Win/Miroku/Turnbull Model 92

D

DPris

Member Emeritus
Just as an advisory, since others might not know (I didn't).

Working with a Turnbull offering, a 92 short rifle with octagon & crescent.
Turnbull sells this "pre-made", not a customer's gun sent in for re-finishing.

Besides the beautiful bone charcoal case hardening, the most interesting part for me is what they've done to the safety.

Browning/Winchester re-designed the Miroku 92s to incorporate the rebounding hammer, tang safety, and two-piece firing pin as safety "improvements" some time back.

Turnbull has un-designed those.
Tang safety removed, hole welded up, refinished as part of the case hardened coloring. Back to a one-piece firing pin.
And a HALF-COCK HAMMER.
Back to John Browning's original pattern.

The action is still way oversprung & the trigger pull heavy, but these lawyer-induced safety features that no consumer asked for are one of the primary reasons why I've not acquired one of the current Mirokus.

Turnbull's version is pricey, but the rifle's gorgeous & that unwanted safety system removal makes it worth the money, if you've got it.

Just FYI for dedicated levergunners. :)
Denis
 
That's it.
The sample here's a straight wrist.
Genuine bone charcoal case hardening.

They break the gun down completely & color the fore-end cap, frame, lever, hammer, buttplate.
Re-do the stock finish.
And all that safety work.

That, on top of being expensive from Miroku in the first place, is where the $2500 comes from.
This is a premium rifle.
It's the most tempted I've been to buy a new Winchester in several years.
Really quite nice.
Denis
 
Considering that a lot of folks here think nothing of dropping that much on an AR, 1911, or bolt gun with glass, I'd say it is a good deal.

We hear all the time how refinishing an old gun detracts from value; yet if Turnbull refinishes it, the value goes up. So, taking this new gun and doing the magic that he does will let this rifle hold its value or even increase.
 
They do great work. Had them do a Skinner sight to put on the gun also.
 

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Those guns are for panting over not shooting. That's so far past prettier than new snow tires. I bought a plain jane model 92 button mag short rifle with 1/2 round octagon barrel. That would probably make a good starting point. I have RM colt clone that came from their shop. They sure understand finishing guns.
 
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They ARE for shooting - they are perfectly capable of being shot, as are ANY high dollar gun. I know folks who regularly shoot high dollar shotguns - one gent has one that was over $110,000; he shoots it every weekend.
 
Shot this one yesterday, with 6 different commercial loads.
It feeds semi-wads without a hitch.
Denis
 
We hear all the time how refinishing an old gun detracts from value; yet if Turnbull refinishes it, the value goes up.
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Not exactly. Value kind of goes sideways. PRICE goes up, because Turnbull's excellent work doesn't come cheap.

Turnbull's shop can restore your gun to looking like the day it first left the factory. And, they MARK the gun, to prove they did it, and so no future fraud can be committed. Collectors care about two things, primarily. Condition of the gun (finish and completeness), and originality.

Once refinished/restored, a gun is never again 100% original. IT may look, and be absolutely perfect, but its not 100% original. So it is forever in a different category after the refinish. Same things goes for guns restored by the original maker (though they are in another, slightly different subcategory).
 
Coming from a hobby in which the correct cylinder heads may cost 5 grand...I am very confident that restoration of firearms will gain acceptance.

Much more money is wrapped up in automobile restorations to 'factory correct'. The climate will change eventually regarding guns and restoration.
 
Turnbull certainly does beautiful work. Again proving, you get what you pay for
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Generally, you do, but you still have to carefully inspect things, even Turnbull is not 100% error free, though they do try hard, and have no problem fixing their issues, on their dime.

A friend got one of their "1918" 1911s a couple years back. This is a gun they sell, it is a reproduction, not a restoration. The gun is supposed to be a faithful recreation of the period arm, complete with all proper markings (and also with the Turnbull shop logo, to prevent anyone claiming its an original).

My friend got his pistol, beautiful work, but the slide was unmarked. The patent dates and other markings that should have been there, were not there.

Called Turnbull, they said, OH MY GOSH!! SORRY!! send it back!! He did, and got it back in about a week, looking perfect, exactly like it was supposed to. He was happy. Over the next 6 months, he took it to the range twice, fired 2 mags each time, gun worked flawlessly, he shot it empty and was happy.

Then I got involved. When he showed it to me, I noticed the ejector looke...wrong. It was longer than it should have been. We did some experimenting, and found that the gun would NOT eject a loaded 230gr FMJ round!!!! IT JAMMED. It would eject fired cases, just fine. It would eject a loaded JHP round, just fine. It would eject "ball round" snap caps, just fine. When you tried to eject a loaded 230gr fmj, it would jam the round against the slide, just below the ejection port. Took about 3 hands and a small screwdriver to pry the round loose.

This was not a fluke, it did it consistently, if you tried to eject standard ball ammo, still loaded.

Called Turnbull, they were astounded. Send it in! He did, again, on their dime, took a bit over a week, he got it back, all good now, they said the gun should NEVER have left the shop with the wrong ejector in it. (and being that time of year, the guy also mentioned that someone was not going to have a happy Christmas....)

Turnbull is really, really good, my friend has a few of their guns, and restorations done by them. They are fabulous. But they are human, and when the stars line up just right, Murphy gets to play, even with the really good guys.
 
I am fortunate enough to live fairly close to Turnbull's shop, and there are a good number of their firearms in the Western NY region, so I have had the chance to examine and shoot about a dozen of their guns.
IMO they are simply beautiful, exceptionally well made, and top quality firearms. I only own one Turnbull, an open range revolver in 45 colt, but would love to buy one of the levers mentioned above.
 
I've got two Turnbull's, a High Wall and an 1886 both in 45-70. After having them for three years now I can't find a fault with either one. They function and fire perfectly, one is sub-moa accurate and the other (the lever gun) will shoot a consistent 1.5-1.7 five shot group at my 114yd range. They're not only a joy to look at, they are a joy to shoot. I don't regret spending what I paid for them. They're also very, very nice people to do business with.
 
Turnbull's version is pricey, but the rifle's gorgeous & that unwanted safety system removal makes it worth the money, if you've got it.
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Fantastic rifle, I'd love to have one. I do find it interesting though that, as much of a "traditionalist" as I am, I've never been particularly bothered by the looks or function of the untraditional "safety system". Not that I'd necessarily want it. ;)
 
Much more money is wrapped up in automobile restorations to 'factory correct'. The climate will change eventually regarding guns and restoration.
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It may. It's tough to say.
What I would predict is more of a divergence: "True" collectors only go after original articles, while a less-monetarily-endowed subset of collectors are willing to settle for 'tainted' items.

Keeping with the car analogy, you can find that hierarchy already...
Last year, I sold a non-functional horn relay to a guy doing a "factory restoration" on his '70 Nova SS. I made $70 on a broken part, simply because it was in decent condition externally, and had the right screws and date code - June '70. Essentially, all he wanted was the metal cup that forms the case and the screws, so he could transplant the guts of a working relay into it.

A couple days after the first one, I sold a functioning horn relay to another guy that was restoring 'on a budget'. He didn't care that it was out of a '74 Nova, and his car is a '68. He just wanted the right type of OE part - and one that worked. $25 was a fair price.
(For non-Nova guys: On '68-'74 Novas and '67-'69 Camaros/Firebirds, the horn relay is for more than just honking the horn; but that's beyond the scope of these examples.)

A few weeks later, the "factory restoration" guy saw me talking about my '70 having the TCS system cut to pieces (a primitive 'emissions control' circuit), and wired to the heater core cover when I bought the car. Because those components were so commonly removed, even when the cars were new, they are actually pretty hard to find. He gave me $90 for a ball of ratty wire, some special Packard 56 connector boots, and a few electrical components that almost no one else in the world cares about.
That guy still has the hardest 20% of the restoration to go (the little bits and pieces that are hard to find), and he's already into the car for over $95k.
 
The thing about the "safety" modifications that the Browning project people had Miroku do is that they degrade performance in what used to be a very slick & easy handling rifle.

The tang safety gets in the way of a tang sight if you want one, and I find it annoying to my hand even without a tang sight, not to mention the possibility of getting itself activated during normal handling.

The rebounding hammer system requires a much stronger mainspring, which makes the action harder to cycle & the trigger notably heavier.

Nobody asked for those supposed upgrades.

The other modification that they did, the arched bolt, was intended to reduce hammer friction & bearing force during cycling by removing material from the bolt so it would only ride the hammer during part of its travel during cycling.

The end result was a jerky & clunky bolt travel, instead of a smooth & continuous contact & travel all the way.

The Miroku Winchester leverguns are built to a high standard as far as general quality goes, but they've adversely affected operation with those "upgrades".
The two-piece firing pin adds complexity, where a one-piece pin did very well for over a hundred years.

I have a $400 Rossi that's markedly lighter & smoother in cycling than a comparable Miroku 92 as it leaves the factory. Lighter trigger, too.

Turnbull addresses the unwanted & unnecessary Miroku safety mods, leaving only the overly-sprung mainspring (which they can correct) and the arched bolt (which they can't correct).
Denis
 
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