Interesting Model 1892

[Tom Butts]

So,I picked this one up from Gun Broker recently. A few things about it caught my eye. As you can see, the front of the stock has been cut, nothing uncommon about that. Upon closer inspection, we see that it is a '92 rifle. It is, except for the cut stock, all original 1892. It bolt is all 1892, it has the square and not the angle cut on the cocking piece, it has the threading on the sleeve, it was not made into 1896 by adding the hold open notch and pin. The muzzle is still flat with no crown. The stock has the flat buttplate, no trap and no rounded toe. It has a nice 1894 cartouche, it still has a '92 handguard (unfortunately, the front has been trimmed back). You can see that the cleaning rod channel is still there, where the stock has been cut back.
I found this interesting, as I don't remember seeing before a Model 1892 rifle, that had not been modified to 1896 configuration, before being cut down.
Thoughts?

[Whig]

It certainly is nice to see so many original M1892 parts on one rifle. The stock being cut is such a downer, it's hard to say what to do with it! It is almost as hard, if not harder, to find an original, unaltered, M1892 stock to switch out all these parts with. And, yours looks sooo wrong with that cut stock!

But, if the price was reasonable, I probably would have bought it, also, just to have all of these nice parts together. Never know when they might come in handy.

Not an easy one to splice on a new front part of the stock since the cut out is needed.

The bolt body isn't marked with a serial number, by chance, is it? I know only the first 300 were marked but you never know how these parts were switched around.

Good pick up.

[butlersrangers]

Tom - That is a pretty wonderful acquisition that certainly merits a quality restoration. So much is right about it ... nice snag!

You have a surprisingly light colored stock and hand-guard. If it were not for the 1894 'cartouche' date, I would think the wood is Italian walnut.

This is a worthy project!