Reply With QuoteVERY nice! I love a good looking lever gun, and the 38/357 is one of my favorites... 38's are an awesome plinking round, and I can load them darn near as cheap as you can buy 22's.
Hit up the LGS today in hopes of trading my Remington 1100 A/C 12ga for something I'll take out and shoot a little more often. I was really hoping they would have one of the new Winchester 1866's but apparently those are really hard to come by. They did have a "used" Winchester 1873 Short Rifle in the back so I sent them off to fetch it and once I saw it had the case-color hardened finish and the wood had some nice figure to it I knew I wanted it. Didn't get quite what I would have liked to out of my shotgun, but I got the 1873 for about $300 less than what they're selling for new so I can't complain.
I had a Cimarron/Uberti 1873 that I made the mistake of selling two years ago, and this Winchester is every bit as nice as it was. Supposedly the previous owner had never shot it, and I can believe it as there's no indication it's been fired and it still has cosmoline on the lifter block and loading gate.
The chemical case-color hardened finish is just as nice as what was on my Cimarron/Uberti, but the wood on the Winchester is much, much nicer. So far it seems to hold true to the original design just like the Uberti's, but we'll find out for sure when I pull the side plates to give it a thorough cleaning. Would have preferred one in .44-40 but beggars cant' be choosers.
Can't wait to take it out and see how it shoots.
"Life' is tough. It's even tougher if you're stupid." ~ John Wayne
“Under certain circumstances, urgent circumstances, desperate circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer.” —Mark Twain
VERY nice! I love a good looking lever gun, and the 38/357 is one of my favorites... 38's are an awesome plinking round, and I can load them darn near as cheap as you can buy 22's.
Nice rifle, enjoy and post a report on how it shoots.
Brass bead front and rear buckhorn aren't exactly precision sights, but it didn't do bad at 50 yards yesterday. All four 10-shot groups here are under 4 inches (black center is 3"). Load was 3.5gr of Bullseye in a .38Spl. case with a 158gr Berry's FP seated out to 1.560".
Groups doubled in size at 100, but the front bead basically covers the whole target at that distance so it is what it is. I plan on getting a Marbles tang sight which should help, but I don't know if I can bring myself to put a front globe sight on it. Maybe if it were a 24" barreled version, but I think it would look a little out of place on a 20" short rifle.
I will say this, any qualms anyone might have about buying a Japanese made Winchester lever gun are unfounded. The action on this is definitely smoother than the Cimarron/Uberti 1873 I had before, and the trigger is nice and crisp at just a touch over 4 pounds. That's not a knock on the Cimarron/Uberti as the action on it wasn't bad at all, this one's just a little slicker out of the box IMO.
"Life' is tough. It's even tougher if you're stupid." ~ John Wayne
“Under certain circumstances, urgent circumstances, desperate circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer.” —Mark Twain
Not bad at all for 38 plinkers.... All but a few of those would've connected with a 4" gong. We sometimes get all wrapped up in punching cloverleafs with precision set-ups that it's easy to forget just how much fun it is getting back to the "other" guns.
Whenever I start to get burnt out from writing reviews and such I break out a lever gun or single action pistol and head to the range to end the doldrums with a little gun fun. The front sight's are getting a little blurry these days on the long guns which makes shooting decent groups a little more tricky, but still plenty of fun. When it comes to guns like these with rudimentary open sights I go by the Cool Whip Accuracy Scale. If all my shots fall within the 6" diameter of a Cool Whip container lid it's a good group. Doesn't matter if it's at 7, 15 or 25 yards with a pistol, or if it's at 50 or 100 yards with a rifle.
Keep telling myself I need to get a tang mount to put a vernier sight on my 1860 Henry in .45 Colt to start playing this game.
"Life' is tough. It's even tougher if you're stupid." ~ John Wayne
“Under certain circumstances, urgent circumstances, desperate circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer.” —Mark Twain
He has a chinweld going on... fun stuff!
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VERY nice!
I picked up a Chief Crazy Horse Win 94 commemorative in 38-55 (my favorite to reload) last year at a very good price. (They made 19,999 of them so they're really not worth much!)
It's a very accurate rifle with peep sites, 248 gr bullet, 20.5 grs of AA5744. (I removed the buckhorn)
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