Nick Fadala took this small white-tailed buck in the thicket with a Model 94 Winchester chambered for the .25-35 cartridge shooting 117-grain flat-point bullets. |
By Sam Fadala
John Moses Browning was a genius firearms inventor, although he never lost an opportunity to borrow from another inventor, such as Herr Mannlicher. He was also an astute businessman, selling his designs for a prime Yankee dollar.
John's machine gun - previously developed by another - was extremely important to U.S. troops in at least three wars. But it was the advent of his Model 1894 Winchester that earned Browning greater fame worldwide. When that rifle (and it was a rifle initially) came along in 1894, it made a 6.0 earthquake impact on the shooting world.
Hunters appreciated the two blackpowder cartridges chambered in the first edition, the .32-40 Winchester and .38-55 Winchester. But little did these happy sportsmen know that only a year later there would be a second quake, even stronger, as two new smokeless rounds were added to the Winchester Model 94 cartridge line.
These were the .25-35 Winchester and .30-30 Winchester, originally .25 WCF and .30 WCF - .25-caliber and .30-caliber Winchester Center (or Central) Fire. The familiar blackpowder designations - .25 caliber with 35 grains of powder, and .30 caliber with 30 grains of powder - were attached later for added sales appeal. But there was nothing blackpowder about the two new rounds. Smokeless had arrived.
Preceded by two smokeless military cartridges, the 8mm Lebel of France (1886) and the .30-40 Krag of Norway (early 1890s), the .25-35 and .30-30 were the first sporting cartridges to boast smokeless powder. And what a difference the new fuel made. The .25-35 had its following, but it was limited compared against the .30-30. Shooting a 117-grain bullet at about 2,300 feet per second, the .25-35, in the hands of a cool shot, was an adequate deer cartridge.
In 1950, a hunter on a budget could latch onto a Model 94, a perfectly good deer rifle, for $62.45. That same year, a Model 70 Winchester cost $109.50. Price made a huge difference in sales. |
My brother/photographer, Nick Fadala, used his Model 94 Winchester .25-35 only last year in taking three white-tailed deer. But the .30-30, first with a 160-grain bullet, later 150- and 170-grain bullets, was a splendid deer taker. It soon found its way into the north woods where sourdoughs, settlers, homesteaders and Native Americans put all manner of big game - even dangerous polar and grizzly bears - onto meat poles with the .30-30.
To handle the higher pressures of smokeless powder, Winchester offered a new "smokeless" barrel for the Model 1894 rifle. It was called nickel steel, and it did the job.
No one will ever know if the Model 1894, later dubbed the Model 94, would have ended up the most-carried "deer rifle" in the land, had the .30-30 not been chambered in 1895. A small caliber for the era, the little .30 offered something new to big game hunters: bullet speed. Typical of the era were rounds such as the .38-55, as well as a long lineup of large-caliber blackpowder metallics shooting fairly hefty bullets at modest speed.
Velocity usually was not much above the speed of sound (1,100 fps at the muzzle). Instead, these cartridges were effective then, and remain effective today, because of the big hunks of lead they threw.
There were also small-caliber blackpowder cartridges at the time, from .22 rimfire to the .25-20 and .32-20. The .32-40 was no big bore, either. But many hunters chose its .32-caliber 170-grain bullet for deer and other big game.
Every blackpowder round shared the same trait: a looping trajectory. While 1,900 fps with a 160-grain bullet is ho-hum today, it was a real scooter in the late 19th century. Furthermore, it wasn't long before velocity was upped to around 2,200 fps in the .30-30 with a heavier 170-grain projectile. A good shot could take a deer at 200 yards without having to hold on the horizon to get the bullet to drop into the target zone.
Without doubt, the smokeless powder .30-30 cartridge had a lot to do with the success of the Model 94 Winchester rifle. But there was more. The rifle became friend to explorers, ranchers, farmers, miners, homesteaders and especially deer hunters. "Get your deer rifle" meant "Get your Model 94 Winchester .30-30."
Telescopic rifle sights had been around long before the Model 1894 rifle or the .30-30 cartridge. However, the majority of hunters would not embrace the tube with glass lenses until after World War II. So the iron-sighted Model 94 with its top case ejection was widely accepted. Handling was much more important to hunters than a scope sight. The carbine version soon became "the" 94 because it was sparrow light in the hand and hawk fast to the shoulder.
The carbine was also slab-sided, with no bolt sticking out to snag in a horse scabbard. Smokeless .30-30 loads with soft-nose bullets, as well as other quick-opening bullet designs, had enough authority to bag the biggest buck in the thicket or on the high mountain if a hunter was willing to stalk for closer shots in open terrain. So the Model 94 was easy to carry in hand or on a horse, quick to the shoulder, and the .30-30 provided good results on big game when bullets were placed right.
Winchester realized that most deer could be cleanly tagged with less bullet weight, and so the company, along with many others, including Remington and Peters, added a 150-grain missile to factory ammo.
The .30-30 and the .25-35 were the first sporting cartridges stoked with smokeless powder. Velocity of the early .30-30 load was blistering fast compared to speeds of blackpowder metallic rounds. |
The late Warren Page, longtime gun writer for Field & Stream magazine, called the .30-30 a "balanced round." He meant that a 150-grain .30-caliber bullet at around 2,400 fps was about the right dose of medicine to put a deer down at medium range without turning too many steaks into hamburger.
The well-known, sometimes called dean of gun writers, Col. Townsend Whelen, chose the .30-30 over the .30-06 for deer, considering the latter too powerful. Whelen later changed his mind, considering the '06 so versatile that it was a good choice for darn near any big game in North America.
In a way, the colonel was right about the .30-30/.30-06 deer challenge. I've taken a number with both, and you'd best watch your loads with the '06 or you'll lose some good eatin'.
This past season, I hunted almost exclusively with a Morrison Precision custom all-weather .30-06. I usually hunt with muzzleloaders, .30-30s and the .38-55, so this was a different experience. I noticed that on the antelope and deer, even the most well-placed shot in the boiler room created considerable interior havoc. Of course, I was using the latest H-4831 and IMR-4831 handloads with 180-grain bullets launched at over 2,900 fps, as well as Federal's latest High Energy factory load going even faster.
What I discovered about the Model 94 Winchester was doubtless the very same traits realized by the first hunters to carry the rifle or carbine version. The 94 rifle, even with 26-inch barrel, retained fluid motion for fast action. Another rifle I own, a custom Model 94 built with a 24-inch barrel and good Lyman aperture sights, is equally fast. I have no problem taking antelope and deer out to 200 yards, sometimes farther, with this .30-30.
In rifle or carbine, the Model 94s are always ready to fly into action smoothly. In the whitetail thickets I hunt along creek bottoms, the 94 is far quicker than my bolt-action rifles, with the exception of a Mannlicher 9x56mm carbine, which is also lightning fast.
Having hunted a good deal with a 94, it comes as no surprise that by 1914, 700,000 of them were in the hands of hunters. By 1927, serial number 1,000,000 was presented to President Calvin Coolidge. In 1948, President Harry Truman accepted serial number 1,500,000. Before 1970, 3 million 94s had departed the Winchester factory for gun stores everywhere.
Jack O'Connor, another famous name in the shooting/writing arena, told of a hunter living in Northern Sonora, Mexico, who market hunted in Jackson Hole, Wyo., during the late 1800s. This hunter found that he could make more one-shot kills with his new Model 94 .30-30 than with any of the big-bore blackpowder cartridges he previously used. This in no way puts down those great old rounds of yesteryear, for they were, and still are, deadly. But the ability to hold "right on" to about 200 yards with a .30-30 was a big plus for the above-mentioned Wyoming market hunter, plus thousands of other hunters of that day.
But there was something else that put great numbers of Model 94 Winchesters, carbines, especially, into the hands of American and Canadian shooters. It was movies, television and comic books. Although most movie rifles were Model 92 carbines firing .44-40 blanks, they looked very much like Model 94s. Films such as "The Great Train Robbery" in 1903 and "Ramona" in 1910 were the beginning of a powerful Western influence on American shooters. These and hundreds of other productions showed lever-action carbines in the hands of both heroes and villains.
While the Model 92 with its shorter action was burned out by the 1950s, its look-alike Model 94 sister was on fire. Television's long-running westerns (I believe ''Gunsmoke" remains to this day the longest-running TV series of its kind) brought lever-action rifles right into the living room. Even the comics had an influence. You can bet that Red Ryder, along with his sidekick, Little Beaver, was a lever-action-carrying cowboy hero. The Daisy Red Ryder BB gun was without doubt a look-alike of the Model 94 Winchester.
There was another factor that put the Model 94 in the hands of millions of hunters: the dollar bill. In 1939, a Model 94 carbine cost a shooter $30. In the same year, the Winchester Model 70 ran $61.25. You could purchase two 94s for the price of one Model 70. The fine Savage Model 99 carbine ran $45, and if you were interested in a "Genuine Mauser Sporting Rifle," you had to lay out $110 for one, while a Mannlicher carbine demanded $140. Prices took a jump by 1950, with a Model 94 carbine going for $62.45.
Meanwhile, Winchester's Model 71 in .348, a stout lever action based on the earlier Model 1886 Winchester, carried a price tag of $91.10, while the Model 70 cost $109.50, almost doubling the price of the Model 94. The Savage Model 99 had jumped to around $100 by the middle of the 20th century, with a standard-grade Johnson Mauser rifle going for almost $200. A 1950s hunter on a budget could latch onto a perfectly good deer rifle, the Model 94, while keeping the better part of a $100 bill in his pocket. That had to make a difference in sales.
In my book, "Winchester's 30-30 Model 94," I have a chapter titled "The Model 94 in Your Life." As I sat thinking about the contents of this chapter, several applications came to mind. The Model 94 is a working rifle, no frills, no bows and no lace. It brings home the bacon, and if it failed in that task, all of the nostalgia, movies and television shows and comic book cowboys would not have saved it from the dark world of obsolescence. Compact, that's what it is - not just short, but narrow. It's a hand-mate rifle, always ready to go into action, a real partner not only on the trail, but not a bad one to have handy on the ranch or farm.
The 94 can also be a survival rifle. A backcountry wanderer could do worse than having a rugged Model 94, reliable as sunset and sundown, if he did get into a tight spot. In the mountains, on the plains, in the thick forest, the easy-to-carry 94 is at home. When called upon, it won't be broken. It will work. It's also not a bad choice as an extra rifle for a hunting camp, again because of its ruggedness. Lodged in a secure spot in a hunting vehicle, the 94 will be ready to shoot when it's set free. And of course, the 94 has also become collectible, not only in vintage models, but also commemoratives.
What is not so readily visible, however, is the fact that today's 94 is not the same as yesteryear's. It's actually a better rifle/carbine. Although I have total confidence in the good old Model 94 .30-30 of the past, the modern action is stronger. And if you want to secure a scope sight on top, it can be mounted centered over the bore with the new 94's side-eject feature.
Options are changing, but as I write this, I see several 94s ready for the hunting field. There is the Legacy model with a 24-inch barrel. Yes, it comes in .30-30 Win, but you can also buy it in .44 Rem Mag. Tubular magazine capacity is seven shot for the former, 12 shot for the latter. Or maybe you want more power. Then choose the Model 94 Timber with an 18-inch barrel and chambered in .450 Marlin. An even more compact version is the Trapper Model with a 16-inch barrel. Take your pick from .30-30 Win, .357 Mag, .44 Rem Mag or .45 Colt.
New for 2005 are the Legacy Blued Octagon and Legacy Case-Colored Octagon. Both are cowboy guns with nostalgic curved buttplates, Marble's rear tang sights and 26-inch barrels. Chamberings are .30-30 Win and .38-55 Win. Round-barreled versions of those guns are also available.
Sometimes gun writers are accused of keeping the Model 94 and the .30-30 cartridge alive. I don't buy it. You can't fool the shooting public, at least not for over 100 years!
Although I've turned to a modern rifle for this season's hunting, you can bet that a .30-30 will be in my hands next year, just as it has in the past on so many occasions. It's a greater challenge than the extremely accurate long-range rifle I'm carrying at the moment, but it's modern magic compared to my bow and muzzleloaders. I think that's just how the first hunters carrying the Winchester Model 1894 felt with a rifle chambered in the scintillating (at the time) .30-30 with a bullet flying darn close to double the speed of sound.
Sam Fadala
GunHunter Magazine - July 2005