I've been getting the wants for another levergun and ran across a circa-1895 Winchester 1892 in .38 WCF (.38-40) at Simpson's Ltd. I called them up today, asked a few questions about it, and decided to order it. It should ship on Tuesday or Wednesday.

Pics borrowed from the seller's website:

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After I got off the phone with Simpson's I went over to MidwayUSA and ordered a couple boxes of Ultramax .38-40 cowboy loads. However, I plan mainly to shoot black powder handloads. I already do so for .44 WCF in my Cimrron 1873, so I'm familiar with what's entailed. I'm going to look for an original Winchester 1882 loading tool and mold, or an Ideal tong tool with an integrated mold.

Very cool.

Yea, cool.

The rifle arrived yesterday and I was able to take some pictures today.

Overall, it's clean and the surface condition was as described -- mostly turned to brown with scattered pitting, but nothing major. Some of the screws have boogered slots. The bore is mostly clean and the rifling looks good, except towards the muzzle which shows wear from the use of a cleaning rod. The sights are in excellent shape, something you often find damaged on old guns. The action is solid and works very smoothly. I'm not going to attempt any disassembly until the Kroil I put on all the screws has several days to soak in.

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Very nice configuration.
I like the standard length barrels.
Some day I'll find one that's affordable.

I put 50 rounds through my 1895-vintage Winchester 1892 in .38 WCF today out at a friend's. The attached target was my first 5 shots, from about 50 yards offhand. POA was 6 o'clock on the bull. I'm hoping full power loads will shoot lower, and closer to POA due to less dwell time in the barrel.

FWIW, I'm happy with the group considering the condition of the bore near the muzzle, and especially since my almost 50 year old eyes can barely use the microscopic notch in the rear sight.

Recoil with the Ultramax cowboy loads was about like shooting a .22. We didn't have any malfunctions.

We mostly shot at an 8" gong and the .38-40s smacked it pretty good. We also shot my Cimarron 1873 Sporting Rifle in .44 WCF a little with my handloads (200 grain cast lead bullet on top of 8.6 grains of Unique). Those really smacked the gong around.

The flintlock in the picture is my friend's Euroarms Kentuckian carbine. A couple years ago he took a deer during the antlerless season, shooting out the window of his living room. Today was the last day of Pennsylvania's late flintlock season. He was considering taking the rifle on a walk around his property after we were done to see if he could fill his flintlock tag.

After we finished up and I was standing there cleaning the rifle, and my friend had packed up all his stuff and taken it inside, a nice big doe came out about 25 yards behind our shooting position. Figures.

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And for icing on the cake, I just won an eBay auction for this Ideal No. 6 reloading tool. The rest of the pics from the listing show the mold cavity to be in good shape.

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She's beautiful!  Congrats on the vintage tool too.

I have the same rifle in 38-40, made in 1912.  One of my favorites.