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Hi Bert,
I’ve read that even though the standard barrel length was 26 inches for the 1894 ELW rifles, the 26 inch length is actually less common than the 22 inch and 24 inch lengths. Is that true? Do you have a break-down from your survey? Back in August at the Oregon Arms Collectors show, I bought a minty 1894 deluxe in 30 W.C.F. with 3x checkered pistol grip, 26 inch extra light round barrel, half magazine, take-down, shotgun butt, oil finish, platinum lined 3 leaf express sight along with a Cody fact sheet confirming all options (with Clarence Park’s name on it). This is the rifle I showed you at the show.
Thanks,
Don
Don,
In the 354000 serial number range, I have surveyed (64) ELWs, and they break down as follows;
18-inch — 1
20-inch — 2
22-inch — 41
24-inch — 8
26-inch — 12
Bert
WACA Historian & Board of Director Member #6571L
Thanks for that info Bert. It appears the 22 inch barrels are the most common. Do you have my serial number 298413 figured in this data?
Don
Should the forearm of the 22″ 1894 ELW be 1″ shorter? Or did some come with standard forearm length?
Thanks, Trying to learn.
Al
deerhunter said
Thanks for that info Bert. It appears the 22 inch barrels are the most common. Do you have my serial number 298413 figured in this data?Don
Don,
My survey begins at serial number 354000. I am not trying to survey the Model 1894s that are letterable (except for the 1st models). Gary (Pdog72) is surveying all of the Short rifles, including the ELWs.
Bert
WACA Historian & Board of Director Member #6571L
tionesta1 said
Should the forearm of the 22″ 1894 ELW be 1″ shorter? Or did some come with standard forearm length?Thanks, Trying to learn.
Al
Al,
Most of them were made with the 8 ⅜ inch long forend, but some of them do have the standard 9 ⅜ inch forend stock on them. Gary can probably provide the numbers observed thus far.
Bert
WACA Historian & Board of Director Member #6571L
January 26, 2011
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Al,
In my survey of (421) 1894 short rifles, which includes (140) ELW’s, the fore-end lengths are one data point I was specifically tracking. The ELWs have the same characteristics as the standard weight barrels (with respect to the fore-ends lengths). This being said, the 22″ barreled short rifles have shown to have 8 3/8″ fore-ends approx. 83% of the time and the 9 3/8″ for the other 17%.
FYI – In the next few days, you should receive your collector magazine which includes an article I wrote about the 1894 short rifles.
~Gary~
Bert H. said
Don,
My survey begins at serial number 354000. I am not trying to survey the Model 1894s that are letterable (except for the 1st models). Gary (Pdog72) is surveying all of the Short rifles, including the ELWs.
Bert
Thanks Bert. I’m surprised at the rather low number (64) ELW’s in your survey of >354000. How many 1894’s do you have in the survey now? Based on the numbers in the survey, what percentage are ELW’s?
Thanks,
Don
deerhunter said
Thanks Bert. I’m surprised at the rather low number (64) ELW’s in your survey of >354000. How many 1894’s do you have in the survey now? Based on the numbers in the survey, what percentage are ELW’s?
Thanks,
Don
Don,
Keep in mind that the in the early years, “Rifles” were the predominant variation, but that as time went on, the SRCs became the predominant variation.
Currently, I have 16,011 Model 1894/94 in the survey from serial number 354000 – 2600011. The highest serial numbered ELW I have found is 883085 (March 1919 production). Based on my extrapolation tables, it is currently predicting that 10,854 ELWs were manufactured after serial number 353999. I suspect that the extrapolated number will come down a few thousand as I continue to add new entries in the survey.
Bert
WACA Historian & Board of Director Member #6571L
Any theories about why 10% have the longer forearm? Since the 22″ barrels had a built in ramp sort of front sight, factory cut down to fill an order doesn’t seem likely.
January 26, 2011
Offline
CJ
That is an excellent question which prompted me to go back to my file and narrow this down further. My post above was related to all 1894 short rifles, not just ELW’s. I didn’t have any formulas set up to compile fore-end length data for just the ELW portion of the survey. I went ahead and sorted the file differently to hopefully provide a better answer.
In my survey of (421) 1894 short rifles, which includes (140) ELW’s, there are (106) 22″ ELW examples. Of those, I have fore-end lengths documented on (89) of them. Of those (89) ELW 22″ rifles, the fore-end lengths are all 8 3/8″ with the exception of (3) examples that have the 9 3/8″ fore-ends. That calculates to only 3.4% of them having the longer fore-end, in my small survey.
Keep in mind, there are quite a few rifles in my survey that don’t have the fore-end information. As for the 22″ ELW’s with the longer wood, I think the number I came up with is so small that these might just fall into that Winchester anomaly category where they just used the parts available to fill an order.
Thanks for questioning the original post, as this forced me to pull the blinders and look deeper. I have quite a few formulas in my file that provide more detail for the short ELW’s specifically, but I failed to break out the fore-end wood. Always learning……. that’s what makes it fun.
~Gary~
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