Dad’s Model 94

[Rick McC.]

I recently picked up my Dad’s 30-30 that he’d loaned to a friend for the last few years.

It apparently rode around on a farm tractor sitting muzzle down, ensconced in a piece of PVC.

Now, it was no LNIB rifle before the farm duty, as it was Dad’s deer gun for many years when he ran the dogs in the swamp.

Since it has a lot of sentimental value to me (besides Dad’s use, I shot my first deer with it) I was interested in getting it back into some semblance of working order.

I picked it up a few weeks ago, and initially thought that the guy had cleaned it up pretty good, until I saw it up close.

I started on it week before last, and put 3-4 hours into it at a time, whenever I had a chance.

I tore it down fairly far, and started in on the outside of the barrel, magazine tube, and frame with 0000 steel wool.

Everything was rusty, including the bore, inside of the mag tube, follower and spring, and most of what came out of the frame.

After a lot of scraping, brushing, and cussing, it was time to put everything back together. I lubed easily reached parts, and the outside, with Eezox, and used a standard CLP on the internals, thinking that the most they’d get down the road would likely be stuff sprayed in from the outside.

I never worked on one of the old Winchesters before, but I guess I managed to stumble through it OK, as it works, and there were no parts left over.

First pic shows most of the parts, and second shows I got it back together.

[rzach]

so for you did a very good job

[Rick McC.]

so for you did a very good job

Thanks Richard!

[sig232]

Rick, do you think you will ever refinish that rifle? I know it reduces the value but if you plan on keeping it a long time it might be the way to go.

Is your dad still with us or did you lose him recently? I know you hunted together often and kept up that family hunting camp together.

[Rick McC.]

Rick, do you think you will ever refinish that rifle? I know it reduces the value but if you plan on keeping it a long time it might be the way to go.

Is your dad still with us or did you lose him recently? I know you hunted together often and kept up that family hunting camp together.

No, it’ll never be refinished . There’s a story behind every ding and scrape on that thing, until it went to the farm, anyway.

Dad’s still with us, though he’s pretty feeble now. He turned 90 on January first.

We’re having a work day at camp next Saturday, but Dad won’t be there.

[JimmyA]

That's really neat that you got to work on the rifle and get it cleaned up. If the bore is bright and clean and the moving parts are in order, you've got a wonderful piece of history. I've always heard "don't refinish it" -- it doesn't really make it better.

[Rick McC.]

That's really neat that you got to work on the rifle and get it cleaned up. If the bore is bright and clean and the moving parts are in order, you've got a wonderful piece of history. I've always heard "don't refinish it" -- it doesn't really make it better.

Thanks, Jimmy!

You heard right, as refinishing any firearm with any value or collectability will decrease whatever value it did have.

I prefer to keep Dad’s Winchester and his old A5 Browning just as they were when he used them, except properly cleaned and lubed, of course.

The man thought that WD-40 was just fine for everything, which we now know isn’t the case for firearms! I think he finally believed me after the SECOND time I had to work on his pump shotgun that’d mysteriously turned into a single shot. WD-40 had gummed up things so badly both times that the mechanism couldn’t lift shells from the magazine up to feed into the chamber.