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I’m not new to Winchesters but I am new to pre-1898 Winchesters and I’ve noticed that the internal machining on these guns is very nice. I’m more familiar with 20’s-50’s Winchesters and as they get farther and farther away from the beginning the internal machining looks more and more like it was done with a chainsaw.
I just got a very nice 73 made in 1895 that has most of the original blue and colors, no browning and when I took it down to clean it I noticed how different the machining was on the inside of this gun. Did Winchester continue to use milling cutters that were 20-30 years old before they got new ones? This gun has machining that looks like todays CNC machining. It is truly impressive. I have another question also, when did Winchester discontinue the German silver front sight blade insert on their sporting sight?
Mike Hunter could answer better on how Winchester changed machining practices though the years but if I had to guess it is just the old time machinists had a lot of pride in there work and Winchester wanted to be known for its workmanship. Later on it was more about keeping profits and production up sacrificing workmanship where it wouldn’t be noticed. But I know its not that they kept using the same mills since they only lasted a short time and had to be sharpened or replaced.
Bob
WACA Life Member--- NRA Life Member---- Cody Firearms member since 1991 Researching the Winchester 1873's
Email: [email protected]
Did Winchester use the same milling cutters for 20-30 years; I doubt that they lasted 20-30 hours. Early milling cutters were made out of heat treated high carbon steel, something like SAE 1095. The cutter speeds and milling feeds had to be very slow, less than 400 rpm to keep from burning the cutters up. ( I can look up the exact milling speeds and feeds in one of my old machining books, but I’m a bit lazy today, and my guess is that nobody here really cares).
High Speed Steel (HSS) came out around 1910, developed by the Crucible Steel Co; a major steel supplier to Winchester. With HSS milling speeds could be increased dramatically. Later in the 50-60s Cobalt and carbide came into use which dramatically increased cutter speeds.
Winchester was a big user of fixtures, they built fixtures for everything, a lot of single use fixtures, i.e.…fixture to drill a single hole in a sight. John Madl, who did quite a bit of research on the 1886, estimated that it took 20-30 independent machining operations just for the 86 receivers. So that’s 20-30 guys with dedicated machines/fixtures doing a single machining operation on the 86 receiver.
Just to give an example of how labor intensive the Manufacturing of Winchesters was, during the week ending 3 June 1899, Mr. Dunlaps crew of 10 “contractors” in the machining area conducted in excess of 25, 000 independent machining operations; for which they got paid $112.00. So each guy averaged 2500 machining operations during the week, earning a Kings salary of $12 for the week
Bob is absolutely correct in that Winchester took a lot of pride in what they manufactured, I’ve got Winchester’s complete order of operations for manufacturing 1894 barrels, what surprised me is that after every operation the barrel was gauged and inspected. So when I hear that a part was made on a Friday, or right before a coffee break… I have to chuckle. Winchester left very little to human error.
Thanks for the info. It pretty much justified my suspicions. Make the outside look good and rather than take the time on the inside just file the burrs off and keep the profits up. I just find this old gun so well machined, I just had to ask.
Thanks
I have another question also, when did Winchester discontinue the German silver front sight blade insert on their sporting sight?
gastrap:
All I can do is guess, and my wild guess would be sometime between 1920 and 1932. I suppose there is nothing in your sight notes that specific? The Sight Book notes a change in 1929 for most of the 21 series front sights being substituted with a Lyman front sight. I did not see it mentioned about the choice of materials before 1929 however, as there were 21 series sights that with all steel blades or all steel and tin tipped of course.
Bert H. maybe has it narrowed down for Model 94s?
Brad
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