Back in 2006 I bought an unfired Winchester 1894-1994 commemorative rifle. This version is a 30-30 with a half-round barrel, checkered pistol grip stock, half magazine, engraved receiver, and the dreaded rebounding hammer and a cross-bolt safety.
![Image](https://i.imgur.com/UmGjPFw.jpg?1)
The first thing I did with it was remove the rear barrel sight and mount a Marbles tang sight. Like most rebounding hammer Winchesters, it was prone to misfires, so the rebounding hammer system had to go.
Using Joe Miller's idea for a lower tang swap that replaces the rebounding hammer system with the old traditional half-cock hammer & trigger, and with the help of lower tang pictures posted by Marc, I bought an early 80's coil spring lower tang assembly on Ebay. It was a straight tang, but the needed spring, strut, and hammer fit perfectly in my curved lower tang. By clipping 2 coils from the spring, stoning the sear, and polishing the moving parts, I now had a three pound trigger that breaks clean and no more misfires.
Next, I removed the useless cross-bolt safety. This left a large cone shaped void in the upper rear right side of the receiver. Tycer's idea of using a 30-30 cartridge head to fill the void left by removing the cross-bolt safety looked mighty good to me. The hole passing completely through the receiver was 17/64" diameter, so I took a long 5/16" mild steel bolt, cut off the head, chucked it in my drill, and filed the diameter down while the drill was turning it. When the bolt was reduced enough to pass snugly through the receiver hole, I cut it to the proper length, then polished and cold blued the bolt. Then I used super glue to attach the cut off cartridge head to the filler bolt.
![Image](https://i.imgur.com/E3dNS2R.jpg)
Removing the cross-bolt safety left a tiny hole in the right rear inside area of the receiver. I put my new filler bolt in with the cartridge head oriented correctly and marked where this tiny hole lined up on the bolt. I removed the filler bolt and used a 4-40 tap to thread that tiny hole in the rifle receiver. I then drilled a shallow hole in my filler bolt at the marked spot just large enough and deep enough to freely accept a 4-40 x 1/4" set screw.
![Image](https://i.imgur.com/sTrlM8V.jpg)
With the filler bolt in place and the set screw tightened, everything is quite secure. I can easily remove the filler bolt, which is necessary to do if I want to disassemble the rifle's action. Looking at the left side of the receiver, I contemplated cutting a slot in the exposed end of the filler bolt to make it look like a screw, but decided to leave it alone.
![Image](https://i.imgur.com/hcrHluW.jpg)
My intention for this rifle was silhouette shooting, for which it was well suited except for one thing. A silhouette relay is five shots, but my rifle’s short magazine held only four rounds, forcing me to do a one round reload each time. I decided to extend the magazine enough to hold five rounds. I changed out the half-magazine tube for a 2/3 tube, and now the rifle will hold six rounds in the magazine. I posted a thread some time back explaining how I did the magazine tube extension job.
The latest changes were swapping the Marble’s tang sight for a cool Montana Vintage Arms Soule Vernier and changing the front bead sight to a Lyman 17A globe sight. Silhouette rifles don’t come much better. I just wish I was a better shot!
![Image](https://i.imgur.com/w8OI4Es.jpg)
Shasta