Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Winchester Collectors Winchester 71 chambered in 45-70 and 33 WCF

When I owned a gunshop in upstate New York and traveled the gunshow circuit there were some that chased the fabled Winchester Model 21 chambered in .405 Winchester. Pursued many dead end leads and nobody was able to find a legitimate example. Same was the case with a Savage 99 that was able to feed .410 shells from the rotary magazine. It simply didn't exist despite all the rumors and stories.

Thanks for the updated info! I have to admit I was curious and Wondering if there was a Correlation.LOL!
Like Bert was saying also a lot of Suspicion on that FIREARM!

Kinda reminds me of the fabled 70-150 in the Winchester Single Shot Model 1885!
Not to Hijack this thread but you get my point!

HS 58

Just git the Amoskeag catalog in the mail today and there's quite the write up on the Model 71 in question being serial #37911.
They're estimated Auction Price is $50,000-$75,000. U.S. Dollars! Plus the Juice!!!

HS 58

I read something interesting on this today. Probably speculation, but a guy on another site. In an old post, said that some early owners preferred the old 33 to the new 348 and returned some guns to be converted to 33. I hadn't ever thought of that but it does make some sense.

Interesting as I haven't heard that but that's the neat part about sharing info here on the Forum.

HS 58

i would be willing to sell my 348 Winchester 71 Special which is very nice for half that price . heck i would even give a box of 348 Win. Winchester ammo that `s 30 some years old , ammo is just like new.

IIRC there was a model 21 in 405 in the Winchester museum on Cody around 1978! (dating myself here and could be mistaken)

I’ve heard of the same speculation/opinion. If that were the case… I wonder if those barrels would be double proofed?

Ha, I’d sell 10 for that!

I saw the one at Amoskeag; which in my opinion, is without question a fake. What makes it worse is how much someone paid for it. I assume it’s a situation where someone hadn’t known there was such a unicorn out there in the wild, and they bought it as a potential investment. I had the most legitimized (that I’m aware of) first year deluxe 71 in 45/70 offered to me for roughly half that and I felt that was unreasonably high, so I didn’t bite…
After that auction, the price on that rifle went up $10k 🤦🏻‍♂️

Will it sell has yet to be seen.

I believe as more of these come out of the woodwork, the price will go down. But I’ve been wrong before.

If Winchester stuck to their standard practices, then I don't think they'd be double proofed. I don't think they would be any way to tell them from factory original.

This thought of rebarreling might play into why the 33 was offered as an option in 1938 literature. Of course, who knows. Just thinking out loud.

On the other hand, if there was much rebarreling done, there'd be a lot more 33s than you see

Agreed, I’d imagine there would be quite a few out there if that were the case. And there may be, although I’d think more would’ve turned up by now if so.