original winchester 1892 question

Z

ZPowell

Inactive
Greetings all,
A friend of mine recently inherited his great uncle's Winchester model 1892 SRC in 44-40. It was made around 1906 and is in excellent shape with a real decent bore. Strong rifling getting a little shallow at the muzzle.
We have shot it with smokeless cowboy loads and I made sure he kept all the brass. It shoots good with groups about 4 inches or less at about 40 yards just about 8 inches high. Seems to be set for 100 yards.
My questions is will it be ok to continue with mild smokeless loads (either the cowboy rounds or reloads) or does this rifle really need the black stuff?
If it was mine I would only run black through it because that's what I love but he isn't inclined that way (before he told me about it he was shooting regular jacketed rounds right off the shelf from the local gun store). I talked him out of that but I don't think he wants to go with black.
I have a lyman loading manual that cautions about older guns made for black but I was wondering if the starting loads using smokeless would be alright?
Again the rifle is in great condition and in safe working order (he did bring it to a smith before he shot it).
Thanks,
Z
 
The general opinion among the serious old gun shooters (including some nationally published experts) is that while smokeless powder loads for the old black powder rounds are "safe" in terms of pressure (meaning won't blow up the gun), they do stress the gun in ways that black powder doesn't.

And while there are many guns "rated" for smokeless made before 1900, the consensus is not to shoot smokeless in those guns. Guns made after 1900 (again, generally) are felt to be a bit stronger, and should do ok with the proper smokeless powder load.

So, the Winchester 92, made in 1906 should be ok for smokeless powder shooting. HOWEVER, I would strongly recommend NOT shooting jacketed bullets.

While strong enough to safely handle the pressures, the old gun's steel is not as good as modern gun steel, and shooting jacketed bullets WILL wear the barrel faster than the lead bullets the gun was built to shoot.

Hope this helps.
 
Should be fine with smokeless, but it's listed in the middle as far as strength goes. Moderate to mild loads won't hurt it. I shoot a lot of 200gr RNFP lead with 7.2grs Win231 through mine; same era.
 
Thanks for the replies!
That pretty much verifies what I was thinking. And yes I strongly believe that metal cleaning rods are the culprit regarding the bore at the muzzle. Thankfully it isn't very bad but Im sure its not helping the groups much!
 
Since the 92 was made into the 1940's with the same materials as in 1892 (steel frame), and many zillions of smokeless rounds have been fired in them, I fire mine with smokeless factory or handloaded equivalents and don't have any concerns.

Jim
 
The general opinion among the serious old gun shooters (including some nationally published experts) is that while smokeless powder loads for the old black powder rounds are "safe" in terms of pressure (meaning won't blow up the gun), they do stress the gun in ways that black powder doesn't.

And while there are many guns "rated" for smokeless made before 1900, the consensus is not to shoot smokeless in those guns. Guns made after 1900 (again, generally) are felt to be a bit stronger, and should do ok with the proper smokeless powder load.
Click to expand...

Howdy

This advice is true for revolvers. It is not necessarily true for a rifle. Revolvers have very thin cross sections of metal between chambers and the frames tend to be not as robust as a rifle. There is much more metal surrounding the chamber of a rifle than a revolver, and the frame is more massive, particularly with the 1892 Winchester. I have two of them, one made in 1894, the other made in 1916. Although I prefer to shoot them with Black Powder just because I like Black Powder, I would not hesitate to shoot mild Smokeless loads in either one of my 92s. As a matter of fact, I shot nothing but Smokeless through the 1894 gun for my first year in CAS. I would not shoot jacketed loads in my 92s, nor would I shoot high powered stuff. But mild loads or Cowboy stuff should be fine.

Of course you should have a gunsmith who is familiar with the model check it out to make sure it is safe to shoot at all.
 
they were rebarreled to .357-44 magnun, just so you know the 92 action is plenty strong. the early barrels may wear quicker with top loads with jacketed bullets, but the nickle steel barreled 92 later models with take jacketed bullets just like the nickle steel 30-30 94,s with no problems. eastbank.
 
A) I have a 1905 Winchester 92 in 44-40.
I have some 1900, 1907, and 1910 in 25-20 and a 1904 38-40 I have been hot rodding.

These are strong rifles.
The metal is thick.
The design is good.
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B) I have a 1950 Marlin 336 and a 1978 Win 94.

These are NOT strong rifles. I am not going fool around with them.
I will play by the rules.
The metal is thin.
The design is wimpy.
From what I can see, the gun might fail before the brass. A work up would be a bad idea.

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C) I have a Winchester 1873 made in 1876 in 44-40.

This gun design is so wimpy, it scares me.

Soft Lead bullets and wimpy little powder charges [2.7 gr Bullseye] are in order.
 
92. 44/40

What 44AMP said is right on money. Besides wear on barrel with jacketed
bullets I think you will find cast loads more accurate. I have several old
Win and Marlin levers and they all like cast bullets.
 
The winchester 1892 is a smokeless powder action, designed for smokeless. Granted, the early smokeless powders werent as strong as now. The steels may be a bit softer, jacketed bullets would accelerate bore wear.
But cowboy loads could be run through it indefinitely.
This is all provided the gun is in good mechanical condition.

Having run a 92 rifle in cowboy action shooting with black powder, i can say that it is not particularly fond of black powder. It gets down into places it cannot be removed from without total disassembly, and will build up until reliability suffers.
 
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