Winchester is now owned by FN, the Belgian firm famous for the Hi Power, and its solid reputation in military small arms.
The Old Winchester plant was closed down by FN. FN complained of quality control problems, but they refused to update the machinery, and did little to nothing to improve and streamline production.
Today, all the Winchester leverguns that bear the Winchester name are manufactured in FN's Japanese factory. This includes the new re-released model 94. In reality, these are different rifles than the American examples. Their English measurements have been changed to metric, which means that some parts have been redesigned. Stock dimensions can also vary from the originals. Still, this is as close as we can get to newly made Winchester leverguns.
The good news in all this is that the Japanese made Winchesters are actually fine rifles. I have had the pleasure of looking over at least a dozen over the decades, and they all feature excellent fit and finish, and while their triggers and actions are not as good as American made examples, they do work well, and go bang when fired.
The bad news is that these are all limited production items, which makes them difficult to find, and they carry a premium price tag. Locally, the only way to get ahold of some of these guns is to place a special order, and hope it can get filled.
Taffin recently wrote a review of the new re-released 94 in GUNS magazine. He found the gun to be extremely accurate, and the full rifle barrel added a couple hundred fps. over factory listed velocity. If you can scrape up the funds, and don't mind that its made an ocean away, it sure seems to be a nice 30 WCF.
On the other hand, it might be that much better to get a hold of a model 64 Deer Rifle, and take to the woods in grand tradition.
