Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Winchester Collectors 1906 Win. Autoloader

A friend of mine called and asked me about this Win. chambered in a 35. I know very little about old Win's. Can you loony's part with some of your knowledge?

Thanks .. BP...

Must be a M1905. I've owned many of these. They came in .32 SL and .35 SL. Two years later they brought out a bigger brother in .351 SL - the M1907. The M1907saw production from 1907 to I believe 1957 and saw quite a bit of law enforcement and prison guard use. In 1910, Winchester brought out an even bigger brother, the M1910 in .401 SL. The .401 was actually the only one adequate for deer and black bear. The .351 was a sort of ok deer rifle at shorter ranges. The .32 and .35 were underpowered cartridges which really weren't good for much. They weren't adequate for deer size animals and they were far from tack drivers and weren't a good choice for small game. Ammunition has been unavailable for a long time and boxes of it sell as collector items. They are not easy to reload as they take an odd bullet size (available from custom bullet makers) and brass is only available from small custom makers - and isn't cheap. This is compounded by the fact that they are semi-autos and gathering up spent brass is a pain. The brass is darn small and if you are standing in grass while you're shooting, you'll never find it. These rifles, if in decent original condition are of interest as collector items. Hence, originality and condition are the key factors. Because vintage Winchesters of all kinds continue to dry up, collector interest has grown from what it once was. I recall when there was almost no interest in these. That is no longer true.

My 351 shoots a 180 gr bullet at about 1600 fps . it wii knock a deer dead on its azz up to 200 yds, just think of a 44 mag 180 gr bullet. of course it is not made to snipe 1000 yds.

It was designed for prison guards and sometimes warfare and did quite well for that..

PS: not much value even to collectors $400.00 will get you one in excellant condition.

I'd be real eager to hear of some in excellent shape for $400 I'd buy more than one at that price.

I have always wondered why Winchester didn't use the 351 SL in the M1 Carbine in lieu of the 30 US Carbine cartridge. It would seem that the 351 SL would have had more "knock-down" power, something soldiers always complained about with the 30 US Carbine.

Jeff

Yes, it would certainly have been an improvement over the .30 carbine cartridge. IIRC correctly, Jeff Cooper advocated for a, "thumper" - something along the lines of the .401 Winchester. Interesting that they now rework M1 Carbines into .45 Winchester Magnum - so the design could clearly handle much bigger.

I have a 1907 from the first year of production. It lived a long hard life in south Texas, before it came to me. The sights are hard to see but it will put 3 in 3" at 50 yards, with old factory ammo. I have dies now, and am looking forward to trying it out. If it shoots I might try to get a tang sight for it.

Hawk sells bullets, and Bertram sells brass.

They are blowback operated, and have a very large/complex breechblock forging. I need to make a new mainspring for mine as the original is heavily worn. I will probably have a few extra made up, if anybody needs one, I'll sell at a reasonable price.

GB and american arms plus other sellers have plenty.

I have done a bit of auction scanning. Found a few - here is one in the $400 range but the condition is poor (by my estimation).

http://www.gunbroker.com/Auction/ViewItem.aspx?Item=282312372

Here's one that is pretty interesting. The restocking and rebluing doesn't make it interesting but the rebarreling to .30 Carbine is interesting. If this rifle were priced dramatically less I would pursue it as something to play with.

http://www.gunbroker.com/Auction/ViewItem.aspx?Item=282208048

By the way, didn't I mention ammo for these vintage autoloader is expensive! At first I thought it was a mistake, but it got relisted - no change. Just think how much he would want if the box had been full!!!

http://www.gunbroker.com/Auction/ViewItem.aspx?Item=282717944

By the way, a friend and I recently observed that the percentage of gunbroker sellers puffing on a crackpipe seems to continue to grow.

Steve, i got a real nice deluxe 1905 with 3x wood on it!!,its in 35 s.l. i don't believe they made many deluxe 1905's, my model 1910 in 401 shoots great, but ammo is a bit pricy. Don

Don - that's been my experience as well. Darn few of these autoloaders were made in deluxe versions. I had a very nice .401 in Deluxe version at one time. Come to think of it, I'm not sure I've seen a full deluxe in .351.

The .351 was used for a time as the only armament on French two-seater observation planes in WWI, before machine guns were adapted to planes. The French military also used it for arming military police and other non-frontline troops and apparently bought quite a few .351s because at one point they were manufacturing the cartridge for military use.

Two things about all these blowback semi-autos: 1) they all kick like mad considering the relatively low power of the ctgs., and 2) they have the reputation of being very ammunition-sensitive, even more so than other autoloaders--one of the things that makes reloading for them a pain. (And they DO throw brass a country mile!).

Does anybody know if .32 WSL brass can be made from .30 US Carbine brass? Or .32-20?

This deluxe model 1907 has been at Cabela's, Dundee for over a year, so you might be able to negotiate on the price some.

http://www.cabelas.com/product/Gun-Library/Dundee-Gun-Library%7C/pc/103792680/c/105931080/Winchester-Model-1907-Deluxe-351-WIN/1124784.uts?destination=%2Fcatalog%2Fbrowse%2Fgun-library-dundee-gun-library%2F_%2FN-1103645%2FNs-PRODUCT_NAME%257C1%3FWTz_stype%3DGNU

I have a plain vanilla, first year production 1907 that was in need of some fixing when I got it. I have acquired a few boxes of OWS reloads for it. It is a blast to shoot. I will be playing around with reloads for it this summer.

I also have its little brother Model 1903, made in the same year.

I don't know why link doesn't work, look in Cabela's Dundee Gun Library if interested.

I just found half a box of 351 kleanbores if anyone wants some.

don'cha all come runnin at once now..

This forum doesn't see the action the Savage forum sees

I found a waca forums page and could not quite fathom how slow it was.