I've got a pair of these. First gun I ever owned.
I know TOO much about these neat little guns. Um, uh..., duck. BIG pile of info.
Starting with the primary cosmetic thing is whether the reciever has any bluing left. Winchester used a high-nickle ordnance steel for the M-94 that straight-up refuses to rust-blue. In order to blacken the recievers, Winchester plated them with iron.
That's right where 94's balance, and any rifle that's gone into the woods has some wear on this finish, as the iron is soft and thin. Pristine-finish guns command somewhat of a premium, but it's not to bad as there's LOTS of 94's to choose from.
Check the bore and crown, of course, and run your hand down the barrel to feel for ring-bulges near the muzzle. 94's wind up fulla mud, snow, bugs, all sorts of stuff. I've seen two guns that had a findable bulge from being fired with crap in the end of the barrel.
Pull the stock, (Easily done with one screw. Use a good screwdriver.) and tale a close look at the mainspring, and the sear and hammer engagement surfaces. I've yet to encounter a Winchester with a 'bad' trigger, but I've got one that's destroyed: 1/2-a-mainspring, and no screw to secure it to the frame. I'm digging for parts for cheap.
Is the magazine tube dented anywhere? Rusty under the fore-end? Pull the screw retaining the magazine spring plug and take a gander at the loooong mag spring. The spring wire is very thin, so rust is to be avoided here, or replace the spring. They're cheap.
Check the magazine gate operation for springiness. Worn gate springs are pretty common.
The hammer's ok? Never got the gun dropped onto the spur and dinked or broke it? The spur's the highest point on the back of the rifle. No peening or mushed metal on/around the locking block? Floating transfer pin is not chipped or rusted? While your at it, make sure the firing pin is ok, and the extractor as well. I've never seen problems here, but I've seen more than one broken hammer spur. Earlier guns lacked the crossbolt safety rig from the A.E. introduction, so make sure their half-cock notch is engaging well. These can break should the gun land on the hammer spur.
As for looseness in the action when opened, that's pretty-much a design feature courtesy of Mr. Browning. The lever has to lower the locking block but not let it pop out of he gun, and THEN it throws forward to move the bolt back. That makes for some awfully complicated geometry inside the gun, and the lever pivots on a slot, rather than a pin hole. The slop is therefore neccessary to the gun's operation, but it also helps to account for the 94's enviable record of reliaility. 94's can run fine when they're full of mud. Hunters and Eskimos (Inuit?) up in Alaska swear by the 94 for it's compactness, portability, weight, and ability to resist freezing shut.
94's may rattle when you shake 'em when open, but that should be a 'durable' sounding rattle of beefy parts clattering around.
When the rifle is SHUT, and the disconnector compressed, further squeezing on the lever should feel like you're flexing a stout piece of springy steel against a solidly locked-up block/reciever-slot/bolt-end arangement. The space between the top of the lever-loop and the bottom tang of the reciever/trigger assembly should look like a consistent 1/8" or so, as in PARALLEL. Non-straightitude here would indicate a bent lever wanting replacement, depending on if it's bad enough. I've only seen one bent lever, on a gun that'd taken a tumble in a saddle scabard when the horse spooked.
When locked -up-ready, the disconnector (Actually a trigger-locking block that prevents the trigger from going backwards until lifted clear by upward pressure from the lever. Check it, as this little guy only needs to move between 1/8" and 1/16" at the end of the lever throw to dissengage it properly. If it gets balky or stiff, or worse, stuck, you won't even get a 'click' instead fo a 'bang'. Not good.
Also when closed, the lever will have a
slight bit of side-to-side movement, but not enough to get the lever off of the disconnector. The slop sems to vary somewhat from rifle to rifle, but all have felt mostly the same when worked by me. Chalk it up to reliability clearance.
That's about all you really tear into without some serious dis-assembly. Removing the bolt and lever involves unscrewing (I think.) 5 screws of various sizes and functions. With the for-enc pulled, the magazine tube should unscrew from the reciever by hand, as the threads are just finely-rolled sheet steel of the mag-body itself. Again, watch out for that 20"-long thin-wire coil spring in the tube, (Don't kink it.) and it's loose-fitting plug.
The operating sequence From the beginning of the lever movement goes about like this:
Disconnector engages, Locking Block unlocks and lowers in the reciever slots until the back of the bolt is cleared. The last of the downward travel provides camming power for Primary Extraction.
When the block is fully lowered, the lever ceases to move downwards and proceeds to swing forwards, pivoting around a crosspin so the top of the lever, which is slotted into the bolt's underside, pull the bolt back clear of the end of the barrel and out over the hammer, cocking it and extracting and ejecting the fired case.
The top of the lever stops against the rear end of the cartridge lifter at the end of the action-throw, tilting up the nose of the next round so it feeds into the chamber when the bolt runs forward. As the Locking Block is seated behind the bolt, the front of the lifter pushes the magazine stop down, releasing another cartridge out of the mag to slide onto the carrier under the now-locked bolt. The last bit of movement presses the disconnector up above the rear tab of trigger, allowing it to be pulled.back to release the hammer.
Downward lever movement is controlled by a slot in the lever camming over the crosspin, until it stops at the top end after camming the spent case free. The forward lever movement is controlled by the end of this slot pivoting around the crosspin in the center of the reciever.
Major dismantling of Winchester 94's is widley regarded as a). not often neccessary for routine cleaning and maintenance, and b). tricky to correctly re-assemble in the right order for proper function. (None of the screws are the same size: One is buried in the bolt and ties it to the lever. That little bugger backs out through a hole in the side of the reciever made for the purpose. That frees the bolt and lever from their captivity to each other, allowing both to be removed. (AFTER you unscrew the crosspin.) Lots of folks do just fine by keeping their guns clean, and taking 'em to a gunsmith on annual basis for a detail-strip-and-clean to get ready for the hunting season.
Winchester M-94's range in cost from $100 serviceable beaters with black painted stocks and no finish, $250 for a pretty nice average gun, $400 for a pristine stocker, and 'An Arm and A Leg' for some commemeratives or historically significant examples.
Lessee, now. Plated-iron reciever finish is fragile, and wears of quickly from use. I reccomend keeping it covered with a good coat of paste wax. The action'll run a smidge smoother, to!
A tubular magazine,
So No Pointed/Spitzer Bullets In The Magazine Tube! (Just in case anyone forgot.
) You can single-load idividual specialty rounds in the chamber as the first shot, with proper blunt-nose bullet profiles for the magazine reserve.
Rounds are fed into the mag through the loading gate with the action closed. This is most easily done holding the reciever in the left hand, using the left fingertips to hold the rear half of the case against the spring-loaded gate, and the
next cartridge nose is used to push the steadied round into the mag against spring pressure until it clicks over the mag stop, whereupon the round doing the shoving is then pinned in place by the fingertips, until the the next round pushes it home. The last case is pushed past the end of the loading gate, wereupon the mag spring pushes it onto the lifter, ready to be fed in once the action opens. This is a lot more complicated to describe than do, at least
Winchester M-94's weigh-in a whopping 6-1/2 pounds, which makes their slim, nicely-balanced proportions easy-packin' when hiking around in the woods.
They also shoot 170-grain bullets fast enough to matter, particularly in reference to the 94's inefficient stock design. When firing, make sure the gun is firmly padded by the pectoral muscle, preferably while standing. DO NOT let the stock bear against your collarbones, unless you like painful bruises.
Such speaks the voice of experience. My M-94 was the first gun I ever owned. Since I didn't actually know any gun people back then, I read some stuff, and went to the range to figure out how to do this shooting stuff with no hints as to what to expect, and no-one to show me the right way to hold onto this flyweight bone-bruiser made outta walnut and steel.
Oh, and I brought 60 rounds of 170-grain Winchester Silvertips. Managed to shoot every last one. Some even went into the target while I tried to understand sights. Ouch.
Suffice it to say, that was no way to introduced to high-power rifle shooting. I went home that day with a shoulder puffed and red, which subsequently turned an unpleasant maroon-ish black and hurt for
days These days I at least figured out how NOT to pound on my bones with steel-plated hardwood punishing machines.
