Winchester Model 94 Legacy .38-55

Guns Magazine, March, 2006 by Charles E. Petty

It's hard to believe the Model 94 Winchester is truly a century old, but it proves the adage, "Everything old is new again." Maybe it's the retro thing inspired by the cowboy action shooters or maybe we're finally remembering old doesn't necessarily mean obsolete. Either way Winchester's Legacy series 94s are breathing new life into a couple of great cartridges, especially the .38-55.

If you look back in the history of target shooting to the black powder day when Ballard rifles ruled, one of the most popular target cartridges was the .38-55 Ballard. Winchester, knowing a good thing when they saw it, came up with a cartridge called the .38-55 Winchester looking remarkably similar.

To their credit Winchester has kept the cartridge in the catalog all these years even though it has been generations since there were new guns made for it. The only factory load has been a 255-grain JSP at a sedate 1,282 fps in deference to lots of old guns built back in the black powder days that would be at risk with modern ammo. The new 94 can handle a bit more pressure and handloaders can spiff it up a bit. Not that you really need to hotrod it much, though, because that big, heavy bullet just doesn't slow down real fast and you could probably take any game in North America with it if you could get close and put the bullet in just the right place.

In my book Winchester gets an attaboy for making it possible for shooters of today to play with a cartridge virtually obsolete when I was a kid. The Legacy Model 94s are available in a couple of variations. The one we're testing is blued with a round 26" barrel. One of the cool things about this one is the inclusion of a Marble tang sight. In order to protect us from ourselves, Winchester installed a tang safety on the Model 94, which necessitates a new tang sight. The early ones use two screws which fit already established holes in the gun.

The new sight can use only one--the screw holding the stock in place--but it is more than enough security for the sight. It is adjustable for both windage and elevation and is a real asset to the rifle except for one small drawback. In the old days, rifles with factory installed tang sights either did not have a conventional rear sight at all, or used a folding style one. Winchester missed that lesson and equipped the new 94 with both sights. The only problem is the normal rear sight completely blocks the line of sight if you try to use the tang sight. You'll notice in the photos the rear sight is missing (actually it isn't missing at all, it is safely tucked in a drawer in my shop where I put it after taking it off).

To me the tang sight is ever so much better than the buckhorn and if you want to use it, the rear sight has to come off. Later I'll probably put a filler in the dovetail slot or maybe find one of the folding designs. The front sight is a plain post with gold bead.

With a 26" round barrel the new Model 94 weighs 7 pounds 11 ounces, so recoil really isn't a big deal whether shooting offhand or from the bench. The trigger isn't bad and breaks cleanly at 6 pounds. That helps. The stock is a nice, plain walnut with a little straight grain and a traditional curved, steel buttplate. All metal parts are nicely blued.

Testing was limited by the availability of factory ammunition. Those limited results are shown in the table, but frankly I viewed the .38-55 as a handloading project almost from the start. Bulk brass is available and, while the choices in jacketed bullets are limited, I found cast 250-grain bullets readily available. Maybe this is where we should point out another of the vagaries of cartridge nomenclature. Since this is a formerly black powder cartridge the name suggests a 38caliber bullet loaded with 55 grains of black powder. Close, but no cigar. By now we're conditioned to know that .38 really means .357, but this time jacketed bullets are .375" diameter and cast bullets are sized one or two thousandths larger. If we followed conventional wisdom and loaded normal .38s they'd just rattle down the bore. Oh well ...

I don't know about anyone else, but my primary attraction to the Legacy is as an elegant plinker. Factory loads might be acceptable for deer at close range although a modern handload would improve that a lot, and I'm sure the cowboy guys will like it for long-range steel. Actually that's one of the things on my agenda for later on, since the .38-55 is likely to become a staple here. My reason for saying so is the extremely good luck I have had using IMR Trail Boss in these old black-powder rifle cartridges. IMR has a couple of .38-55 loads in their latest handbook and I've settled on 6.5 grains of Trial Boss with a 255grain cast bullet. That delivers fight at 900 fps and consistently shoots under 3/4" groups from the Winchester with virtually no recoil. I also tried a load of 33 grains of H4895 with a Barnes 255-grain jacketed bullet at 1,625 fps. That was a real thumper and would certainly do for medium-sized game at relatively short ranges. But I think the new Legacy's calling is going to be as a fun gun. And you can have your choice of round or octagon barrels and blue or case colored receivers.