I think I posted a thread about this a while back, but it has fallen off to the archives. Since It's mostly complete now, and gone home, time for another one.!

Member Gatorgrabber is a childhood friend, we were schoolmates and Boy Scouts together. His Father passed a couple years back, and while he and his brother were sorting out the estate, they found this:







It's his Fathers Winchester 1894, destroyed we believe, in a house fire in the family home when his Dad was a teenager.

His Dad was a gun guy, with a fine collection, but also a notorious pack rat. At any rate, he had held onto it all these years, and My friend felt it held a lot of sentimental value.

What to do? He didn't know what could be done. Wall ornament?

I talked him into letting me have my way with it.

Surprisingly, I was able to get it apart.



So I started cleaning up the receiver



The scale is actually migrated carbon, and I chipped most of it off with a brass hammer and brass punches. Then, after a LOT of hand sanding, starting with some 80, and working down to 400, there turns out to be some steel hiding in there,





I talked to my friend, and we decided to proceed with a full on restoration/rebuild, based on the original receiver. We started hunting replacement parts.

I used files and blocks to square up and freshen the flats, it's not perfect, and some defects remain, and there are some round edges and minor scallops where I went after some rust pits, but over all, pretty happy with the results.



IT was really hardtop chip and sand the interior, so I had a local machine shop bead blast the interior, came out great, when they were done, you could see the original machine marks.





I stared working on the other parts to see what could be salvaged; here's the original hammer after being sanded out and faux case hardened with a torch.





Polished! Gatorgrabber wants to eventually color case harden the receiver, which is the look he wants, and will put some carbon back into the receiver, and he has purchased some beautifully figured Walnut Stocks for it, which he wants to fit , but for now, he is busy launching a new business. So we decided to blue the receiver and assemble the Gun for the time being

Some time in the future we will tear it down again.

So off to rust blue









We decided to make it fully functional, a shooter. It will not be a range toy, and will spend it's days on the wall of my friends Western themed house, on a cypress plank that hung on the wall of his Fathers home, but it is capable of, and has been fired, with factory ammo. Due to the heat the receiver saw though, it's a wall hanger. At some point I'm going to load up some cast Trail Boss loads for it and we are going to have a short range session with it.

It was originally a .32 Win Special, but we found a brand new 30-30 barrel, so we went with that caliber, replaced the bolt, the blocking bolt, cartridge lifter and the lever, along with all the screws and springs loading gate and cartridge rails.

Original Parts remaining are the Receiver, hammer, trigger, magazine tube, follower, barrel bands and rear sight, which I straightened and re-tempered. The front sight was replaced as it was not with the gun after the fire. The stocks are an ebay buy which are temporary until he fits the new wood.

New Years Eve, I handed it back to him.













It's a little stiff, and I could have taken it down for a little more polish, but since it's not going to be shot and it was a convenient time to turn it over, off it went!



No where near perfect, but considering the starting point, I'm happy with the results, and I think my friend is too. Not the original gun by any means, but made from the original, and the original receiver.

On to the next one!

Wow, excellent work. From those initial pictures I thought for sure it would have been a total loss.

That makes me think I can buy one of those rusted out Winchester 1897 receivers you see from time to time and have someone like you turn it into something shootable.

Good job!

I would not have thought that gun was under all that crud.  Even with the replacement parts, it will still be something special to the family.

That looks awesome, great work!

Nice!!

I'm sure with Trail Boss you would be fine.

Work up a proof load and fire it with sandbags and a string. It may well be safe to shoot with factory ammo.

It has already been remotely fired with a factory hog hunter load, Nothing happened except the gun went boom.

You forgot to mention that we also hid behind your truck!

Man that is amazing. I have a '94 dated 1907 that needs a restoration. Very cool project

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Winchester model 94's are always worth saving. Beautiful!

Very interesting sir, I have a Winchester model 94 also dated 1907.  I had a gunsmith restore the metal which was in bad shape, although not as bad as the OP has posted, and I did the wood restoration. It is now hanging on the wall above my bar.

This is Refinishing, and should be tacked.

The refinishing forum should be renamed.  

Rattle can& Cerekote forum






Thanks to everyone for the compliments.

Great Job!

Well I screwed that reply up.

That's not right. Too many paints are left out.
Refinishing, takes skill and time.
Anyone can paint and cook if need be, no skill needed.

Absolutely fucking amazing

That's really cool. This gun has been in my family for a very long time, growing up as a wee lad I always wanted to fire it but my Grandpa(R.I.P) wouldn't let me because he didn't feel it was safe, and this was in the early 80's.

I finally inherited it, and vowed to restore it one day and finally shoot it. It's not as bad off as the OP's project, it looks like it was nickel plated the metal doesn't look too bad, but the stock/wood looks like petrified wood. When I have it restored I would love to have it color case-hardened like done by Turnbull. Honestly they are beautiful however they are refinished.

I've never thought about DIY project with my '94, I might have to look into it.

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LOL, Very true.

Great work, rifle looks fantastic.

Great project. Great job. Very well done. I really like seeing these kinds of posts.
How well did it shoot?

So far it has only been test fired remotely with a hot factory load to test for function and shrapnel. It hit dirt.

Waiting to get my hands on some Trail Boss and cast bullets for a range session with some Very mild loads in the future.

Well done!