The labor costs involved in the intricate machining needed to manufacture the gun continued to rise. The folks at the helm of the company were forced into a corner. In 1964 Olin (the owners of Winchester Repeating Arms at the time) made a decision to change the way in which Winchester Rifles were manufactured. There is a lot of misinformation out there about the changes that were made to the gun that year, so I set about to find the truth. You may have heard that the pre-1964 guns are the best to have. This nickel steel didn't hold bluing well and most of those older guns have no bluing on the receiver but still wear it on their barrels and other parts.Īround 1930, the heat treating of carbon steels had improved dramatically and Winchester again re-engineered their steel alloy.
38-55 black powder cartridges that the 94 was originally chambered for. As a result the Winchester had to re-engineer the steel alloy used in the receivers due to the new smokeless powder cartridges having more power than the original.
Smokeless powder was just coming on to the scene. In 1894 black powder was still the predominant propellant. Many people try to break the model 94's production into just two groups, pre '64 and post '64, but there were other changes made that we should consider. The '94 went through a few changes during its 112 years of production in New Haven. With over 7 million sold it is the most popular sporting rifle of all time.ĭesigned in the days of black powder by none other than the great John Moses Browning, the model 94 was designed to be the larger framed version of the model 1892, which was too short for the then new necked rifle cartridges. The Winchester model 1894 (or '94 as it is now known) had a hand in the death of more deer than probably any other gun.
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