One day I dropped by and saw that it was gone and asked the proprietor if he got his price on that rifle. He said he had it sold but they couldn't load ammo through the loading gate into the magazine. He lost the sale and pulled it off the rack. He brought it out so I could take a look at it. I diagnosed the problem as either the lifter or the lifter spring. I made a tentative offer that was more in line with what I thought it was worth, considering there were parts and repairs that would need to be done before this old girl would be up and running. He said he would talk to the gun's owner, but it was over a month before I got a call from him that the owner was interested in my offer.
By then, I had had plenty of time to think about my offer and the difference in the cost of parts from the worst to the best case scenario. I asked the shop keeper to get permission from the owner to allow me to come into the shop and tear the gun down to see what was actually wrong. (I would NEVER give a stranger that permission!!! EVER!!) All I can say is that the shop keeper must have given the gun owner a pretty good recommendation of me, because he agreed!
I figured that if the carrier spring wasn't broken, that the contact point on the carrier was probably worn keeping the spring from pushing the carrier down to the correct position. I went in a couple days later but had decided that if I could get the rifle for my price out the door that it was worth the risk without taking the gun apart. The short version is that it went home with me.
![Very Happy :D](./images/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif)
I completely tore the gun down and cleaned it from stem to stern. I don't think the internal workings had ever been cleaned judging from the crud on the inside and the pristine condition of the screws. After cleaning, the lever safety worked as designed, and a few turns of the spring adjustment screw solved the heavy trigger. A new old stock carrier and a replacement magazine tube finished off the parts needed. It was finally time to shoot this old girl!!
Long story short: she shot ~8" high with no elevator in the rear sight. It needed a taller front sight. I wanted to get a vintage sight for this rifle, but was unsure of the height it would need. I could've done the calculations, but I wanted to salve my insecurity over trusting calculations, so I concocted a strategy that enabled me to settle the sight height question by shooting the rifle with different sight heights.
I cut a business card into strips and folded each strip in half. I then trimmed each strip so that the height from the bottom of the sight to the top of the paper was close to the height of a replacement sight. The paper was held in place with a bobby pin. The result of that shooting session was that I needed a sight that was 0.5" high.
After buying a vintage sight, I mounted it on the gun and shot it about 10 times at 70 yards. I had tapped the sight over to set the windage, and had a group at the 6:00 position that was about 1.25". When I tried to adjust the elevator to raise the POI, I noticed that the blade had fallen out of the sight....
![Embarassed :oops:](./images/smilies/icon_redface.gif)
In spite of this setback I was encouraged by the size of the group. It appeared that this gun was going to be a good shooter!
Since I was planning on taking this gun hunting, I wanted a sight that wouldn't fall apart in the woods somewhere! So, I bought a new Marbles front sight, removed the flat top rear sight, and added a vintage Marbles tang sight. Those tang sights get the most out of these old Winchesters, especially when the shooter is handicapped with old eyes!
![Crying or Very sad :cry:](./images/smilies/icon_cry.gif)
This is the final target I shot at 65 yards before calling it good enough. I tapped the front sight over a bit after the first two shots. The last 3 shots are 0.8". All of these targets were shot out the side window of my rig with my left hand on the side mirror and my right elbow on the steering wheel. Not as good as a lead sled, but pretty solid!
I did take her hunting, but couldn't find a horn. I'll post some pics of that trip later.