Wayne McCants said

Hello, I am a new member and just wanting to get my feet wet with my first post. I have been collecting 1890’s for many years and used to talk with George Madis late at night about some of the rifles that I had found. Now , I have to rely on the books that George wrote to check on some of the answers that I seek. My collection is nowhere near being completed, but I do have some interesting guns! For the time being, none of them are for sale, just looking for opinions from fellow collectors. I have a very late model 90 that has a round barrel in 22 long rifle that has serial number 853,963 stamped on it. It also has no tang markings at all, which according to George Madis’s hand book, he says is correct. All of my books have lower serial numbers than what this rife has, so I am wondering what you think about this. The rifle is in 90% plus condition, I can add pictures later if needed. Thanks!  

Hello Wayne, and welcome to the WACA.

Your Model 90 rifle with serial number 853963 was one of the 8,725 parts clean rifle rifles that were assembled between February 6th, 1933 and November 23rd, 1949.  More than likely the barrel is only 23-inches long (Winchester used Model 62/62A barrels for some of the late production Model 90 rifles).  The serial number on your rifle indicates that the receiver was manufactured in June of 1942.  The barrel should have a 2-digit year number stamped on the bottom of it near the receiver frame that will give us a better idea of when the rifle was assembled.

There is a specific research survey in progress to document as many of the late production Model 90/06/62/62A rifles as can be found and identified.  See this topic link – https://winchestercollector.org/forum/winchester-research-survey-discussion/model-90-06-62-62a-survey/

Bert