Nice vintage Winchester.
To my tastes, these war-time Winchesters are some of the nicest of the '94 carbines. The serial # on mine is 1291xxx, and looks about the same as yours. Does your Winchester have any markings on the upper tang behind the hammer? Congratulations on your inheritance. I hope you will cherish it always and keep handing it down in the family. To me, the much touted pre-64's don't go far enough back. If you will notice, the hammer on your rifle should be checkered. Sometime around 1949 or 1950, I believe, they changed to a serrated hammer and shortly thereafter shortened the forearm. No doubt this saved the company time and money without sacrificing reliability. But the esthetics were affected, for me anyway. If it were my rifle, I would go over the receiver and any other rusty spots with very fine steel wool being careful not to damage the wood finish. I'm not sure what Winchester used to finish the wood back then but I would like to know. I had to refinish my buttstock and had very good results using teakwood oil. If you reblue or refinish yours you should know it will decrease its value. Someone before me had cut the stock short and put a recoil pad on mine, so it cost me less to buy it because it had been altered. So I felt free to fix it as tastefully as I could. But original is always preferable with vintage Winchesters. I still need an original metal buttplate to complete my repairs. If you feel the need for a recoil pad, use one of the slip-on kind that doesn't alter the gun. Again, congratulations on your inheritance. They don't make them like they used to and probably never will again. Pathfinder