Good, bad or average?

[qajaq59]

Late 60s Winchester model 94. Handloaded 170 gr jacketed bullets equals 10 round 1.75 inch groups at 50 yards with a peep sight. And that includes the flyers. Is that about all that can be expected from that lever gun?

[arkypete]

Late 60s Winchester model 94. Handloaded 170 gr jacketed bullets equals 10 round 1.75 inch groups at 50 yards with a peep sight. And that includes the flyers. Is that about all that can be expected from that lever gun?


Interesting question.
You may find with further tinkering with the rifle that can be improved upon. Paco Kelly has written articles on how to accurize lever actions, by tightening the fit of the stock to the action, checking the forearm pressure on the barrel, loose mag tube. Check the front site for looseness. You didn't mention what sort of reciever site, check it for looseness.
The simplist test is to give the barrel a good cleaning then fire for groups. Condum bullets tend to clutter the barrel with bits of copper.
I've read where shooters got better accuracy out of cast bullets.
Any way that's the mystery and fun of shooting levers.
Jim

[Bass Ackward]

The answer is that it may do a lot better or it might not. I don't know YOU to be able to tell you if it is worth your time to try, but others will read this response as well, so it is pretty basic.

The only one that can say for sure is you, only after you have explored enough options that you give up. Enough options is a very personal thing that means different things to different people. But in this case, the only opinion that counts is yours. And just because you try many things doesn't guarante that you have enough experience in your reloading background to cover all the bases. So you have to know and understand YOUR limitations too.

But we have a guy here that truely believes that a lever can be made as accurate as bolt rifles using cast bullets. I don't doubt he really believes that statement based upon success he has had in the past. But he has spent the time and paid his dues to achieve that level of performance.

Some people simply aren't interested in going that far. When you give up and quit, you have found the best THAT gun will do for YOU. From my experience, most people quit far too early to discover what might be termed maximum accuracy.

[NickSS]

I have a similar vintage 94 Winchester 30-30 that I use for long range cowboy competition primarily. This rifle used to be my rainy day Deer rifle before I switched it to cast bullets for competitive shooting. With the lee 170 gr RNFP bullet cast from range scrape and air cooled loaded over 8 gr, of red dot powder this rifle will shoot three to four inch groups at 200 yards from cross sticks. At that range the bullet is just starting to become unstable as evident by slightly elongated holes. When I have tried it at 100 yards it shoots 1.5 inch groups with menotonous regularity. The same rifle with my best jacketed bullet load only prints around 3 inches at 100 yards. So my lead bullet loads shoot much better.

[KirkD]

That is a bit loose, but there could be various factors, one of which could be the type of target you are using at 50 yards. I found that with the wrong target, I was getting 1.75" groups at 50 yards, but with the exact same target at 100 yards, I was getting the same size groups. The problem at 50 yards was the bullseye was not small enough, resulting in me getting a bit sloppy. This happened so often that I eventually did all my shooting at 100 yards. Since then, my occassional shooting at 50 yards as really improved.

There could be other factors as well, including bullet diameter vs. groove diameter, powder selection, cast bullet hardness. I find that I have to experiment a great deal every time I get a new rifle in order to find an accurate load.

[Dorf]

Sounds like "minute of deer" to me and I don't ask too much more from 94's. They carry nice, come to the shoulder well and always seem to function with a minimum of fuss (just don't let your bullets stick out too much and mess up the feeding ). Works for me!

[Marlin Junky]

Late 60s Winchester model 94. Handloaded 170 gr jacketed bullets equals 10 round 1.75 inch groups at 50 yards with a peep sight. And that includes the flyers. Is that about all that can be expected from that lever gun?

Short answer no. I've shot several 50 yard 5 shot groups with my '52 & '53 vintage M94 Carbines that measure under an inch and a few that were under 3/4" using an aperture sight. This shouldn't be a problem with a tuned rifle and good fitting cast boolits (such as Lyman 311041) but I can't comment about jacketed bullets shot by guns right out of the box with no attention to detail. Also keep in mind (if you're not well seasoned in the art of shooting iron sights) that shooting with iron sights is much more complicated than shooting with a scope sight.

Getting an iron sighted lever action rifle to shoot well is challenging which is why they are more satisfying to own/shoot than scope equipped bolt action rifles.

MJ

[felix]

Great answer! ... felix

[Beau Cassidy]

1.75 groups at 50 yards? That'll do for hunting unless you plan on taking your benchrest with you to the treestand. Although a tighter group would be nice, you just really can't appreciate it in a field condition with an iron sighted gun.

Beau

[Char-Gar]

Maybe yes..maybe no...it all depends on information you did not give.

1. From what type of rest was the rifle fired and what part of the rifle was rested?
2. Were the round loaded one at a time into the chamber or all put in the magazine and loaded into the chamber from there?
3. How fast were they fired.. i.e. How hot did the barrel get?

These leveraction carbines with full length magazines and all of those bands are very sensitive to the above issues.

If you loaded all five rounds in the magazine tube, rested the rifle wrong, and fired all five in a minute or two, that is about all you can expect.

Load the rounds in the chamber one at a time, rest the rifle correctly and wait two minutes or so between shots and the rifles should produce those kinds of groups at 100 yards.

All of the tweaking of loads, sights, trigger etc does not mean squat in these rifle without attention to the above.

[slughammer]

... 10 round 1.75 inch groups at 50 yards with a peep sight. And that includes the flyers. Is that about all that can be expected from that lever gun?

10 shot group sounds pretty good to me. Not like some guys that like shooting 5 and conveniently not counting the "flyers". Repeatable results are what impresses me. If it can do it on demand, all the time; then it is REAL. I'd test it out to 100 to see how it holds together. Sure, there may be room for improvement, but we don't even know how many powders you have tried?

[grumpy one]

Way back when I fired a few jacketed groups with my 30-30 Marlin I got 0.8" 55 yard groups with "accuracy loads" (taken from the Lyman handbook) and something over an inch with a good "full" load. If you are using a load from a load-book without optimizing it for your rifle, that sounds like a respectable result. You might (if you are lucky with your barrel) do quite a bit better with a tailored load, or you might not. What you are getting sounds rather like what you would get with a randomly-selected factory load.

[hydraulic]

1 inch groups from a 94 carbine? WOW!! I sure don't want to get into a shooting match with you guys! Either that or I'd have to take the advice of the fellow who posted yesterday and buy a better keyboard.

[LET-CA]

1 inch groups from a 94 carbine? WOW!! I sure don't want to get into a shooting match with you guys! Either that or I'd have to take the advice of the fellow who posted yesterday and buy a better keyboard.

Check out the results of Ranch Dog's postal matches. There are quite a few targets mailed in with sub 1-inch groups at 50 yards. There's some pretty talented shooters amongst us!

All the best,