.45 colt Winchester 94AE Trapper link fix

So, in the summer of 2010, a good buddy of mine gave me a Winchester 94 Trapper(16” barrel) in .45 Colt for my birthday, as a companion piece to my Berretta .45 revolver.  In the late fall of that year the sucker broke… Probably from the recoil of some Hot handloads he made me for it, that I was shooting in it as a pretty regular diet…   A steady diet of Hot ammo can hurt the best of guns, and late model 94s (this is a 1994 made centennial model, marked 1894–1994) aren’t exactly known for the best parts quality either, so it took its toll.

What broke, was the small tip off the link, that forms the cartridge stop. This tip, as the action is opened, rotates up behind the rim of the next shell in line in the magazine tube, preventing that shell from feeding into the action under the carrier and jamming the action.

That just what happened after it broke; that next shell, or any shell put in the mag would shoot into the action and jam it. 

I never had the cash to fix it that year, and then after I got into welding i figured i could just add some metal to it, re shape it and use it. And if it didn’t work to do that, I wasn’t losing anything, it needed replaced anyway….

So, for the last 4 years, I kept forgetting about it or putting it off. Until recently when I got the Remington model 25 projects, and decided I better finish old gun projects before I start anything new. So I finally fixed the darn thing!

Did just as I had planned; added metal with the welder, and ground it to rough form, then file fit it… Adding metal took a couple minutes.  Fitting it took 3.5 hours of file, assemble gun, try a round, un jam the action, take rifle apart, file, assemble gun, and repeat. And repeat again. And again… add naseum…  

I originally fit it to an exact match to the link out of my Win94 30–30 since the shell rim size is very close, it would tell me how high is too high that would risk hitting the primer on a live round… And it would give me a basic shape too. 

But that didn’t fully work; it was still too high and indented .45 cartridges as they passed… Realized that even though the 30–30 rim size is really close to that of the .45, the shell body itself is smaller, so the nub can be higher. Or, more applicable, must be shorter for the .45 Colt.

Anyway, the result is a functioning action, and the fact that I can take the whole thing apart and re-assemble it in less than a minute!

It will still let a round past if its an Old case with a heavily worn or rounded rim. Not perfect, but all I have to do is sort my brass a little more carefully for rifle rounds when I handload my ammo. 

Have yet to fire it, to see if it will pass a round upon recoil of firing, but I think it will be fine. If its not, I can always weld on it just a tad, and re-file it a little longer.

Adding metal with the flux core wire feed;

Filing to fit, about half way there, when it almost matched the 30–30 link;