Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Old times gone....

I watched a High Wall auctioned off yesterday. 1892 manufacture date, .38-55, Special Order gun: heavy #4 barrel, vernier tang sight + spirit level front sight, gorgeous wood, sporting rifle stock, minty bore. Extremely nice condition. I was a bidder until the bidding shot past $2K (knowing full well it would go a lot higher, but, well, ya gotta get your 2¢ in). I sat back and watched the show which ended at an even $8K. Good theater!

Good stuff at auctions nearly always results in a bidding war between individuals who take the item far beyond what it may actually be worth presently or in the future. This is fueled almost always by egos and the refusal to let the item go to the competing bidder. Agreed it is good theater.

Have a newer version of that in .45-70. Pretty sure I won't outlive the brass in that one, much as I'd like to. Shoots fair most days. Tang sight and has a scope but I've not seen the need to use it to date. Load for the target below was a Lyman 457125, 30:1 alloy w/SPG lube, 60 grains of Swiss 1.5fg over 6 grains of SR4759 and a CCI LR primer. Haven't a clue what the market value might be, but I suspect the investment is secure. It was built in 2018.

I like your wood.

I polish it now and then.

Just like my brass.

Dan,

You asked how long before brass was no longer good. I cannot answer that question but I believe the ammo used on this cow moose had to be over 75 years old. Western acquired Winchester in 1931 I think and I believe merged the Winchester/Western ammunition name not long after that. I don't know for sure what year the boxes started being labeled Winchester/Western.

I had four boxes of the old Western ammo for the 8x56 Mannlicher Schoenauer. We had a couple college kids living with us while they finished school. The sister got drawn for a cow tag and chose my 8x56 out all the rifles for her hunt. I got her plenty of trigger time with some reloads and used a partial box of the old stuff to verify it would fire and to establish zero. It did the job just fine. The old 200 grain round noses both found their way to the off side and were classic mushrooms. I've probably fired 20 of the 70 rounds I had. No failures and no split necks.

Mart

Run her chamfer tool around. The mouth and usually you can feel it it's brittle. I have some ww1 06 brass that is still good. Was never fired and was pulled apart to fix the mercury problem.

mart, beautiful rifle, the moose isn't half bad either! How old is the Western ammunition?
ure like that colorful box.

WWI ammo was loaded with corrosive primers that wouldn't effect the brass. The mercuric primers in common use 15-20 years before were the culprits.

Mart, that's a beauty of a rifle, thanks for the info....old is gold now and then.

I can't say for sure because I don't know when the Winchester/Western name started appearing on the ammo boxes. I know Western acquired Winchester in 1931 and I think in 1935 they may have merged the names but I don't know enough about the ammo history to say for sure. If that's true, then the ammo has to be over 80 years old. Maybe someone with more knowledge of the Western Ammunition history could weigh in.