Winchester 1886 question...

F

frichtie

CGN Regular
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Location
Québec
Hi all,

I recently received a factory letter from the Cody Museum for my model 1886 in 45-70.

I see that there is two dates of shipping...?

Here's exactly what is written:



Received in warehouse on December 23, 1887
Shipped from warehouse on January 04, 1888 Order number 23208
May 16, 1891, Order number 4542



Is it that the rifle was sent back to the factory for some "adjustment"?

What do you think?...

-Eric
 
It doesn't say if it was shipped to an individual or business?

Likely a repair or a configuration change (stocks, caliber, barrel length/cartridge ect).

Or it could be a ledger error (mistake by ledger author), or misread serial number( mistake by letter author), or a demo gun, or a salesman sample...ect.
 
Thank you. I was thinking that the rifle might have been re-barreled in 1891 (with a nickel-alloy barrel) but 1891 is probably too early for such a conversion...?

I'll be contacting the folks at the Cody Museum later today.

-Eric
 
Um. The way I see it is that the gun built and sent form the factory to the warehouse in December. Then it sat in the warehouse until the beginning of January when it was packaged up and sent out to a customer or retailer.

Sounds legit to me that a gun would have sat in a warehouse for a period of time until it was needed to be sent out. "Just In Time Delivery" is a fairly new thing. Back then the service and retail industries were a bit more laid back and wouldn't be so hot to trot to keep customers as happy as they (cough cough) do so today.

My $.02
 
Whoops. Missed that. Was looking at the months. Not the years. My mistake.

Still don't think it is that big of a deal. Reading accounts of old time gunmakers, it sounded like they never threw anything out or got rid of old out of date product: it was just kept until someone came along and asked for something along that line.
 
The Cody Museum rechecked the ledger and it's clear to them that the gun came back to the warehouse and was shipped again. Still they have no information on "why" exactly the gun made a round-trip some 4 years later. No barrel replacement. Probably some sort of repair and they say they've seen that situation before.
So, I guess we'll never know! Looking forward to take it to the range...

-Eric
 
***found the photo***

[URL=http://s614.photobucket.com/user/kamlooky/media/Lookys%20Stuff/DSC00647_zpsqtq6ls4h.jpg.html][/URL]


I had an old 94 in 25-35 and the serial number didn't match the chambering designation.
I was guided by a fellow CGN'r to remove the forestock and mag tube.
Where the barrel enters the receiver and on the bottom of the barrel is a flat spot.
It was stamped with three capitol letters and the 25-35 along with a date.
The date came after the receiver manufacturing date.
So the 94 was barrelled to 25-35 from 38-55 if my memory hasn't failed me.

Not sure if this policy follows what you are showing.
Maybe C-fbmi would have some logic to this logic?

Kewl find regardless.

Thanks for the thread.
 
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