I bought this out of an estate with some other guns. I am not very familiar with 86's. It was made in 1911, 45-90, pistol grip stock, takedown 26" barrel. It has a beautiful bore, but has been high polished, dip blued & the stock has been refinished. My question is the cartridge tube being shorter. It has the factory threads on the receiver side & there is no evidence of being welded "shorter. Is this a normal configuration? Thanks!
Seems like it was cut, any chance there's a VP on the barrel anywhere. Only 1886 I can think with a shorter tube like that was the musket but they were longer barrels and not takedown.
Troy is referring to a makers proof mark. Lever guns aren't by any stretch of the means my expertise. If you are interested in this particular rifles history. Look on winchesters website they have very good records of who they sold rifles to sometimes directly to the customer from the factory. You may have something very special with a unique history that you may be able to establish a documented provenance for. But that would be like winning the lottery.
The only Winchester lever gun that I have done any research on was an 1894 model that was manufactured in 1913 cambered for 30 WCF aka 30-30 and was able to find out that it was sold to a doctor in a little town in Georgia I forget the name of the town. Nothing really special but I was able to get that information from Winchester is the point.
Back in the day it wasn't uncommon at a for a gunsmith to re-barrel the old shot out barrels of Winchester's for a customers special order. I'm really curious to hear about what you can find out.
As an aside and not to steal this thread. I was a a gun show last year sometime and I just happened to come across one of Harry Popes custom works of art in the form of a Winchester. The seller was asking 5 figures for it and had the provenance too. Harry Pope was best known for his Scheutson rifles and was quite possibly one of the best barrel makers and gunsmiths there ever was.
You have a serious homework assignment. Never the less you have a very nice rifle on your hands. Congrats.
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