1873 Winchester 38-40

Question
Sid:

I'm not sure whether you can help me or not but I recently purchased a Model 73 Winchester Rifle (Mfg 1892)in what I would call "Mint Condition". How can you tell if the gun has been refinished or not? Its condition is just too good to be true, metal and wood. Any ideas?

Thanks,

Selby

Answer
Selby,

Sometimes "too good to be true" is just that.... true good to be true and would warrant suspicion of a reblue. That said I have seen many firearms over the years that were original with great bluing that had not been reblued. Usually the price is a factor also assuming that you purchased from a honest and reputable person/dealer.

I have seen some rebluing done on firearms by "Fords" for instance that was almost impossible to tell that they were ever reblued. Most often however companies that reblue are not doing so at the same level of expertise and "things" change in the process.

Here are few (but now necessarily foolproof) tips to look for as hints of rebluing:....... The lettering often looks blurry. When new the edges of markings are a bit swelled from the stamping procedure. When polished/reblued those same edges can become smooth and/or blurred.

Another is to look for edges and corners that were sharp and defined when factory new, now rounded or unsharpened no longer having a sharpened edge/appearance.

If pitting is obvious but the finish is like new, its probably been reblued over the pitting.

The metal surface under grip edges etc. are very often NOT polished to the degree that the rest of the gun was prior to rebluing. Take same off and examine the metal appearance campared to the rest of the gun, if it does not measure up to the polish on the rest of the gun..... very likely it has be reblued.

Of course the most obvious sign is if in the rebluing process they   used a process that resulted in the basic color of the gun blue being way off from what it originally looked like.

I hope this gives you a bit of help and thanks for the question Selby.

Sid Lark