Model 71 Coming Up |Page 2|Winchester Rifles|Forum|Winchester Collector

I’ve just read the genuine sling furnished with deluxe versions of the models 70, 71, 64, and 52 Sporting was catalogued as the #3260 “carrying strap” although it was a 2 piece leather shooting sling, essentially a narrow (1 inch) version of the 1907 military sling. The keeper loops were fastened together with distinctive blue steel diamond shaped staples, instead of other means. The 3260 sling was entirely without identifying marks. 

Roger’s sling keepers are fastened with just such blue diamond-shaped staples. However, the hardware should be brass and the one in question appears to be a white plated metal. There should be a single, parallel embossed line running down the outside edges, and there are. 

Two out of three and brass was a strategic metal during WWII.  My vote is it’s the original sling of a well-kept rifle.

When we stop learning and lose our thirst for knowledge, the end is drawing near. I think it’s the lack of curiosity that killed the cat; not the other way around. 

When my own father lay dying, he had been widowed several years after a 60 year marriage and was ready to leave – he missed my mother terribly.

But he said he wished he could be around to see the new technologies that seemed to be invented daily. He remained curious and inquisitive until he finally lost consciousness.

We are surrounded by two-edged swords. Dad was spared a painful death because of the then new generation of analgesics- oxycontin and oxycodone. Like all such drugs, they’ve done a lot of harm but I’ve seen the good they can do and was grateful. Dad could stay awake and read Popular Mechanics but remain pain free. 

Just checked both of the sling’s adjusting hooks with a magnet.  Both the brass colored hooks and the silver colored hooks are magnetic!  That would mean the brass colored hooks were brass plated steel.  Perhaps both slings are counterfeit?  That may be a possibility.  If so, I been dupped again! RDB

Yes,  and you are certainly good at it, from what I can see of the Model 92 and Model 94 you’ve brought back to life. 

What you’ve run into with the Model 71 is a facet of Winchester collecting – there are certain icons.  The Model 71 and its predecessor, the Model 1886, were not produced in great numbers because they were designed for an Era that was already passing away. However, the originals and the more numerous reproductions made by Miroku and branded as Brownings and now Winchesters,  all sell steadily and not cheaply. They are expensive to make, even with CNC machinery, which can only do so much. There’s a lot of steel in an 86 and the 71. 

The Model 52 Sporting Rifle and the Model 21 shotgun are likewise iconic, were low production items, and now have a similar price floor.  

By comparison to the Winchester Models 97, 12, 90, and especially the 94 and 70,  the icon models were made in small numbers, probably because they were so expensive to make and very costly to buy. 

For example, a Model 52 Sporting Rifle was by far the most expensive rimfire rifle in the 1957 Gun Digest. It set a man back the same money that would buy a Model 70 Super Grade. 

Collectors like the Winchester 63 automatic but check the retail on a brand new one in 1955,  compared to a Model 62. The difference would (and did) make many a union machinist or boilermaker, shopping for his boy’s Christmas, pause and think. Production numbers bear this out. 

When chasing restorable Winchesters, go for the high production models and leave the icons to the elephants.  

MidwestCrisis said
I didn’t realize the cup of fire I was dealing with.  I hope I gave the seasoned collector reading this a chuckle with my 550 max bid.  I’m going to keep watching for the $600 model 71.  Thanks to this forum I know how to spot a frankenchester. 
  

Speaking as a figurative blade of grass, just remember what happens when the elephants fight.