Winchester 94 Classic Shooting

Centennial 66'

What I have is a 30-30 with 26" octagon barrel, (receiver is factory drilled for Williams or Lyman peep) which I'm going to shoot. I've put the Williams receiver sight on it, unfortunately the Redfield wouldn't fit. My smith took of the rear sight this afternoon and I'm soaking the barrel as I write this to get 42 years of factory gup out of the barrel. Picked up some 150 and 170 gr. ammo today and will give it a go at the range tomorrow.

Just don't know if the front bead will allow me to shoot out to 200-250 yds, but I'll find out.
 
That's why I'm confused....a 26" barreled rifle, if it's not a commemorative, would be made before 1937, and I'm surprised that it's factory drilled and tapped for a receiver sight. Your good luck, I guess.
I've shot 94's and 336's at 200 yards. I used a target actually made for archery, I think. A 12 inch black circle with a 6 inch white centre. Best I could do was about 6 inches or so at 200 yards, without too much practice. I was actually quite pleased. A friend of mine shot a whitetail with his peep-sighted 94 carbine at an honest 210 yards.
Your 26" barrel gives you an extra 6" of sight radius, which can aid in aiming accuracy, and which gave rise to the fallacy that long barrels are more accurate. Enjoy your shooting. I've always wanted a full-length 94 and haven't owned one.....yet!
 
Hey Kilo, thanks for the info. Kinda new to the Winnie older stuff. The 94 38-55 I just got was made in 1900 according to a website I was looking at. The 94 series was 6 years old when this one came out if the site is accurate. I dont think I will mess with the sights as they are loaded to black powder spec anyways so I am not expecting too much from the old girl. I have lots of other newer cals to shoot that go way out there. This is a fun gun and it looks like it will deliver that in spades. That said, the cal has accounted for a lot of deer and moose since it came out. Very close relative to the 45/70 and about as old. This is gonna be a kick. Apparently the ammo I can get now is loaded to BP spec so around 1400 fps but from reading I can load that to 1700. Seems to prefer cast bullets according to the reads.
 
My great-grandfather had one centrefire rifle, a .38-55 with a 26" octagon barrel. I believe he bought it new in 1898. Not to recommend it as a moose rifle, but he made two witnessed one-shot kills on moose at 200 yards, one about 1922 and one in 1958.
Nowhere near the power level of the .45-70, but it'll do the job....especially if you use it for 60 years!
Unfortunately I don't know where the rifle got to when he died. Wish I had that one.....
 
Kilo Charlie said:
That's why I'm confused....a 26" barreled rifle, if it's not a commemorative, would be made before 1937, and I'm surprised that it's factory drilled and tapped for a receiver sight. Your good luck, I guess.
I've shot 94's and 336's at 200 yards. I used a target actually made for archery, I think. A 12 inch black circle with a 6 inch white centre. Best I could do was about 6 inches or so at 200 yards, without too much practice. I was actually quite pleased. A friend of mine shot a whitetail with his peep-sighted 94 carbine at an honest 210 yards.
Your 26" barrel gives you an extra 6" of sight radius, which can aid in aiming accuracy, and which gave rise to the fallacy that long barrels are more accurate. Enjoy your shooting. I've always wanted a full-length 94 and haven't owned one.....yet!
Click to expand...

Thirty, thirty five years ago there was an action type shooting contest going the rounds in Alberta and BC for sporting type rifles. One game animal target at each distance, from 100,150,200,250 and 300 yards. The two closest ones were running and the rest were pop up targets. The pop ups appeared for 4 seconds. The shooter had five cartridges handy. When he was ready, a target would appear, but he didn't know which target! This happened five times.
The major event was with any rifle, 6mm and up and any scope.
However, one event was the "Frontier," lever action, and the cartridge designed before 1900 and used with iron sights. I used a 94 carbine, pre 64, of course, with aperature sights. The goat was at 300 yards and it figured out that with mine I put the bead on the top of the goats shoulder, to drop the bullets into the high marked, vital area. The ten ring was about 4 inches across.
One of the fellows that shot in those contests was Eagleye, who, as you know is prominent on these threads.
I don't think he shot in the Frontier event. Maybe that was why I was able to win first place one year and came second in it twice!
And Dark Alley Dan, on these threads, I was happy when I beat out your Dad in the 30-30 events!
These people that think a 30-30 ends at 150 yards should have seen how many 30-30 bullets went into the 8, 9, and ten rings at 250 and 300 yards.
 
Here are the trophies won in the Frontier event with my 30-30, as described in the previous post.
From left, 1975 Second place, 1978 First place, 1977 Second place and on the right, 1979, Third place.
FRON1001.jpg
 
Went Shootin' Today

So, I took the Winchester Centennial 66' out to the range today. I just love the 26" octagon barrel. Got the Williams peep on it and the smith boresighted to 100 yds.

I got some 150 and 170 grain Win ammo (that's about all I could find between Cdn. Tire, Walmart and 2 guns stores) and off to the range. I did a barrel break in, fired 3 shots and then cleaned it out, did this for the 1st 18 rounds with the 150 grain. By then I had moved it up from the 50 yd target to 100 yards and I like how it shoots. The problem with my older eyes is getting a clear view of the target, but I did get three shots into the "10" circle, with 2 rounds touching, my best group of the day.

Did another barrel clean and then tried the 170 grain ammo. Winchester's charts says they'd be 1.8" low. They were in fact about 8" low. So I turned up the peep to get them back on the bulleyes but at 1/4" per turn, it took 28 clicks to get the 170 up to where the 150 were hit the bullseye.

Anyway, that's my shooting for the day. I think the gun likes the 150's, but not so much on the 170's. I'm going to pickup a box of 150 grain Win. Silvertips and Remington Corelokt and give those a whirl the next time out.

Not much kick with the longer barrel. A buddy of mine has a Winnie with the 20" barrel, and it's got a lot more whallop than the longer barrel. Anyway, this first trip determined if it was a keeper or a seller. What do you think?
 
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