Winchester 94AE Remodel

Sharps40

Price, it's all about the price
Joined
Dec 18, 2016
Messages
2,583
Location
Pekin, NC.
Rating - 100%
32   0   0
Going to make it look old, sorta.....

And, since most old guns had pretty nice looking walnut stocks, I'll replace the sprayed brown white hardwood that came with the rifle.

Save lots of work, prefit, Danish oil finished walnut. I'm sure it'll need a touch of fitting but, looks grander and in an oil finish you get to feel the wood.

Dustins Wood 001.JPG Dustins Wood 002.JPG
 
Was going to try out a brass buttplate, antiqued of course. But its just not a good look. Too thin, a spacer would look wrong and the factory brass Winchester plate is , smaller than the oversize aftermarket wood. I don't want to pare the wood down either so will tie the brass accents I'm planning to use on the rifle together subtly. Screw heads, trigger, bands, sight, all subdued/antiqued with that old brass tarnish.

006.JPG
 
As for the wood buttstock. Its oversize in all the right places. Inside spots. Makes for good fitting. The exterior is a bit larger than I'd like for small hands, but for medium or large hands it'll be better than stock and no where like the clubs of 4x4 landscape timbers hanging on the marlin rifle frame. It'll look a dayum site better than the original wood too. Just an idea of how truly ugly brown stained polyurethane sprayed white hardwood really is, compared to even this straight grained walnut. Gaps will close up with just a touch of the files and removing a bit of wood inside the tang will make room for the coil main spring. Lastly, will have to drill the tang bolt hole, bed the tangs in epoxy and replace the black phillips head buttplate screws with brass slotted head screws.

004.JPG 005.JPG
 
This si the project i wanted to do. Some of those stock blanks you can buy are beautiful.
 
Yes. This is prefinished from woodplus at brownells. Even at brownells usual high price it was on sale under $100 the set and eliminates hours of drudgery looks lovely too! Went back in and checked, day to day price for the set at brownells is $102ish and appears to be out of stock for now. Musta got the last one on the shelf for this month.
 
Last edited:
That look great
 
Some of the old school glitter arrived, promptly buffed off the Sporting House Gal look (It was as bright and shiny as Boob Gloss) and antiqued it. For-end band is nice, screw fits, but the forward barrel band arrived with the right screw and the wrong size hole. Oh well, I'll use it, gives me a chance to make an old style fix, a hand made sleeve nut to fill the over size hole with good thread. The factory gold trigger to age similarly later. Just a bit more brass to put on it.....then i'll get to the hard work.

001.JPG 004.JPG 008.JPG
 
Nope. Safety works, trigger is fine, rebound is functional (and necessary since there is no half cock position), hammer hits hard, caps bust reliably and it makes no sense to convert to expensive and often worn out old style non rebounding parts.
 
I visited Gunville.com, which is located just southeast of Denton, NC.
Fascinating place!
I got a beautiful butt stock and forend for my 1914 Steven 425 Hi Power in 35 Remington.
Haven't finished fitting it yet... it's goin' but it's slow.
Same with a little Marlin 32 that's getting a new forend.
I'm really slow!
 
Cool. Ill check it out. Nice to have my money stay at home

Update.....looked it over, pretty much empty web site. If I need a stock later I'll have to call them and chat.
 
Last edited:
I would like the front sight base to mimic the fancy rear sight dovetail slot filler. i.e. the front sight base should have a pointed tail on it. Sometimes you can't buy what you want and so, try to make it. An old rear sight with a similar point was heated bright orange to make it soft enough to drill with HSS tooling. Centered and drilled for a tail that will help secure the horse head later on. Then the excess clipped and initial fitting to the front sight slot is completed. It'll be a good snug fit and if all go's well, the horse head won't go flying off into the woods in recoil.

index.php
 
Still gathering parts and checking initial fits. Struck out on the rings on the first go. Seems they are/maybe long out of production but I keep looking.....they'll turn up. In the meantime, the right bases came along, Redfields, threads in the receiver are fine and they lay in the same plane, so no shimming. My next to last set of old school and quite truly, Quick Detachable Sling Mounts. Been saving them for the right job. I hate the new ones, when ya want the daymn sling off the gun you don't need to be diddling with a small as heck plastic retention nut. And finally, 3.25" from the butt plate (far enough that the wood dosnt split out with use) a rear sling stud on a black spacer with proper QD sling mount. Now.....to go find them frickin rings........

001.JPG 002.JPG 003.JPG
 
Nice. Those brass barrel bands are growing on me.

The cross-bolt safety annoyed me. I pulled it and used black 1/4" hole plugs. Looks clean and I'm a lot happier. Admittedly, they're plastic, but you don't even notice. The plastic was for an easy proof of concept. I could fabricate something nicer, but haven't felt the need.
 
With a rebounding hammer lacking half cock notch, removing the safety makes the rifle a drop hazard when loaded. If one is to properly (Safely) eliminate the cross bolt I recommend retrofit with pre rebound internals in the lower tang assembly.
 
I have to go look at mine again tonight. I remember thinking about that and thought I determined it was safe to remove it before doing so.
 
Big score today. Last of the external parts arrived. First fit completed and next comes tear down, strip, blue and finish.
Genuine Winchester 94 Gold Buttplate screws, always good to stick with factory parts, even the small ones.
And, found em. Low Angle Loc rings, engraved. A quick study in scope mounting, this one a 1.5x4.5 power, just perfect in my opinion, but plenty of room for a 3x9 power and even a 50mm objective for those first and last light shots at deer.

scope.JPG butt.JPG 001.JPG
 
I have to go look at mine again tonight. I remember thinking about that and thought I determined it was safe to remove it before doing so.

The left most portion (full diameter) of the shank of the cross bolt safety functions to block the forward movement of the hammer with the safety pressed to the right/on. With the safety pressed left/off, that full diameter portion enters the left wall of the frame and the hammer nose overrides/clears the milled out portion of the safety thereby impacting the firing pin. Removal of the cross bolt safety ensures you are carrying the rifle safety off (no mechanical safety at all) at all times with a free to move hammer held off the firing pin/primer by light mainspring pressure only. This pressure can be overcome with a simple gentle forward shove on the hammer spur. As such a drop or sharp blow to the hammer will move the firing pin forward into the primer of a loaded cartridge.
 
Last edited:
I was thinking forward movement of the hammer was blocked by the grip/lever safety. But, I don't recall specifically. I haven't had a chance to look.
 
Lever only serves to load/clear the rifle and to unlock the trigger and sear so the hammer can fall from full cock. Removing mechanical safeties without a full understanding of the mechanism is a danger to you and everyone/everything exposed to the loaded rifle.
 
Last edited:
Ok, I just checked. I misspoke. It's not the lever that blocks the hammer. It's the trigger. In my model, the hammer does not move forward without pulling back the trigger. It's blocked. Pulling back the trigger allows it to move forward against the firing pin. I would not have removed the cross-bolt safety unless I determined it was safe to do so. I've been building and modifying guns since the '80's, so it's not exactly new to me. It's just been a while since I was in the '94AE.

Trigger with hammer block.
U342910030.jpg

https://www.midwestgunworks.com/page/mgwi/prod/W94TR

TangAssembly.jpeg
 
Last edited:
The dimness of old age must be creeping up upon us for both to have forgotten the hammer block! Touche my friend!
 
Fitting and sealing the wrist. Acraglas bedding. Makes the fit skin tight, (important on a single screw attachment), minimizes movement and loosening over the years and helps keep the oils out of the end grain which eventually softens the wood. After a bit of clean up, hanging up for several hours until the epoxy kicks over.

005.JPG 006.JPG 007.JPG
 
Forend is now in the epoxy, full bedded. And, working on the Deers Eye View Caliber Identifier......

001.JPG 006.JPG
 
Last edited:
Buttstock is all but done. Cleaning up the ooze out on the glass bedding. Inside and under the butt sealed with urethane. Steamed out a shipping mark and got almost all of the file marks off the buttplate left there when the stock was factory fitted. Rubbed the butt out with 0000 steel wool and first wax. A comparison shot of the waxed butt and unwaxed forend. Fitting the forend now so that it doesn't move then to final finish it. Last step will be to fix up the gold bands and magazine cap so the tube secure for sling mounting. Coming along.

001.JPG 003.JPG 004.JPG 006.JPG
 
Setting up the gold barrel band with the no threads and the to big hole in it (it must have been a factory reject that made it to Numrich) Drill the threaded (or what should have been threaded side) just over clearance size for a 6x48 screw and use a piloted head cutter to make a flat bottomed counter bore for the new filister head screw. (Will round that head over later so it blends with the band later.) On the other side of the band is the original counter-bore for the head of the original screw. Use a chamfer cutter to make room for the sleeve nut to sit in closer to flush. I made the sleeve nut from 1/4" half hard brass rod. Drilled, tapped 6x48 and roughly shaped and fitted. More shaping later after new screws arrive so the sleeve nut will blend better with the band. Usually the Winchester and Marlins can take a long 6x48 screw in place of the smaller diameter original screw without having to clean out space in the barrel slot or the mag tube slot.

008.JPG 001.JPG 003.JPG
 
Working up a Faux Case Color on the action. No golds or green, but the muted greys of very old color case. Rust blue should do the trick, so the first step is to polish off the factory blue and then, make it rusty. Here, 5 minutes into the first several hours of rusting.

003.JPG 004.JPG 006.JPG
 
I didn't know either. Just blue it dirty, once, single pass and sloppy wet. Comes out different each time, just like case colors and looks nice dull grey splotchy. Usually even stays bright around screw holes and lettering just like case. But, looks old.

Rusting, Boiling and hours of polish, cleanup and assembly ahead.

005.JPG 008.JPG 011.JPG
 
Waiting on one screw to finish the front barrel band and it'll be ready to shoot.

007.JPG 008.JPG 011.JPG 014.JPG
 
Last edited:
Back
Top Bottom