Winchester letter question??|What's New!|Forum|Winchester Collector

Well,  Somebody with expertise in 1895 lore will have to say whether it could originally have been a full-stocked musket. The barrel is certainly long enough. Whether yes or no, the fact that it wears a Lyman 21 aperture sight certainly helps the value. Those sights bring several hundred dollars all by themselves.  

There’s nothing wrong with the chambering, particularly if you’re a handloader. The 1895 is a strong action design and the 30-40 Krag cartridge was loaded from inception with smokeless powder. There should be a rollmark on your barrel identifying it as being made of a nickel steel alloy.

I don’t mean you can or should load up cartridges beyond SAAMI pressure limits. A rough barrel can increase breech pressures, so be cautious. An eroded barrel typically shoots more accurately with jacketed softpoint ammunition. Unjacketed Lead bullets snag on the rough spots and become unstable. They can also solder and build up lead in the barrel to the point breech pressures become dangerous. If you do shoot cast or swaged lead, inspect the bore and remove lead buildup. 

There are products on the market that are advertised as improving pitted bores. You apply a solution to the bore and let it dry, then shoot jacketed ammo to heat the barrel so the dried material melts into the pits. It hardens into a  ceramic-like plating. I have no idea how effective or expensive it is. 

The good news is you can load spitzer bullet designs to improve downrange performance because the Model 1895 doesn’t have an inline, tubular magazine. 

Because the steel is mostly bare of finish, I would recommend treating it with BreakFree or a similar metal rust preventative that bonds at the molecular level. I would remove the wood furniture and seal the inletting against moisture and oil seepage. If you are reluctant to use a clear epoxy or urethane topcoat for that purpose, at least apply a thick coat of paste wax to the inletting and let dry. Don’t polish it off. In any event, apply paste wax to the exterior wood and polish off, repeating this exterior treatment from time to time, because the wax eventually evaporates with exposure to the air. 

There are certain mechanical points of high friction in a lever action gun that require tiny – I mean minute – dabs of wear-relieving grease, rather than liquid oil.  It should be chemically insensitive to heat so it doesn’t melt into a liquid and migrate into the wood or places where it isn’t needed. I’m going to rely on other members to advise on that subject.  Except to say a very little goes a long way and overdoing is worse than not doing at all. If you can’t restrain yourself, use Ballistol instead. It doesn’t work as well but it won’t damage wood. 

Be careful and have fun.

helidriver72 said

kevindpm61 said
I like the look of that rifle. I don’t know what would have been involved in converting a musket to its current configuration. It looks like it could have been in sporting configuration from the beginning. Do serial numbers on the rifle and the Cody letter match?
  

Thanks for your post. Even with glasses I saw 9804 not the actual 9304. I’ll post what Cody Museum sends. 
  

Don’t feel bad! The seller posted 9804 as well 😁. I am surprised at that price. Big congrats on a great rifle and a great deal!

Concur.  A common mistake of passport control officers and bank tellers – and relied upon by forgers– is to first study the photograph, then look at the person presenting the document. The unconscious tendency of the examiner is to look for points of similarity in the presenter’s face, not points of difference. 

I didn’t see it in the GB photos, but now I’m curious…do you have a good photo of the serial number in question?

Congratulations on a good find, even if it’s a bit of a mistake on the seller’s part.  We should all hope for errors to go our way.