clarence, the purpose of my post was not to draw attention to my shooting ability, which is average at best. It was mainly to point out that decent groups can be obtained without the use of a scope and other high dollar equipment. You don’t always need a tuner on the end of a reverse taper bull barrel with a 36 power scope and a four hundred dollar front rest to shoot good groups. A good barrel, good trigger and good ammo will in many cases give satisfactory results without the use of a scope. That was the point of my post. Yes, under certain conditions a scope has an advantage over open sights. I agree, but some folks enjoy a challenge when hunting and you mentioned it yourself that at one time you were “hog- slaughtering”. As an example, look at the interest in deer hunting with the bow and arrow in the past twenty to thirty years when scoped shotguns and rifles could be used. 

Forgive my ignorance here, as I know little to next to nothing about 52s, but why is there a notch in the stock behind the Lyman receiver sight?

Sincerely,

Maverick

Tedk said
Almost all of the shooting and hunting with Winchester lever rifles is done with either aperture or open sights

Not a fan of altering guns that were never intended for scope use

  

With the exception of the Model 88, the 9422, and the AE versions of the 94,  none of the Winchester lever guns ( that I can think of) were  designed for use with scopes, as you say.  

However,  in the postwar years, particularly after Korea,  in large part thanks to Bill Weaver, there arose a tremendous shift in consumer preference for scope sights and, at least in the Southwest, a large number of Winchester 92, 94 and 71 models began to wear side-mounted, offset scopes. I started to notice this in 1954, continuing well into the Nineteen Sixties. Even before 1964, I saw far more scoped Marlins and Savages than open-sighted Winchesters in the Houston metro area.  My distinct memories may be over-extrapolated. But I sure saw a lot of 94 carbines with those funky side-mounted, offset scopes. And at gun shows in the Seventies and Eighties, I would lose count of the 94 carbines and 64, 65, and 71 rifles with holes in their left receiver walls for a Weaver or Bushnell side mount. 

John Q. Public may not know much but he knows what he wants and after Korea that didn’t include the top ejecting Winchesters. This was no small part of Winchester’s downfall. 

Esthetically, as collectors we cherish obsolete Winchester guns in their unaltered state to the extent we sometimes lose sight of the reason they failed in the marketplace. To most of us, the Model 71 embodies every good thing we like about Winchester guns. But the company couldn’t sell enough of them to keep making them and ceased production in 1958. 

However, several years later Browning introduced the Hepburn-inspired BLR and has been selling them ever since in an increasing number of versions,  all of which were and are especially designed to use the telescopic sights the public wants. I think Winchester wanted to do the same thing with the 88, but I guess the hammerless aspect made it a bridge too far, especially with its mushy trigger.  I thought my 1955 Model 88 .308 was handsome and well made but the trigger was just unusable and I shined it on. 

While I would never put a scope on my 64 Deer Rifle or 71 Deluxe, to say the late production 52B Sporting was not designed for use with telescopic sights because it wasn’t drilled and tapped is something of a stretch. I can’t prove it except inferentially but of the 52B Sporters sold in the late Forties and up to about ’53,  I believe a fair number of them were the G5272R type with no receiver sight or front sight. I suspect a lot of those were never equipped with irons, based on the number of scoped B Sporters that have come up at auction over the years. 

At the very worst, handsome bevel headed plug screws, blued to match, can render less offensive the receivers of a drilled and tapped 52B Sporting. And if you have the ready cash of a cocaine dealer you can get a high condition Lyman 48F. Heaven help you if you need a #3279 hood. 

Best regards,

Bill