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I saw that Burt referenced 94/95 hybrid carbines in a post about Spruce guns. What were they? Thanks in advance for any reply.
Hello Doug,
There is a decent write-up on them in Bob Renneberg’s book… you need to go get yourself a copy of it 8) .
In short, in the year 1928, Winchester had a fair number of left over 30 caliber (30 Army) barrels and decided to use them up by modifying them to fit up to a Model 94 Carbine receiver. Instead of being the standard 20-inches, a lot of them were 22-inches. Additionally, the front sight ramp found on the Model 95 barrel was retained on most of them. Another way to detect them is the twist rate of the rifling… standard for the 30 Army was 1:10 whereas the 30 WCF was 1:12.
Bert
WACA Historian & Board of Director Member #6571L
Thanks Burt, as always you are the Winchester Wizard with the answers. I am also pretty sure that there is a Renneberg book under the Christmas tree,I will have to wait a little longer to read it. Doug 8)
This is a subject that Bert and I will continue to disagree.
I honestly cannot see that these 94/95 hybrids are true factory variants.
Winchester was set up with tons of fixtures, a slew of dedicated machinery capable of producing tens of thousands of 1894 carbine barrels a year. For those that have an understanding of mass manufacturing processes, it’s very hard to imagine Winchester justifying the time energy & resources to make these up just because they had a dozen or so surplus 1895 barrels.
Keep in mind Winchester probably scrapped ten times that may 1895 barrels a year because of minor flaws.
Also keep in mind that these guns, as well as so many of the other “Special” guns that are in Renneberg’s book are outside the letterable range, and the configuration cannot be validated by factory records.
There’s thousands of made up “Special Order” guns outside the verifiable serial number range, just for the simple reason that a decent faker can make up any configuration, no matter how outrageous and it cannot be proven wrong.
Hello Mike,
There were considerably more than a "dozen or so surplus barrels". Thus far, research by Art Gogan, Bob Renneberg, Rick Hill, and myself, has turned up ( 38 ) of them so far, and more are being discovered as time passes.
The known serial number range for the Model 94/95 hybrids is exclusive to the year 1928, but it is a decent sized serial number range (1014894 – 1035596), which encompasses January – November of 1928. Because all of them discovered thus far were manufactured in just the year 1928 (which was coincident with the discontinuance of the Model 95), it is not very likely that they were made up by someone outside of Winchester (Fakers would not have limited themself to just 1928 vintage Model 94s).
My estimate of the total number of 94/95 hybrids assembled is in the low thousands (1500 – 1800). I based my estimate on the total number of 1928 vintage Model 94s I have surveyed thus far, versus how many of that number are hybrids.
Bert
WACA Historian & Board of Director Member #6571L
Bert
Well again we are going to agree to disagree.
I believe it was Art Gogan (I understand that he passed away a couple of years ago), who first published an article in the late 80’s .
Reading Renneberg’s book, looks like his sole source of research was Gogan’s article.
With Gogan’s article being out there for more than twenty years, and Renneberg’s book out for what 16-17 years, I’m very surprised you haven’t found more.
As to the period range that you find them, believe those dates were published by both Gogan and Renneberg, so if you tell folks what range the suspect carbines are in, it should be no surprise to find them all in that date range.
As a friend of mine, who makes model 70 barrels, made an interesting comment; he got a lot of calls for M70 carbine barrels in 30 WCF after a certain article came out.
Have you found anything in your 1894 research (factory papers, diagrams, tooling gauges etc) that supports this?
Hello Mike,
In answer to your comment…
With Gogan’s article being out there for more than twenty years, and Renneberg’s book out for what 16-17 years, I’m very surprised you haven’t found more.
Neither Bob, Rick, or myself has done any "dedicated" searching for them… we only note them when we casually run across them or one is brought to our attention. That said, I have personally seen two of them up close, and they absolutely look & smell like Winchester factory work. As you and I both know, there are lots of little subtle things about old Winchesters that have that certain feel and look about them that the vast majority of fakes will not have. While it is possible to fool almost anyone with one gun, it is almost impossible to fool everyone with a large bunch of them.
In response to your comment…
As to the period range that you find them, believe those dates were published by both Gogan and Renneberg, so if you tell folks what range the suspect carbines are in, it should be no surprise to find them all in that date range.
Neither Art Gogan or Bob Renneberg was aware that all of the serial numbers fall in the year 1928… I discovered that piece of information when I checked them against the Polishing Room Serialization Record Books. Art used Madis’ information to roughly date them.
As of this moment, I have not spent but a very small amount of time looking for Model 94 records that date to the late 1920s… but I will do so in the future as time permits.
Bert
WACA Historian & Board of Director Member #6571L
The first Model 94 carbine of this configuration that I encountered was in the mid 80’s at the old Great Western show at the Pomona Fairgrounds. Since this was the first one I’d encountered I examined it several times over a two day period. I really should have bought it, but for some reason I didn’t. It was an excellent example and other than its strange configuration I couldn’t find anything about it that would suggest anything other than factory original. I’ve seen several since that time, but none were as nice as that one. I have no doubt this is a factory oddity.
Bert
Here’s why I think it’s improbable /impractical for Winchester to have produced these.
When a company as large as Winchester was, when you think of production you don’t think in numbers of one or two, or hundreds or even thousands but in terms of tens / hundreds of thousands.
By the numbers that you posted earlier for 1928 production (1014894 – 1035596) that’s over 20,000 1894s, or approx 66 model 1894s a day.
In order to accomplish this, you need Jigs, fixtures & gauges. Jigs & fixtures in manufacturing insures a certain level of quality, interchangeability and standardization, it also make it easier to gauge the final product.
Looking at some old pictures, octagon barrels were gang milled; by my estimate about 10 barrels at a time (can’t see the entire machine in the picture). The dovetail slots were likewise gang milled, approximately 6 barrels at a time. My guess is that Winchester had 5 – 6 of these dedicated machines. Easily capable of producing 66 barrels a day.
Once the barrels were machined these barrels were then inspected. I’m thinking a bevy of young ladies, who sat there and gauged chambers, dovetail cuts, OD of barrels, threads etc. Very much like the process that Winchester used in the ammunition plant.
Winchester gauged everything; ID/OD magazine rings, barrel bands, ID/OD mag tubes, locations of pin slots, forend wood. Gauging is a quick and easy way to check mass produced parts.
Then, if a barrel gauges out correctly, the bore is inspected, and the barrel would get the Viewed Proof (VP) stamp on the bottom.
Ok, so back the modified 95 barrels. For the sake of argument, let’s say Winchester has a bunch of 95 barrels that they wanted to convert to 94 carbine barrels.
The first thing they would do is figure out how they can make these as quickly and efficiently as possible, hopefully without impacting the normal production of 20, 000 barrels for that year.
They would need to either make new, or modify existing fixtures, not only for the barrel and magazine tube, but also for the forend wood and possibly barrel band. Then they would build the gauges to check these parts. From what I understand, Winchester didn’t use drawings to manufacture their gauges, but rather built a “Master” gun in which to build their gauges.
Once that is done, they need to adapt a machine to index these barrels correctly (with the sights already installed, the threads need to be indexed +/- .001 ? to time the barrel correctly).
If Winchester were smart, they would set up one of their dedicated machines for a day or so to gang mill all the rear sight dovetail cuts, half dozen at a time. Then do the same for the rotary dovetail cut, and rear barrel band screw relief cut in the barrel.
They would also need to setup a machine to make the correct cuts in the mag tube, and modify the wood inletting machine so that the front forends fit the 95 barrel taper properly.
So let’s assume that Winchester did all of this.
One would assume that all the barrels would be identical, but they are not. Look at Bob R’s examples…they’re all over the place. 20 inch barrel, 21 ½ inch barrel, rear sight dovetail 2 ¾ or 3 1/16 inch from the frame, center of magazine ring cut 16 ½ or 17 ¾ inch from the frame. Do you see any standardization in any of this? Is there any belief that these parts were machined using the same fixtures, or on the same machine.?
How in the world would you gauge them?
How can you tell if these parts are correct, when there is no standard for correct?
Couple of other issues to contend with:
1. Winchester mass produced parts, these parts went into racks/bins en mass, with the understanding that all a worker needed to do was grab a gauged part and it would fit properly. How did Winchester handle these parts, they wouldn’t interchange with themselves much less standard 94 parts. Do they have assembly numbers on them?
2. How did Winchester handle supportability? Remember Winchester took pride in their ability to support their product, so if you wrote them saying that you needed a new magazine tube for your 1894 carbine, you would get one and it would fit. Not so with these…
3. Quite often I run across an 1892 or 1894 barrel with 92 or 94 stamped on the bottom flat (usually in the smaller calibers). I assume so that a worker wouldn’t confuse a 32-20 barrel designed for the 1892 with a 32-40 barrel designed for the 1894. Do these Hybrid barrels have 94 stamped on the underside, so that the assembler can distinguish this barrel from a standard 1895 barrel?
Mike,
Winchester was not ever in the habit of throwing away any usable parts, and they certainly would not have just pitched 1500+ perfectly good barrels in the scrap bin.
Consider the time at which these were made… the economy was not what you could call "rosy" (just before the stock market crash and our entry into the Great Depression), and Winchester was stuggling financially at the time (they filed for bankruptcy in late 1929, and were bought out of receivership by Olin in late 1930). From a financial point of view, it makes a lot of sense that they would have used any leftover (usable) barrels, and Winchester was more than capable of figuring out how to modify them for use on the Model 94.
Again, while it may not make much sense to you, there are a fair number of advanced Model 1894/94 collectors and at least two authors, who are convinced that the Model 94/95 hybrids are the real thing… myself included.
Bert
WACA Historian & Board of Director Member #6571L
Bert
While interesting, I don’t find your reasoning overly compelling.
The stock market crash didn’t occur until Oct 29, 1929, a full year after these guns were supposedly produced.
Winchester continued production of the Model 1895 until 1931 (3 years later), and continued to sell clean up guns until what 1940, a good 11 years after Winchester needed to get rid of these barrels.
Winchester produced a tad over 420,000 in the 36 years it was in production, average about 12,000 guns a year. Seems like the most logical thing to do with a few 1895 barrels is to put them on 1895s.
Mike,
With all due respect.
I have had or inspected about 10 of these examples. The only variant I haven’t seen in person is the longer barrel with the dovetailed front sight – I was surprised to see Bert’s research identifying them. Yes, I did glean some research from Gogan’s writing but mostly hands on. No brag, but I doubt anyone has handled or personally examined more of these oddities than I.
Accordingly.
IF Winchester didn’t make them who did?
How did all the serials end up in such a close range. How did the rifling twist mysteriously change to 1-10 instead of 1-12? Why do the drilled holes in the barrels exactly fit the 95 sights? The only significant measurement differences are the sight-to-receiver distances of the 20" variant and the 21.75" (actual to boltface) variant at 2-3/4 from the receiver and 3-1/16 respectively, and slight differences in the front sight pads between the pinned and dovetailed variations. The mag tubes are standard carbine length and fitted identically according to the barrel length.
In short, who was the genius who made these up OUTSIDE the factory, how did they obtain the parts needed and WHY did they bother!!!????
What happened to all the original parts?
Regards,
Bob
Hello Mike,
I do not know where you got your production numbers from for the Model 1895, but you are way off-track. Winchester maufactured 294,000 of them in just the years 1915 & 1916 alone. Prior to that time, the production numbers were slow, and after those two years, production was very slow.
The first Model 1895 delivered to the warehouse was on February 1st, 1896. Serial number 19567 was the last "Antique" serial number on December 31st, 1898. Total production numbered 425,881. If you subtract the 294,000 made in 1915/16, that leaves roughly 132,000 made during the other 34-years of production… or is other terms, approximately an average of 3900 were produced each year, with the actual average being much much lower in the late years.
Bob pointed it out, and so will I… both of us have closely examined a number of these hybrids, and I am willing to bet the farm that they are factory original. Have you personally examined any of them?
Just because the stock market crash did not officially happen until October of 1929, that does not mean that a large number of U.S. based companies were not struggling finacially prior to that date. Winchester (as well as many other companies) was struggling finacially in early 1927 (they had over extended their business in the mid 1920s when they expanded into the Simmons Hardware & Sporting Goods business).
Just in case you did not know, while I have a BS in Electronic Systems Engineering, I minored in History (which is extremely fascinating to me), and because I have an enormous interest in Winchester, I have studied their corporate history to some degree.
Bert
WACA Historian & Board of Director Member #6571L
Bob
I am not arguing that these are not 1895 barrels mounted on 1894s, they clearly are. I am questioning whether the originally factory produced them.
1895 barrels were fairly common 10 or so years ago, I bought out a small shop, ended up with over a dozen 1895 barrels, just from this one small one man shop.
Oh, and yes I do have an 1895 barrel that has been chambered in 30 WCF and modified to fit the 1894 carbine.
The reason that they are in the same SN Range is that is what was published in your book, 18 + years ago. Quote " Assembled around 1927/28 "
Bert/Bob
Both of you, in the past have provided some very valuable advice to the Winchester collection community. That advice includes carefully measuring the distance of the front sight to the muzzle, the mag tube hanger to the muzzle, rear sight location and even measure the muzzle diameter to ensure originality of a barrel. But the elephant in the room is that it’s still the wrong barrel.
For the reasons that I mentioned earlier, I strongly believe that it was impractical/improbable that Winchester produced these.
Now I don’t consider myself a Winchester expert, and I certainly haven’t written any books or articles, but I have been working on these Winchesters for 15 + years, in that time I have made dozens of barrels for the 1866 thru the 1894s, in just about every configuration: carbines, Rifles, Standard, light weights, ex heavy etc. because I have to replicate these barrels exactly, I have measured the snot out of these barrels, and also have a very good understanding how Winchester machined each cut.
So I will make a deal with you and or Bert. Send me one; I will pay for shipping & insurance each way. If it looks correct, I will eat crow and publicly admit that you were right, and strongly promote these variants. If I find any concerns as to originality, I will report those results to the sender and only to the sender; I will leave it to that person to decide what to do with the information.
I have no intent to publicly ridicule embarrass anyone, just to get to the truth. So as a start, you can post here whether you accept or decline….or send me a private PM/E-Mail and our conversation will be kept private.
Now if you are uncomfortable sending the carbine to me, you can send it to Roger Kurtz. Roger and I have spoken, and he would be willing to participate.
Respectfully
Mike Hunter
Mike,
When I started my book project (way back) I discovered both an example of this "weird" 94 that I assumed (like you) was bogus and much later Gogan’s enlightening article. Since then I have examined MANY of these variants as I have said. In the first edition I believe there are at least four – one with changed sights. This was approximately 20 years ago, give or take writing and publication time.
Right now as we speak, I still have four and recently sold two of six. All in all my findings and hands-on examinations accounts for about 1/3 of all the examples known to date. I still have not seen the longer version with the dovetailed front sight.
I do remember traveling to see one (traveled from NY to Baltimore) for research and possible acquisition and found it to be a correct 20" version but someone had welded up the "extra holes" and refinished the gun very poorly. I passed on that one.
I also saw several (including one 21-3/4 version) in my travels to the Portland Show and to Cody.
As you can see I have examined many of these. I can assure you they are NOT gunsmith conversions – I feel that they were perhaps a small batch of experimentation models and perhaps as you say Winchester deemed them more costly to produce than the savings in parts. After that determination they released them for sale and hence the few examples noted.
It is extremely odd that in those 20 years only 38 or so have turned up.
I would gladly send you one of my specimens but fear the loss and cost of insurance (I have a high and perhaps unrealistic value on the remaining four I have). I especially would be unwilling to send anything until after the holiday rush. If you can get around that problem I will send you one of my examples, even a longer barreled one that is even more scarce.
There is no need for PMs on this subject – I would welcome further input from other members and hopefully some information on other examples of this intriging variation.
Regards,
Bob
Correction – I have five, counting the OS Wallace gun in the second edition of my book.
Mike,
I do not own one of them, but Bob does, and it appears that you might get your chance to examine one of his. Regardless of the outcome, this is another one of those topics that has undoubtedly been very enlightening, and entertaining to most who have followed it. It is these types of discussions that make this forum the best one on the internet concerning old Winchesters.
One last comment… Winchester serialized (manufactured) a total of 25,912 Model 94s in the year 1928. I have surveyed just (90) of those serial numbers thus far, with ( 38 ) of them being the discussed hybrids. While I do not have any concrete evidence to support my estimate of the production numbers, I highly suspect that there are at least (1000) of them out there in gun cabinets, safes, closets, etc., and the number could easily be several hundred more (which I believe is the case). Additionally, and based on the various sighting locations, they are scattered all over the country, and quite possibly in Canada and Australia. Hopefully, through venues such as this forum, Bob’s book, and published articles, more interest is raised in them, and more of them are discovered.
Bert
WACA Historian & Board of Director Member #6571L
Interesting hypothesis about Winchester using the 1895 barrels in an effort to save money, which I am willing to explore.
There’s four ways that Winchester could have saved money:
1. Facilities & Machinery
2. Power Requirements
3. Labor
4. Raw Materials
1. Winchester’s machines & facilities were sunk costs… meaning: the existing machinery was already paid for, no additional machinery and or facilities were required to produce the 1894 carbine barrel. No savings on machinery could be had by making new barrels from scratch vs. using existing barrels.
2. Power Requirements: Winchester had its own coal /steam power generation plant on site; in short, they produced their own power. The majority of the machines were belt driven off a line shaft, you power one machine you power a dozen… no difference, and no savings.
3. Labor: I see the labor piece as a wash and here’s why: retrofitting the 1895 (Cut existing shank, rethread shank, chamber, dovetails etc), would be roughly 60% of the work need for an unturned blank. The only machining steps that are omitted is drilling, rifling and turning the outside contour. Now, keep in mind that Winchester was set up to do these operations on a high production basis, (hundreds of thousands) . Once you’re set up for production at this level, it’s actually quicker & easier to start from scratch than to try and retrofit something else.
4. Raw Materials: In 1928 the price of steel was .0185 cents per pound; I’ll estimate that the pre machining barrel blank weight was 5 lbs. Using Bert’s unofficial estimate that Winchester manufactured 1000 of these, Winchester would have realized a savings of $92.50 on material.
The 1928 cost of an 1894 carbine was what? $20, Winchester did this to save less money than the cost of 5 carbines.
Thoughts?
No other thoughts. Just my previous answer and the knowledge that Winchester was notorious for being "frugal," common sense-wise or not. Example!!
Were the front sights on some Models machined as part of the barrel or sweated on (another of my favorite debate items)?
Regards, Bob
Bob
I also had questions about how Winchester mounted their carbine front sights. I started disassembling a few worn out barrels, here’s what I found:
The standard carbine front sights were done both ways. On the very early 66 & 73s the base of the front sight was radiused to match the radius of the the barrel then brazed on.
Later on they were dovetailed in place with a very tiny and shallow dovetail (about .200 wide & .030 -.040 deep), then brazed in place. Also looks like they were finish machined after they were brazed.
Latter ones (1909 sticks in my mind, but don’t quote me), they were forged as part of the barrel, then finished machined. I’ve got a copy of Winchester’s patent somewhere for this.
1886 LW barrels, I’ve seen both ways, earlier style was pinned then silver brazed. Latter ones were forged as part of the barrel
95 barrels I really havn’t played with. If there’s enough interest, I can machine one down and see how Winchester did them.
Mike Hunter said
Interesting hypothesis about Winchester using the 1895 barrels in an effort to save money, which I am willing to explore.There’s four ways that Winchester could have saved money:
1. Facilities & Machinery
2. Power Requirements
3. Labor
4. Raw Materials1. Winchester’s machines & facilities were sunk costs… meaning: the existing machinery was already paid for, no additional machinery and or facilities were required to produce the 1894 carbine barrel. No savings on machinery could be had by making new barrels from scratch vs. using existing barrels.
2. Power Requirements: Winchester had its own coal /steam power generation plant on site; in short, they produced their own power. The majority of the machines were belt driven off a line shaft, you power one machine you power a dozen… no difference, and no savings.
3. Labor: I see the labor piece as a wash and here’s why: retrofitting the 1895 (Cut existing shank, rethread shank, chamber, dovetails etc), would be roughly 60% of the work need for an unturned blank. The only machining steps that are omitted is drilling, rifling and turning the outside contour. Now, keep in mind that Winchester was set up to do these operations on a high production basis, (hundreds of thousands) . Once you’re set up for production at this level, it’s actually quicker & easier to start from scratch than to try and retrofit something else.
4. Raw Materials: In 1928 the price of steel was .0185 cents per pound; I’ll estimate that the pre machining barrel blank weight was 5 lbs. Using Bert’s unofficial estimate that Winchester manufactured 1000 of these, Winchester would have realized a savings of $92.50 on material.
The 1928 cost of an 1894 carbine was what? $20, Winchester did this to save less money than the cost of 5 carbines.
Thoughts?
Mike,
I am not sure where you are getting your numbers from, but materials were more costly than you quote, and the price tag on a Model 94 Carbine was $35 in the 1925 catalog.
I also do not agree with you that reworking an existing barrel would be equivalent to 60% of the time and work required to make a new barrel from a blank (at least not in my opinion). As Bob and I have both stated, Winchester throughout their history was known for being frugal, and they were definitely very careful with their $$$ in the late 1920s.
Bert
WACA Historian & Board of Director Member #6571L
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