Winchester 1894 25-35

Z

zzbruno

New member
I just inherited this rifle. It is a saddle ring carbine with a Lyman site. Serial number dates it to 1921, which is consistent with what the person who gave it to me said.

Anyway to tell if the Lyman site was original to the gun?

The action is smooth as silk and aside from some ranch and cowboy wear, it looks pretty sweet. The bore is clean. Any reason I shouldn't shoot it, assuming I can find 25-35 ammo?
 
As read it appears there isn't anything mechanically wrong with the rife. Why not give it a try. Hopefully your a home reloader though? as finding store bought ammo for it may be a challenge but not impossible. Thankfully your cartridges are engraved with Winchester on its base logo. If it were a Remington design. They would have long ago been discontinued and relabeled as one of their obsolescent cartridges. (I have little doubt about that) So the cartridge is still available and currently made by Winchester.

BTW I also own a 1894 25-35 but is a long barrel rifle. My rifle also has a 1/2 Round & 1/2 Octagon barrel with a original Winchester pistol grip stock and factory tang peep. Fun little gun to play with when shooting paper. Only harvested one deer with it since I've owned it though. (Just to see if I could was the reason for that endeavor which proved to me the cartridge & rifle is quite capable of dropping deer.)
Tip: If ever intending to hunt deer with your rifle shot placement for the old gal on big game needs to be spot on. So,~~~ Enjoy your new or should I say old Winny there Sir. Perhaps write about your experience with its shooting when you can. I would be quite interested to see that additional thread zzbruno.

Peeps: Original peep has two apertures. Smaller of the two tips forward.
 
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25-35 is a sweet caliber. Not intended for big predatory animals, but certainly a deer rifle out to 150 yards. Light recoil, moderate muzzle blast, and the Winchester M 1894 is a nice gun just because. Enjoy!
 
To the average gun person a 25-35 is a dust collector. I own two and reload for it but if you do not reload then I seriously doubt that you will ever shoot it. Midway lists the brass as seasonally produced and out of stock. Cabellas does not carry it. You will have to do a bunch of online searching to find the brass. I know Midway had the bullet mold and gaschecks in stock a week ago.

I just sold another member 100 of my cast bullets so he could load for his. I sold a box locally of my reloads because the guy had been searching for months and not found anything to test fire his rifle.

They are a great handling rifle but the quest for more powerful calibers has relocated 25-35 to a specialty nich.
 
This from a member here but on another forum

This was a response regarding forming 25-35 brass from 30-30 cases.

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?101460-Forming-25-35-Brass



"I make 25/35 brass with one pass through a set of Hornady dies. No sweat, no problem.

Yes, go easy with the case lube.

A little bit of Imperial sizing wax is all you need.

STP also works very well, but is the total pits to clean off the cases.

Keep em coming!

Crusty Deary Ol'Coot "
 
I tried forming some from 30-30 cases a few years ago but I got more then lube dents I got folds and now even 30-30 cases are getting hard to come by and I need all mine for .32 Winchester Special loads. I have 500 25-35 cases so I only need a few to replace a few split necks once in a while so I just keep my open for some brass.
 
I would sure like to see some pic's of the original peep sights. I am in no way an expert on 94's although I love them and have an assortment around here. The 25/35 is the only one I have not had experience with and it has always intrigued me. I think it would be an acceptable deer sized cartridge and should perform better than some of them. I shot a buck a week ago with a 38/55 and had to shoot him 3 times before it was all over. I hate something like that and won't attempt it again. I suspect my choice of the 220 grain Hornady bullet was the problem. I shot it in the neck which took it down, but it wouldn't stay down. I shot it about 4 inches from the initial shot ...again in the neck with the same results. Finally out of frustration I took the classic shot behind the leg and it still didn't die immediately. Upon examination of the deer, the bullets were passing through but not doing much damage as the bullets probably were too slow to perform adequately. I had about 1" holes on both sides of the rib cage from the last shot.
I suspect the 25/35 with the increased speed could do a better job of it.
 
"Anyway to tell if the Lyman site was original to the gun?"

Hard to say, really. Winchester did offer Lyman sights and blades as up-cost options on many of their rifles for many years. Lyman sights were also very popular aftermarket add ons. Some Lyman models were made literally for decades, making it hard to pin down a date.

The only way to tell for sure how your rifle left the factory is to have it lettered by the Buffalo Bill Historical Society (http://centerofthewest.org/explore/firearms/firearms-records/) to see how it left the factory.

And that's only if they have factory configuration information (those records fortunately seem to be pretty complete).

See this link for more information on serial number ranges.

http://centerofthewest.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/2014_Winchester_SN-list.pdf
 
OldStoney--My brother had a Winnie M'94 in 25-35 back in the 50's and 60's. He shot a doe in the neck at 50 yards while I watched and she dropped like a piano fell on her head. I shot a 3 X 3 mulie across an alfalfa field and hit it in the spine behind the shoulder a couple inches. It also fell, but required the neck shot behind the head to put it away. The first shot passed thru and left a fairly big hole on the off side. That was probably 1961, so the bullets were likely Winchester Silvertips (if they go back that far---no ammo expert here.)

That gun left the family--we didn't seem to have an appreciation for things like nice old guns. Wish I had it now.:(
 
Although I wouldn't want to try it, there is at least one documented instance of a 25-35 taking an 1,100#, 10' tall grizzly bear. When I was a kid we'd visit the grave of the old bear and hear the story like it could happen again tomorrow...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Ephraim


Me, I'd need a whole lot more gun or a lot less bear.
 
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