Demise of Winchester saddens rifle fans
When I was a teenager living in northern Minnesota, my father took me down to the Coast to Coast hardware store and bought me a Winchester Model 94 lever-action rifle. A gun cabinet hung from the wall in my bedroom, and the .30-.30 rifle was placed there, without lock and key, for me to admire and hold whenever I wanted.
That was a different era, when a 13-year-old knew that mishandling a rifle could lead to serious ramifications.
It was also an era when guns and cars were made in America, and no one imagined that the Winchester rifle – the icon of the American West, the trusty firearm in John Wayne’s scabbard – would ever be made in, say, Portugal or Japan.
For Winchester rifles, that era ended earlier this month.
U.S. Repeating Arms Co., which manufacturers Winchesters, announced it would close its New Haven, Conn., plant, where rifles and shotguns have been manufactured since 1866. According to various news reports, the company will discontinue making the Model 94 and the popular Winchester Model 70 bolt-action rifle. There’s word that another company may pick up the brand names and make them in Europe or Japan.
This news sent a shudder through Winchester owners and created a flurry of questions and buying. Reed’s Sporting Goods in Walker, Minn., posted this message on its Web site: “End of an Era. Buy a piece of history.”
Larry Ahlman, owner of Ahlman’s Gun Shop in Morristown, said there was a rush to get any remaining Winchester rifles. “I think it’s terrible we are losing a piece of history,” he said. “I would guess half the guns we sell now are made overseas. This will shift that further.”
One of Ahlman’s favorite rifles is a .243-caliber Winchester Model 70. “I’ve had it over 40 years. They are very accurate and very reliable. They called them a ‘rifleman’s rifle.’ “
Ahlman said Alaska guides always favored the Model 70. “It can be 30 below zero, and if you work the action, you know it will work. You hear of a lot of guides in Alaska who use a Model 70 to back up grizzly hunters. They’ll say, ‘When I pull the trigger, I want something to go bang.’ “
Mike O’Brien, gun salesman at Joe’s Sporting Goods, said his store has been “bombarded” with phone calls about the future of Winchester parts and service and, of course, the demise of the Model 94 and Model 70. He said he believed discontinuing the brands would be “a worst-case scenario.” He said he has more than 30 Model 70s in stock, and “there’s still a market for the rifle.
“I know sales have been hurting, though,” he added. “There’s a lot of competition.”
That competition comes from Remington (Winchester’s chief rival), Ruger and Savage, the latter of which is gaining renewed respectability among gun owners.
Guns inspire similar rivalries among owners, such as those between Ford and Chevy, and Winchester, with its branding in movies and television, has always had its die-hard fans. The lever-action Model 94 has appeared in countless western movies and is similar to the rifle used by Chuck Connors in the TV series “The Rifleman.”
The Model 94 was a longtime favorite in northern Minnesota. It is lightweight, inexpensive and capable of taking down deer in the popular .30-.30 caliber.
The Model 94, however, has fallen out of favor among modern deer hunters who tend to want more power in their guns; they often want a caliber they can use for an elk hunt in the West.
I kept my Model 94 until I was in college. One day, I wanted to buy a car, so I took my rifle to a pawnshop and sold it for $100. The car broke down six months later.
I wish I still had the gun.