Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Winchester Collectors Model 54 30 WCF

Amen, Ted, amen! (And to toll the virtues of a Remington on the Winchester forum is blasphemy in its highest form! )

Except for the crappy triggers.

I’m very fond of M54’s, crappy triggers and all. One must realize that the newest one you’ll find is 87 years old.
Really enjoy shooting vintage guns with old two stage triggers, receiver or open sights and low comb stocks…..a true test of one’s shooting skills.

Maybe I'm just lucky, but every 54 I've owned had a very nice usable trigger, which breaks lightly/cleanly on the second stage of the pull. A lot of guys who missed growing up on 2-stage triggers on Springfields, Mausers, Krags, etc. or who have self-indoctrinated themselves against them, will decry their existence or at best damn them with faint praise. The protocol of taking up the slack of the first stage (put there for a genuine safety precaution), holding it there while fine tuning the sight picture, and then giving it the final squeeze, is so ingrained into my very soul that I don't even think about it. And, no, I have zero problems when switching around on my guns which employ every kind of trigger known to mankind - it's not that hard to think about what you're doing!

Or to NOT think about what you’re doing Gary

I’m sure whatever was popular for shooting in that part of Oregon was probably popular in northern Nevada as well. Those 788’s in the 30-30 were popular on the Rez I remember seeing a few of them. Even a couple 44 mags in 788.

I grew up in a house full of Winchester 52s and 70s, plus a few Remington 37s, so I was indoctrinated from an early age to appreciate the value of a crisp trigger. While two-stage triggers might have been a good idea for military rifles, if they were such good an idea commercial rifles manufacturers would have adopted them.

Despite their crappy two-stage triggers I like the over-all aesthetics of the Savage 1920s and 20/26s, proving that logic goes out the door in the world of rifle looneyism.

I'd really like to find a beat up 54 in 30/30 myself and have it rebarreled with a set of heavy barrels in 38/55, 32/40, 30/30, 25/35 and 219 zipper. Put it in a marksman stock and make a faux target rifle in the rarest calibers they made.

Just found out one of my buddies has a model 54 30-30 he got from his grandpa. He says he loves that rifle. We are going to get together and do some shooting with our bolt action 30-30's. I told him I want to get some pics of both rifles together. When I do, I'll post them here.

That will be interesting to see them together and compare the two.

They may be the only 2 in town, so it will be cool to have them on the same bench. I tried to shoot my rifle yesterday, but it was too damn cold (19 degrees), and the wind was howling and it started snowing on me. After 10 minutes out there, my jacket was covered in snow and my peep sight was plugged. Couldn't even see through it. Had to call it, but went back later. Good luck with your search. I'd imagine they are pretty dang hard to find, but still out there.

Below my Model 54 Carbine in "30 W.C.F. from 1930. Note especially the receiver top without clip guides reflecting a special receiver made solely for this rimmed cartridge model! Note too, technical chambering nomenclature as not "30-30" which Winchester adopted production wide in 1932 as I recall.
The rifle version to my belief is less common and has the era European schnabel stock.
As far as notions of chambering conversion to "like" rounds, I'd just be mindful that there might be receiver guide rail consequences.
This is a great little rifle. As mentioned above I also have a Rem 788 and it's good too. Just a bit of the rougher production quality typical. Glad I own it too!

Best!
John

That is very cool John. So they don't have a hinged floorplate? Thanks for sharing the pics of your rifle.

The 54’s did not have hinged floor plates.

Thanks J. I have never owned one. I have picked them up at gunshows and looked at them, but don't know much about them. I'm looking forward to seeing the one my buddy has. He's wanting to get together and check another one of his "work" rifles out and I think he's anxious to show me his grandpa's 54. So we will have tacticool rifles out and really cool old rifles out. ha ha...

Interesting thread, I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

The stamped bottom metal is my only criticism of the 54 Winchester. But what the hell, it works. (And how many of us have really employed the hinged floor plate on other rifles except maybe to dump the magazine contents at the end of the day of hunting? Short stroking the rounds and ejecting them into my upturned cap has been my protocol in that situation all my life anyway, even with hinged floor plate guns because with them I invariably drop one or all of them on the ground anyway due to frozen fingers.)

Actually, I have another complaint about the 54 - it helped seal the fate of the Springfield M1903 NRA Sporter. The Armory stopped building them when the bolt action hunting rifle market in the late 20's-early 30's was finally satisfied by commercial interests, ie: the Winchester 54 and Remington 30. (The NRA Sporter was the result of the gov't wanting to provide a quality bolt action hunting rifle to the American public. Imagine that!!!! When commercial manufacturers finally got off their butts, the problem was solved and Springfield bowed out.) More's the pity, the '03 NRA Sporter was/is a mighty fine rifle, but so's the 54 and I love 'em both.

Good post gnoahhh. I agree about the floor plate. Not a huge deal to me either, as I grew up with a sporterized m1917. That's actually my favorite rifle to hunt. No hinged floor plate on those either, so you just get used to dealing with them in the appropriate manner. Like you said, short stroke it and eject the cartridges out. You don't have to fully chamber the cartridge. I've seen some guys do that and I shake my head. Definitely no need to do that with a good CRF. All this talk about the model 54 in 30-30 is making me want one. Guaranteed, if I run across one at a good deal, I'm snagging it!! I've been having fun with that dreaded Remington (cough cough) 30-30 bolt action, I just got. Of course we know the 54 has more cool factor going for it though.

Keechi kid, here you go:


Winchester model 54 30WCF

Winchester model 54 30-30

My 54 .30-30 isn't as nice as either of those two. It's steel is definitely showing gray, like its owner, but she's still very clean and presentable and most importantly has a pristine bore and shoots like there's no tomorrow.