Читать книгу Guns Illustrated 2011 - Dan Shideler - Страница 19

BIG? YES! BORING? NO! BY DAN SHIDELER

The lever-action Rifle has been in continuous production longer than any other type of American firearm. The Hunt Rocket Ball and Volitional Repeater of 1848 paved the way for the Volcanic lever-actions and, in turn , the Henry; the Spencer; Winchester ‘s Models 1866, 1873, 1876, 1892, 1894, 1895, 88, etc.; the Marlins; the Savage 1898 and 1899; the Stevens 425; and, finally, the most highly-evolved lever-action of them all, the BLR (Browning Lever Rifle) Model 81.

Between the Hunt and the today’s ultra-Modern BLR Lightweight came a number of lever-actions that, well, just didn’t live up to their potential. We’re not talking pre-’64 Winchesters here. That market has matured, and the high prices that those great old guns command have discouraged many entry-level collectors who, naturally, have turned their attention elsewhere. And many of them have looked to Winchester’s Big Bore and XTR lever-actions as tomorrow’s hot collectible.

What’s a “Big Bore”? Contrary to what you might think, it’s not necessarily a .444, .450, or .45-70. As applied to collectible lever-actions, the term “Big Bore” actually refers to a trio of medium-bore cartridges chambered in the Winchester 94 that never quite got off the ground: the .307 Winchester, the .356 Winchester, and the .375 Winchester. These cartridges were “Big Bores” only in comparison to the dinky ol’ 30-30, but Winchester’s marketing department must have thought that calling them Big Bores would help them hold their heads up alongside Marlin’s .444 and .45-70.

The first of the new “Big Bore” cartridges was the .375 Winchester. Rolled out in 1978, the .375 was a slightly beefier knock-off of the old .38-55 Winchester. The “.375” designation may have struck a chord among those who confused it with the old .375 H&H stomper, but in truth the .375 Winchester was a ballistic dead-ringer for Marlin’s 336 chambered in .35 Remington. That made it a perfectly competent woods load and, besides, it gave Winchester something to put up against the Marlin that didn’t have the hated word “Remington” in its name. The .375 found its home in a redesigned version of the Winchester Model 1894, the ‘94 Big Bore.”

Two years later, Winchester really got in the game with the .307 Winchester. Introduced in 1982, the .307 was a rimmed .308 Winchester loaded with 150- and 180-gr. roundnose bullets. Cartridge capacity was actually a bit less than that of the .308 Winchester because the .307’s bullet had to be seated a skoosh deeper in the cartridge case to function in the tried-and-true Model 94 action. But even so, the .307 was a barn-burner, retaining about as much energy at 200 yards as the .30-30 did at 100 yards.

1982 also witnessed the birth of the third member of the Big Bore family, the .356 Winchester. Depending on how you look at it, the .356 Winchester was either a necked-up .307 or a rimmed version of the .358 Winchester introduced in 1955. Either way, the .356 blew a 200-gr. bullet out the spout at 400 fps faster than Marlin’s Model 336 in .35 Remington.

My editor hits me in the head with a ball-peen hammer whenever I commit an inaccuracy, so I should probably mention that the .307 and .356 weren’t literally “Big Bores” at all. That title is properly reserved only for the .375. Between 1978 and 1982, Winchester was reorganized as United States Repeating Arms Company (USRAC), and someone at USRAC decided that the “Big Bore” tag was not entirely satisfactory. Thus the new .307 and .356 were chambered in the so-called Winchester 94 XTR, “XTR” being an acronym for “Extended Range.” The XTR designation was also applied to the 94 chambered in 7-30 Waters, which is a collectible in its own right. (Most collectors, however, refer to all of the .307/.356/.375 guns as “Big Bores.”)

Call it what you will, 94 Big Bore or XTR or Angle Eject, the redesigned gun rectified a notorious weakness of the original Model 1894: an open-topped receiver that couldn’t take the pounding of anything heavier than the .30-30 and that wouldn’t accept scope mounts. The Big Bore/XTR/Angle Eject corrected this failing with a thick, brawny receiver incorporating an ejection port that hurled empties not out the top but off to the side, kinda-sorta. The design worked, and it finally gave USRAC something that would compete with Marlin’s solid-topped 336.

The receiver of the Winchester 94 Big Bore/XTR/Angle Eject was thicker and much stronger front and rear (arrows) than that of the standard Model 94. Photo courtesy Country Mile Enterprises (www.cmeguns.com).

The 94 Big Bore XTR .375 appeared in the 1980 Gun Digest at a princely suggested retail of $220.

The standard 94 Big Bore featured a 20-inch barrel and walnut stock and forearm. They were attractive rifles, as are all Model 94s. But they didn’t succeed in the marketplace, probably because the cartridges just weren’t a good fit with the basic 94 design, at least as far as the .307 and .356 were concerned. A 20-inch lever-action is a woods rifle, plain and simple, and the logic of chambering a woods Rifle for a hot-rodded cartridge apparently escaped most potential buyers. I’m one of them. If we set the extreme limit of a woods rifle at, say 150 yards -- in my stomping grounds of northern Michigan, 50 yards is more like it -- the truth was that the .30-30 and .35 Remington have things pretty well sewn up. In the case of the .375, the modernized .38-55 really wasn’t an improvement over the .35, and the .444 left it eating dust. In 1989, USRAC called it quits and quietly deep-sixed the Big Bores. (Marlin also experimented with the .356 in a version of the 336 lever-action called the Model 336 ER -- another strong sleeper -- but that’s a story for another day.)

Winchester played fast and loose with the Big Bore/XTR designation. A Deluxe version (the “Winchester 94 XTR Deluxe”) was offered in 1987 and 1988, but this fancy little gun was chambered not in a high-performance cartridge but in the plain old .30-30. Winchester’s .444 Timber Carbine was also known for a year or so as the “94 Big Bore Timber,” but to collectors, the term “Big Bore” will always refer only to the .307/.356/.375 fl avors.

Two or three years ago, you could pick up a Winchester 94 Big Bore in excellent condition for $275 to $325. That situation is changing. Excellent examples are now bringing upwards of $750. Yet it’s surprising how many of these guns are floating around out there, some in NOS (new old stock) condition. The .375 is most frequently encountered, the .307 and .356 less so. My bet is that the .307 will appreciate more rapidly than its brethren.

If you’re looking for a good deal on a 94 Big Bore, I wouldn’t expect to find one on the internet, of course. On the web, you’re competing with tens of thousands of other bargain-hunters, many of whom also recognize the collectibility of the Big Bores. No, the best way to find an affordable Big Bore is to check the pages of Gun Digest Magazine regularly and to do as I do: prowl the racks of the hundreds of gun stores and gun shows scattered throughout the Eastern and Great Lakes regions. It’s a tough job, but. . . .

When you find a Big Bore, grab it. The value of these ill-fated but unarguably neat rifles has nowhere to go but up!