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| Horace MacVaugh III July 11, 1943 with this gun |
Dad gave me a Winchester Model 1904 .22 cal Rifle that belonged to his father. He would take the rifle to school, carrying it on the train. The only requirement was to remove the rifle's bolt on the train. Eventually the process of removing the bolt resulted in the loss of the bolt.
As soon as I knew I was going to receive this rifle, I started a search on the Internet to find a replacement bolt. Looking at the usual places, including the Winchester Company web site and other online gun dealers, was not successful. Finally, I found a bolt for the 1904 .22 rifle in an auction on eBay. A previous auction for the same kind of bolt went for $94, so I decided to put in a bid with a maximum of $60. The auction had 5 days to go when I placed my original bid of $32. For a couple of days the auction had no further bids. With two days to go, someone placed a bid of $33 and my bid automatically went to $34. That stopped the action for the day. On the last day there was a series of bids placed by the same individual. Some bids were for just $1 over the existing bid, and after seeing my automatic bid topping that, the individual placed a bid of $5 over the existing bid. Again, my automatic bid put me $1 over the last bid. With just 2 hours to go, I checked and my bid was at $53, so at that time I decided to up my maximum to $80 just in case there was a flurry of bids as the auction closed. Sure enough, the same individual placed two more bids, taking the price to $66, but my automatic bids matched his and at the end of the auction, I had won the bolt with a final bid of $67!
The bolt was sent from New Mexico via USPS on February 7. I received it February 11. I inserted the bolt into the rifle this morning. In the process I learned that the bolt goes in much easier when the barrel has been removed from the stock because there is a capture spring on the under side of the magazine that has to be depressed for the bolt to slide home. Once inserted, the bolt cycled smoothly and the cocking mechanism set the firing pin. The firing pin moved forward when the trigger was pressed. Success!
I ran a copper brush through the barrel a couple of times and then used a barrel snake to further clean it. I didn't find any lead fouling and there was only a small amount of dirt that was removed by the brush and snake. The barrel appears to be bright with the lands clearly visible.
Dad, I think this little rifle is ready to shoot again--when the weather warms up a little! We'll have to try it out the next time you are up here!
