Early last month I wandered into a little gun shop looking for some 338 WM ammo for my rifle. Ended up buying my son his Christmas present, an old Winchester model 69a bolt action 22. It is his first real firearm and you should have seen him when he unwrapped it at Christmas!
But when I was there picking that up, I noticed a model 94 that caught my attention. It has checkering on the wood, was marked "unfired" on the tag, and chambered in 375 Winchester. Wait..what?? What is this 375 Winchester round?????
So when I got home, I did quite a bit of looking and research on this caliber I had never heard of before.
Turns out, this was a model 94 Big Bore. It was a special model 94 with a beefed up receiver designed to take the extra power of the 375 and 2 other new calibers designed for the 94 Big Bore. The first Big Bore was introduced in late 1978 in one caliber, the 375 Win. A couple years later 2 others were introduced, the 307 Win and 356 Win. All 3 of these rounds offer a higher level of performance than usual for a model 94. Those of you who are into reloading I would encourage you to look up some ballistics on each. They are all quite impressive for the horsepower they deliver from the model 94. I WAS HOOKED AN ENAMORED!
Unfortunately, these Big Bores didn't build a following as Winchester had hoped. The 375 was the first one dropped in 1984, then the 356 and 307 a few years later. Because of the low production numbers, factory ammo and even components to make your own are only seasonally produced and very hard to find most of the time. It's such a shame too, Marlin bragged about doing something groundbreaking with the 308 Marlin Express in the early 2000's... And not that I have anything against Marlin, but Winchester already did it in 1980 with the 307 Winchester.
But anyway, now that I have given a little background to these unique lever rifles, I got one!!!
An unfired 375 Win. Dealer made me a great deal on it and threw in for free 26 rounds of factory ammo he happened to have on hand with $60 on the box. Now he could have gotten north of $80 for that ammo on Gunbroker. I paid about $200 less for my 94 Big Bore than most sell for on Gunbroker that have been used.
This is definitely a reloaders rifle as factory ammo gets bid to prices approaching $100 per 20 and in some cases higher on auction sites like Gunbroker.
I think this rifle is going to be tons of fun! And with the parent case of the 375 Win being the old 38-55 Win I can dial back the power if the wife wants to try her hand at taking a deer with it. She is pretty recoil sensitive.
Here are the only pics I have at the moment.
Anyone else into the Winchester lever rifles?? Might go for an old 1886 in 45-70 or 45-90 sometime...
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If this rifle has been fired the round count is extremely low, as in 20 or less. Its that clean and shows no signs of any rounds being cycled through the action.
Originally Posted by coolpool
