“... new in box Winchester 94. Upon racking the lever, a bullet would seat on the elevator as normal, but upon closing the action, it wouldn’t raise quite high enough to meet the chamber...
...Henry (I think, been a long time) chambered in .44 magnum. Upon opening the action, only one bullet would come out of the tube, all others after it would stick...
...444 marlin that wouldn’t pull rounds out of the tube AT ALL...
...357 magnum cimmaron. Upon opening the lever, all the rounds in the tube would spring into the action...” [This_Dude, post 6]
Without questioning the veracity of Swordmaker’s experiences, I worked some 13 years in gun sales and repair at a small family-owned dealership. We saw malfunctions exactly like the ones you describe, plus some additional ones, in new rifles and old ones.
Sad to say, final fitting and general quality control have been declining slowly for many years. Parts are not fully machined, retain burrs or casting spillovers, or are improperly fit. How in the world the guns got through function checks and final inspection, I’ve no idea.
Not every gun is fully cleaned after manufacture, nor are they necessarily cleaned after test firing. Sometimes they are over-lubricated after final assembly and test firing, with preservative grease. Metal chips not completely cleaned out after fabrication can be retained: the gooey, sticky crud that sometimes forms from all these different substances mixing together lubricates nothing. It hides in nooks and crannies, outlasts routine cleaning, and can get pushed from here to there suddenly during cycling of the action. It can tie up the gun quicker than a handful of sand. Tighter too.
What was your 94 chambered in? Memory indicates that lifter-misalignment malfunctions happened more often with guns chambering pistol rounds like 45 Colt and 44 Magnum; the 94 action was initially designed for long, tapered cartridges (30-30, etc) and the modifications needed for the short cartridges put the system right against its limit.
94s were notorious for the cartridge guide retainer screws loosening. If this happened, the malfunction you described would occur, plus others.
Another problem occurred in 94s we could not explain. The operating cam at the upper rear of the lifter became mismatched with the activating lug on the bottom of the bolt. It threw off timing and movement of the bolt and the lifter, preventing proper positioning of the cartridge. How the mismatch occurred, we never could figure out: it was as if someone had installed different parts. Extensive grinding, filing, and polishing were needed to fix it.
We saw the Henry and 444 Marlin malfunctions often. If the cartridge aperture, tube seat, and tube edge were even slightly misaligned, or incompletely deburred, or improperly fit, rounds could be loaded with little trouble, but when forced back by the magazine spring, their rim frequently hung up on the tiny ledges and corners in their way.
Which Cimarron replica were you working with? This sounds more like a balky cartridge stop on a 92 than anything in a 73 or similar actions. The cartridge stop spring on 92s isn’t very strong on its best day. Didn’t trouble originals much: they enjoyed the finest engineering, materials, and workmanship Winchester could summon, at a time when Winchester occupied a favored spot among the world’s foremost gunmakers. Replicas don’t always have it so good.
It must be noted that the decline in American manufacturing sometimes has resulted in a bunch of parts that didn’t really fit the rest of the gun being assembled, but the assemblers pushed, twisted, and beat on stuff until all went into place. Sort of.
More than once, I removed the magazine tube plug from a Winchester 94, or a band screw, only to see the magazine tube or forend jump out of place. Happened with Marlins too. Major efforts were sometimes required to get them back in place. My employer sold many 94 carbine band screws every day, to people who had damaged their original screw, trying to reassemble their rifle.
Most of my experience predates all of the lever replicas and refers only to original makers which were pretty solid. Just as I was leaving the business, Rossi was importing a replica Winchester model 1892 but they’d been selling it for years in South America, and had started under license from Winchester many years before.
One caveat I’d add, there was a period in gun making in the mid sixties to early 70s where the quality coming out of Winchester, Marlin, and even Smith & Wesson went to hell in a hand basket. Colt kept their quality up. I wouldn’t own a Winchester 94 made in that period if you paid me. Many had parts mounted so loosely they rattled if you shook them.
Winchester essentially dropped almost all machining for sinter-cast parts and roll pins instead of solid machined steel. I saw some real crap shipped during that period, especially in their commemoratives. As part of this move to more simple manufacturing, they laid off a lot of journeyman gunsmiths in favor of lower cost assembly line workers. The new methods required less finicky fitting. I guess Winchester figured those commemorative rifles and carbines wouldn’t get fired as much.
Would you believe we got a mated pair of 1866 Winchester Centennials, rifle and carbine (the gold plated one), sent from Winchester direct (we were also a Winchester west-coast distributor) and when I was inspecting them as we did every gun we put on retail sale, discovered that although these two rifle barrels had factory inspector proof marks as having been test fired, proof firing would have been absolutely impossible because neither barrel had ever been chambered! Our gunsmith was floored. Winchester wanted them returned but we found four other 94 rifles with Chamber problems, those got returned. The owner sold the Commemorative pair to a collector friend for a considerable premium, like about five times the price for working guns!
S&W went with laying off vastly experienced grinders and polishers and figured they could hire low wage people and stick them with the finishing work. HAH! We were getting S&W Model 29 .44 Mag. revolvers shipped in in the early 70s (we were not a Rep for them) where the fit and finish had gone to hell. We got one where the blue was actually purple, another that had a big thumbprint on the side plate, and a nickel plated gun that looked as if it was more a third generation replate, there were so many dips and lost edges in the polish job, than a new gun. Even with S&W guns on an allocation system, we wouldn’t sell that junk and returned them as unacceptable.
Guns made prior to 1964 had much better quality than these post-64 made guns. They finally got thing back on track about 1974.
Another issue we saw was dented magazine tubes from guns that had been dropped. A dent even up in the forward of the foremen cap area could constrict the movement of cartridges enough that function would be impaired. Add an old weakneed magazine spring and you’ve got a feed problem.
We had one rice grower over in Yolo County whose idea of ostentatious waste was to buy expensive, engraved and gold inlayed guns and just throw them in the bed of his pickup truck to be exposed to all kinds of weather, then a year or two later bring them back, all weather beaten, scratched to hell and dented and dinged. Missing several of the gold inlays to trade in for another fancier gun, which he’d proceed to leave the protective leather case in the store, walk to his pickup and toss into the bed of the truck. He bought a Midas Grade O/U 12 gauge Shotgun every other year that way, bringing back the wreck for which we’d give him $200 in trade. He also did the same with a deluxe Winchester 94 with engraving and gold inlays. Same deal. If they got filched out of his truck, he’d call and we’d get him replacements. He didn’t give a damn. . . except to show off his wealth to his buddies that he didn’t give a damn.
We cringed when we saw him coming.
It was chambered in .30-30. never was much for pistol caliber carbines myself, unless it’s full auto. Thompsons of all models will always have a place in my heart