12 inch rifle barrel lever gun.

There was a time that Winchester would make a custom model 94 in just about any length barrel or customized any way you liked, caliber permitting. One of my wife's best friends father, had a new in the box model 94 with a 12" barrel. My wife and I were at her house visiting ( her dad was living with her as he was some what old at the time early 80's). He was born before the turn of the Century and this was at end of the 70,s. Him and I got to talking and told me he was the Sheriff of Winslow Arizona and from there we got to talking about guns, then he said I have a gun I want you to see, he went to his bedroom and brought out this Winchester box I couldn't believe what I was looking at. It truly looked brand new. He let me hold it, I looked it over real close it was stamped 30 WCF. He said it had never been shot. It was not registered. I would loved to have had that Winchester. Also because he had bought that gun new and it had never changed hands he did not have to register it. At that time I don't think I could have afforded the $300 paper work. He had the original paper work with it, I don't remember how much he paid for it but I'm pretty sure it was less than a $100 dollars.

If it is in fact an original Winchester Factory 'Trapper' Carbine Model 1894 with a bbl less than the 68 Gun Control Act of 16", It can be legally owned as a NON-NFA weapon IF you can obtain a Factory letter showing that the firearm left the Winchester factory in that configuration (the short bbl that is currently on it, caliber, ect)

You should obtain that 'letter' from the Winchester Factory Archives that are now housed at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, McCracken Research Library, Cody, WY.
That will show that the gun left the factory in the short bbl configuration
http://centerofthewest.libraryhost.c...ngaid&id=21&q=
That the 'original paperwork' for the gun still exists will further bolster your case with the BATF


Then contact the BATFE, Technologies Div.
You will have to send them the actual firearm and the supporting documantation proving that the firearm is an original Winchester Factory made Trapper Carbine with a 'short' bbl.
If so, the BATFE will exempt that particular firearm from the NFA restrictions of registration, and list that firearm by make, cal, ser# and bbl length on the BATF C&R list as so exempt from NFA regs and is now a Type I firearm with C&R status.
The firearm then returned to you.
(** Note that if you can't come up with a factory letter proving it's mfg as a short bbl'd trapper,,you are on your own sending it to the BATF. If they decide it's not a Factory Original,,it doesn't come back home to you.
They will confiscate it as an unregistered NFA weapon.)

The contact info for BATF, address to send it to and even the scenario they chose as an example uses a short bbl'd Winchester 'Trapper' as the firearm in question.

https://www.atf.gov/firearms/curios-relics


Don't loose hope! It can be registered.
Check your State laws,,,,a very few do not allow Short Bbl'd rifles or shotguns for their residents.

Good Luck with your find..
There is a portion of the published C&R list that is set aside for those firearms that were formerly NFA weapons, but are now Type 1/C&R precisely because those were removed from NFA by the BATF and made C&R,,and people with unregistered ones came forward, submitted them for inspection w/ factory records of mfg and had their firearm blessed as a plain C&R firearm by the BATF.

I’d like to see how this ends...

Love to know the value of a nib Winchester 1894 SBR of that age ?

Since it happened in the 70's I imagine the opportunities have long passed.

I guess I wasn't clear enough about the rifle. The old guy that had it wasn't selling it. He did die a few years after I saw it and he left it to a nephew, he had two daughters and neither of them wanted it. Dang I wasn't even in the running for it. I would love to have had it though.