Win 94 Big Bore in .38-55!

[Bruce Scott]

At the local rifle club last Sunday one of the members was shooting a 94 BB chambered in 38-55. I looked it over. The serial number was prefixed BB and the reciever was definitely the beefed up BB type. Barrel appeared to be about 20 inches long.

There was some discussion on this subject a while back when just such a gun was up for sale in Aust.

Is there any way to confirm that this was an original BB chambering?

Like the clown that I often am, I failed to check the barrel markings.

[20cows]

Was the barrel stamped .38-55? A lot of folks have been known to shoot .38-55 rounds out of a .375 Win chambered barrel w/o a problem. (similar to a 38 spc in a .357 mag).

[C. Cash]

I'd second 20 Cows on this one. The BB was offered in 307, 356, 375 Win's and 444 Marlin. No factory 38/55 marked guns that I have ever seen or heard of.

[gundownunder]

Hey Bruce, I seem to recall back in the 90s a lot of guys here had 375s restamped to 38-55 to get past the high power gun laws.

[dbateman]

high power gun laws??
i have a bb 375 with 20 inch barrel here...i had to take a pic

[Bruce Scott]

Hey Bruce, I seem to recall back in the 90s a lot of guys here had 375s restamped to 38-55 to get past the high power gun laws.

That could be it. Next time I'm at the range I will check the barrel.

[Bruce Scott]

high power gun laws??

In Western Australia certain centrefire cartridges are classified as 'low power' . These include most of the traditional lever action chamberings. It is far less hasslesome to get a low power onto your licence than the so called high powers.

45-70 is in the low power list......

[gundownunder]

I believe 30-30 went from high power to low power the last time its sammi specs were updated. 22 hornet is low powered and 218 bee is high powered. The whole thing is basically kaput and only a draconian backwater like WA would dream up such a bass ackward system.

[dbateman]

man those high power gun rules must be a pita

[Old Time Hunter]

Let me try and understand this, if you load 31 grains of H4198 behind a 220 grain Hornady FN in a .38-55 head stamped cartridge and the same load in a .375 Win headstamped cartridge, the .375 would be "high power" and the .38-55 would be "low power"? Or is saying this rifle can shoot .38-55's makes it "low power"?

[gundownunder]

OK Old timer Hunter, the way it works is that anything with a factory loaded ammo above a certain power factor is classes as high power, 2000 fps used to be a rule of thumb, though I dont know how they divided the hornet and bee. The 38-55 factory ammo at about 13-1400 fps is low power but the 375 ammo at over 2000 fps is high. The 30-30 was downgraded after its last sammi update because it went from something like 2050 fps factory load to about 1950 fps. As Bruce said, the 45-70 is low power as its factory load is about 12-1300 fps, the fact it can kill a buffalo or can be handloaded to 2100 fps or more doesn't enter into the equation.

I think they did it all in the interest of public safety. We are the least populated state in Australia and more people get shot with .22s than anything else and in the last couple of years I think more have been killed with cricket bats than guns.
I'm still waiting for some politician to do the "right thing" and propose a ban on the private ownership of cricket bats.