1894 ELW Octagon Deluxe. |Winchester Rifles|Forum|Winchester Collector

Matt 

That is a fairly scarce combination to find. There are quite a few special order features on this rifle but the three that make it special are:

1. The ELW octagon barrel by itself. They are far less common than the round or half round ELWs. You would think that the 22″ barrel might be the best feature, but the ELW Oct. is more scarce in any length than the 22″ barrel by itself, which is the most common length found in the short rifles. I hope that made sense…….
2. The 2/3 magazine. Any special length magazines are good attributes. 
3. The fact that its not a take-down. Most ELW short rifles are takedowns (approx. 71% in my survey of these rifles)

An interesting gun, for sure. I will add it to my survey. Thanks for sharing. 

Matt

I can sort the file many different ways, but I will give a few data points that might be relevant to you. 

• of the 440 short rifles in the survey, 146 are ELWs
• of those, 18 are full octagon
• of those, 16 are some variation of deluxe
• of those, 11 are take downs
• of the 5 that are solid frames, yours is the only one with a 2/3 mag

A few other tid-bits:

• of the 440 rifles, only 40 have a 2/3 mag
• of the 146 ELWs, 104 of those are takedowns
• of the 146 ELWs, 113 are round barrels
• of the 146 ELWs, 112 are 22″ length
• of the 146 ELWs, 123 are 30 WCF

Keep in mind, my survey is a pretty small sampling, but I do believe it represents what is floating around in gun shows, collections, and online. This being said, your rifle is the only one with that set of features in my survey.