steve004 said
Mark – 

Thanks for posting.  Interesting exercise.  I’ve enjoyed all the comments and perspectives.  I don’t have experience with rifles with that level of case color, so I’ll forego an opinion.  The several comments about the metal and the wood not adding up makes makes sense to me and would steer me away from this piece.  

  

Can’t say as I blame you.  In a way, I kind of want to believe it’s right so that I have a good template for what original Winchester case colors should look like.  I had reservations about the colors of the “Marshfield Find”.  Of course, even if this one’s original, who’s to say the colors haven’t changed somewhat with the passage of time, even if it was put away in a closet for most of that time.  

After all I should count my blessings that the Winchester collection is available only a few blocks away for reference.  Mark

mrcvs said
Looking at this yet again, there is no way to explain the difference between the buttplate and the receiver as far as their different appearances, short of the buttplate being submerged in water for a fortnight, which, of course, did not happen.  This means that the receiver had to be enhanced/restored.

  

While I’d certainly agree there’s a marked difference in the condition of the buttplate and receiver, it’s certainly isn’t incontrovertible evidence that the receiver has been restored.  The vast majority of case-colored rifles I’ve encountered have far less condition on the buttplates than on the receivers. This one may be a glaring example, but to say there is no other possible explanation is a bit of an overstatement.  For instance, perhaps it’s the buttplate that isn’t original to the gun.

I’m looking purely at the case colors on the receiver and can see no evidence of restoration, regardless of what the rest of the gun looks like.  I can’t see the chatter marks on the screw heads as TR mentioned and that causes me some concern.  However, as TR also pointed out, the lines are exceptionally crisp and straight on the receiver.  We recase receivers routinely, so I’m intimately aware of what it takes to normalize (anneal), polish and recase a receiver.  Our smiths have been doing it for 35 years and I’d put our work up against anybody’s in the business.  If that receiver has been recased, it’s as good a metal prep I’ve encountered and certainly up to original Winchester standards.  If Doug’s people did it, I’d give them enormous credit.  I’ve seen a lot of their recent metal prep work and it would fall short of this work.  Of course, it’s possible some other talented craftsman did the work in the past.

I think we’ve established that there are many unanswered questions about this one.  However, unless someone comes forward and says they did the work or there’s some equivocal evidence that can be found through a personal inspection of the rifle, it’s still just a matter of personal opinion. Mark  

tionesta1 said
Mark,

Gunrunner Auctions has two locations, Burton Ohio, and Cody Wyoming. You can contact the Auction company owner Scott Weber to see if this 1886 is at the Cody location.  Although you may have already tried this route.

Al

  

Haha! I was sure hoping it was out here in Cody, but it’s in Ohio.  I called Scott and asked (actually I begged) him to ship it here, but he didn’t want to take the chance of shipping it.  I guess I can understand, since we received a high condition 1886 this week with a broken stock and two broken tangs.  Of course, that one was a product of poor packaging and very rough handling by the PO.  Mark

clarence said

Mark Douglas said We certainly can’t discount the quality of the craftsmanship from the past masters.  While there are several smiths today doing quality work with case colors, we have to tips our hats to the master craftsmen who came before us and not lose sight of the fact that we didn’t recently invent the craft.  Mark 

Hardly!  The true “master craftsmen” were those doing CC, rust-bluing, other specialty jobs, not from time to time as their work demanded, but every day in the major factories; thus, for ex, CC rcvrs were standard even on the cheapest boy’s rifles made by Stevens & Rem up into the ’30s.

  

Actually, the master craftsmen I was referring to aren’t those who did one task day after day, year after year until it became rote and routine – until they were the very best they could possibly be at one narrow skill.  If this receiver was recased at some point in the past, it was likely by one of the true masters who devoted their lives to learning how to do it all extremely well.  Those who can expertly fit, finish and checker wood; are expert machinists who can perform all aspects of machining barrels, build replacement parts from scratch and build all needed fixtures and tooling needed for any necessity that may arise in the building and repair of firearms.  Those with the welding skills needed to do everything from building up the knife edge of a sear to reattaching a broken tang perfectly straight and then finishing them so that the repair can’t be detected.   Those who can inspect, evaluate, troubleshoot and repair an infinite array of different models and, indeed, platforms of firearms.  Those who can painstakingly bring back a basket case firearm with hand files, abrasive paper and polish to perfection before applying a wide variety of original finishes that make that basket case look brand new again.  I’m talking about master craftsmen that are experts in all these tasks and did them all, not on occasion, but all day every day and likely never stepped foot in a firearms factory. 

One has to respect the incredible craftsmanship that went into building the firearms that we admire so much today.  Firearms built in factories full of hundreds or thousands of skilled workers who took enormous pride in the one task among the countless skills needed to build a quality firearm.  Just don’t confuse those who were the very best at the one skill, or maybe a few related skills, with the master craftsmen I was referring to, those who spent lifetimes becoming experts in every aspect of firearms manufacture, repair and maintenance.