Early model 1892 take-down with odd magazine tube|Winchester Rifles|Forum|Winchester Collector

I recently acquired an early model small-caliber 1892 (20744) with a take-down frame and an odd magazine tube. It’s one-piece, with a slightly dished-out  end and knurled half an inch down the tube, to facilitate getting a grip on it to turn it. It’s 15 1/2-inches long, and has the correct threads on the open end to turn into the receiver. This gun came out of an estate, where it was sitting in a warehouse for multiple decades, if not half a century or more. To get the rifle, I also had to take the 1953 barrel dated Remington Sportsman 48 12 ga. shotgun that also came from the same place, which makes me think that they’ve been parked for 50-60 years. As such, I needed some penetrating oil to spin the mag tube out by hand (if this was the first model of take-down mag tube, I can see why they went to the folding lever patented in 1893).

The kicker is that way back in the ’30’s to 50’s, the original barrel was changed out for one from a model 65 in 218 Bee (stamped 218B on the bottom, and I can’t find a date code, so would that make it a replacement barrel instead of one pulled off a rifle?). Since 65’s are solid frame guns, they spun the barrel through the take-down barrel adapter, so it’s now a forced solid frame. With the mag tube in place, it’s roughly 2/3 length compared to the 24″ 218 Bee barrel. I’m also of the opinion that the bolt on the rifle is from a model 65, since it’s drilled and tapped for a bolt top sight (from what I’ve researched, they were standard on a mod. 65 in 218 Bee).

The good folks at Cody did a records search, and it checks out being built as a take-down with an octagon 32 WCF barrel (it still has the octo forearm), plain trigger, SNA on Nov. 22, 1893, sent into the warehouse on Feb. 6, 1894, leaving 6 days later. That’s it.

Having been converted/messed with, I can’t be certain that this is the original mag tube, but I find it hard to believe that the “gunsmith” pulled another manufacturer’s mag tube out if his parts bin and made it fit. Yet stranger things have happened. On that note, the magazine spring follower was a spent .30 Remington case with the neck cut off!

After trying to hunt down early take-down frame 1892’s in reference books and the interwebs, I’ve yet to find anything (even misinformation), so I’m posting it here.