movement over a life time of use.)


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Weight is now 6.5 lbs, scoped empty. Balance is the real benefit, almost neutral. Pivot point is moved rearward from near the front of the action to just at the back end of the loading gate. Loaded it is slightly muzzle heavy. Once the stock is shortened it ought to be about perfect.
 
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Glass bedding is setting up. For-end was bedded with a skim coat at the action where it shrinks/loosens with time and in the barrel channel for a movement free but bindless fit. It also serves to reinforce the thin section of the forend between barrel and mag tube, this area is subject to cracking as its just a thin sliver between barrel and mag tube.

Hydro-dip pattern is ordered as well to spiff up the wood components.

Should have it together for zeroing today or tomorrow and the dip completed in a couple weeks.
 
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That’s awesome! Been hunting around for ideas to do with a 94 I just picked up. I may go the modern shorty route with a red dot for brush work and save my Henry some wear and tear.

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Been thinking a lot on the trigger hammer assembly of this one. Its a coil spring rebounding hammer model. Its a simple parts swap to coil or flat spring half cock but......

Blessedly, this one has no frame or tang mounted safety. Instead, inside is a rebound mechanism that goes back to hammer off firing pin automatically and has a hammer block. These two features alone make it worth gold when I need to lever out all the unfired rounds or just release the hammer from full cock when loading up.

Since it is already very effective at popping the hard CCI LR primers, and since its coil spring (Very tune-able) and since it has internal features that help keep my cold fingers from dropping a hammer on a live round......

I think I'll stick to a simple tune up of whats there already. I believe I'll slightly reduce the compression length of the rebound so more energy goes into that already reliable inertial hammer/primer strike....polish and stone some interfaces and see where that leads me.

And, I'm still impatiently awaiting the dip kit....but I rounded up a tub to dip in (was gonna use the spare bath tub, but GoodWife nixed that as soon as she watched a dip video.....I kinda thought a camo tub floor would be the coolest......)
 
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Took about 30 minutes to get the trigger work done. No honeing at all, just polished hammer butt that rides on top of the sear. Sear where it rides the spring, spring (both legs) where it rides the sear and the lever interlock, top of the interlock where it rides the spring, Sides of the sear where it rides inside the trigger group. Hammer block safety where it rubs the inside of the action. Fingers on the hammer strut that rub the hammer. Hammer strut where the coil spring fits over the shaft. And, I clipped 1.5 coils from the spring between the sear and trigger. Cleaned and reassembled with EEZOX dry lube on all points.

The weight settled in at a very usable/safe 4.5lbs. Its so much smoother and the release does not drag anymore, it just breaks over and the shot is gone.

I do note the sear and hammer are rather crappily finished inside where you cant see them, but, the contact points were at least smoothed out by the factory and then polished here. The springs had never been polished, neither had the strut or lever interlock.

Overall, improved. No more action work needs to be done and thankfully, there are no mim parts inside......as already noted, this is a forged 4144 receiver, not the earlier sintered (MIM grandpa) metal frame.

Not much more to do but dip the stocks, (fingers tapping impatiently) and go hunting.
 
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Finishing up the trigger set up this morning. Winchester addressed the floppy trigger complaints on this model via a spring between sear and trigger. (As far as I know Marlin never addressed their floppy trigger....perhaps they didn't want to be known for twice copying a Winchester design..... :) )The factory spring length and rate provides about 2 lbs of force needed to compress the spring. Only enough is needed to eliminate trigger rattle so clipping coils and checking fit, I eliminated half the length of this spring, shown clipped below. No rattle, minimum added weight to trigger pull.


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The force of both legs of the sear and interlock spring are manipulated during the trigger pull. Careful bending (and polishing of contact points noted previously) of both legs reduces the trigger pull weight. Final pull gauges out at 3 lb 14 oz. So cleaning, polish, spring adjustments (no stoning, and no weaker main spring needed, all factory set engagement surfaces maintained) shaved about 2 lb 8 ounces off the factory pull.


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Well. Strip again, start over. So far, I believe id rather pick my nose with a drill bit.
 
Buttstock ok. Some flakes touched up with stain. Be damned if I can get the line underneath but at least it's on the cheek side.

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Assembly later. Overall not a fan of the hydro dip process, though it looks pretty. Since it's paint base, I'll expect it to be as low in durability. In the future I'll stick to traditional wood finish or find some fella likes to dip. (70 for a kit, after this I'd just pay 150 not to have to go through all the fuss or trusty flat black for plain wood.)
 
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Done. Looks like hell. After season it'll get stripped and painted flat black. I'll leave hydro to someone else.

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