Sighting and Shooting
The first range session took place with the factory open sights, a classic rear buckhorn with an elevation ladder, and a brass bead front sight, .07″ in diameter. The buckhorn sits just in front of the action since the rear sight dovetail is about 1/2″ farther back than those on old 94’s. The sight notch is pretty small — making it harder to see for a guy who’d recently signed up for Medicare. But I shoot with irons year-round and 3-shot groups at 50 yards with several different brands of factory ammo averaged a little less than 1-1/2″.
Such accuracy might not seem adequate to millennials who consider 1/2″ groups at 100 yards barely adequate for slaying deer but somehow a lot of venison ended up in frying pans after being .30-30’d by previous generations of hunters.
The elevation ladder on the buckhorn was apparently designed around 170-gr. ammo. In its lowest position, all 150-gr. loads landed several inches above point-of-aim at 50 yards, meaning a taller front sight would need to be installed for correct sight-in.
I didn’t bother, instead mounting a 3X Leupold scope in traditional Weaver “Detachable Top Mount Rings,” as they’re now called. These used to be called “Tip-Off” rings, because they can easily be used as very repeatable detachable mounts. Apparently the “tipping” connotation doesn’t work for 21st-Century marketing.
The front Weaver base can be reversed for different ring separations. While I ended up turning the base “forward” so the front ring sat in front of the action, I first screwed the base with the cross-slot over the front of the ejection port to see whether it might interfere with a flying .30-30 case. It didn’t as ejected cases slipped easily under the base and flew across the workbench.
With the scope, the rifle weighed a couple ounces over 8 lbs., and at 100 yards factory loads grouped in the typical 2 to 3″ expected of tube-magazine, lever-action .30-30’s. However, I also tried my favorite .30-30 handload, the 170-gr. Nosler Partition with Hodgdon’s listed maximum charge of LEVERevolution powder.
This shoots very well in the Model 64 and the Partitions consistently penetrate deeper than typical cup-and-core softpoints. That is reassuring when hunting around my Montana home where animals larger than deer frequently show up, whether highly edible elk, or (rarely) a grizzly running toward the hunter rather than away. In the 94 Sporter this load grouped three shots under 1-1/2″ at 100 yards — very fine accuracy for a rifle with all sorts of stuff hanging on the barrel. Oh, and the full-length magazine permits an 8+1 capacity in .30-30. The Sporter can also be had in .38-55 and .32 Winchester Special.
This 21st-century version of an ancient rifle looks good and works “good” as well. Some hunters might find the lack of sling-swivel studs odd, especially for hunters used to attaching a bipod. But more traditional types often feel a Winchester .30-30 should be in your hands when slipping through the woods, where a sling or bipod often hangs up on pieces of Mother Nature.
Of course, you could just buy a horse and keep your 94 in a saddle scabbard. Believe it or not some Montanans, even a few millennials, still do that!