Winchester Model 1894 - Design Changes

Design Changes

In 1964, to save money on production costs, Winchester ceased machining certain small parts for the Model 94. The new cartridge lifter was made of stamped sheet metal instead of being machined out of solid steel, and hollow roll pins were used in the action instead of solid steel pins. While the rifle's function, safety or accuracy was not adversely affected, the changes were conspicuous and came as Winchester made far more fundamental changes to its flagship Model 70 rifle. The changes were widely reviled at the time, perceived as a retreat from quality production across the company's whole range, and Winchester's reputation for making quality firearms was seriously damaged. Winchester would undo many of these short cuts in 1992, after modern CNC methods of automated production made many of the originally-machined parts affordable to produce once more. This, however, proved insufficient to sway public opinion. Many users would only use rifles made before 1964 (pre '64)., and Winchester firearms made before 1964 command a markedly higher resale value on the gun market to this day.

One of the perceived drawbacks by some users of the original Model 1894 action in relation to its main competitors, such as the Marlin Model 336, was that the Winchester ejects cartridges from the top of the receiver and over the user's shoulder rather than to the side. A top-ejecting firearm cannot mount a scope on top of the receiver-the most convenient location for the shooter-without destroying the function of the gun. A scope for such a firearm must instead be mounted either far forward on the barrel (where it must be specifically designed for the purpose), or offset to the side of the gun (which creates problems due to parallax), both of which seriously degrade the usefulness and availability of a scope for such a rifle. This was not a major concern when the gun was originally designed; the most common upgrade to guns of the pre-World War II era was the installation of peep sights to the rear of the receiver, which maximized the accuracy potential of the factory-installed iron sights. Winchester had long had mounting holes pre-drilled in the receiver of the gun to accommodate such a modification, and it was by far the most common upgrade installed on the Model 94 for most of its history. Nevertheless, the market changed in the years after World War II as telescopic sights became both easily affordable and widely available. Commercial acceptance was likewise rapid, and by the 1970s, the ability to use receiver-mounted scopes on hunting rifles had become expected by most gun buyers. With the competition able to mount scopes on its receivers without difficulty, this shortcoming was blamed for falling sales. In response, Winchester changed the design of the action in 1982 to an angled cartridge ejection, which ejects fired cartridges at an angle that allows the rifle to function while fitted with a conventional receiver-mounted scope.

1992 brought another change to the Model 94, from the long-used half-cock notch safety to a cross-bolt safety like the aforementioned Marlins. Here again, this conspicuous change was widely reviled by consumers and gun writers alike as a "lawyer" safety, detracting from the overall look, feel, and operation of the rifle. Winchester responded in 2003 by moving the safety to the tang behind the receiver, which largely quelled the controversy. Both the last Model 94s to leave the New Haven factory before production ceased in 2006 and the new Model 94s currently produced in Japan by Miroku feature these tang-mounted safeties.