I took another look at it tonight. It seems that the majority of the resistance is at the beginning and end of the lever cycle, when the breechblock first drops down, and again when it goes into battery.

I also noticed that there is no bluing wear on any of the sliding components, the action looks new.

Maybe it's just a tight fit gun, and I need to cycle the action a couple thousand times while watching TV.

Sounds to me like the fit of the locking lugs to the bolt is very, very tight. This is a good thing accuracy wise, but can be a pain. Try putting a little high quality gun grease in the bolt locking lug recess. It won't take much. This isn't a fix, but if that is your problem you should see things ease up for a time. If grease eases things up a bit, then I would place some fine (320) lapping compound where the grease was and cycle the action a few hundred times. Clean it out real good, regrease and enjoy. You sure don't want to take off one more smidgen of metal than necessary, that is what I would lap and not polish.

Chargar has it exactly right. One other thing to look for before you start lapping: When you open the lever from its locked position, if you look on the lever right in front of the trigger, you'll see a little spring-loaded "nub" that catches to hold the lever in the locked position. Frequently this nub will have too sharp an angle, and bind when you try to lock/unlock the lever. Try a dab of graphite or moly powder applied with a toothpick on this little nub and see if that makes a difference.

I'm wondering about something here. I know a few people involved in the cowboy shoots that absolutely shun the M94 using pistol cartridges for the same reasons mentioned in the original post. I have one as well, in .45LC, and it too is stiff as described. Methinks the problem may be in the design of the rifle. Think about this. The M94 was designed for 30-30 length cartridges, not short pistol rounds. The internal geometry is all wrong for the shorter ammo, and changes had to be made to make it work. I believe these changes may be what is causing the stiffness at each end of the cyle. Frankly, I don't think there is much that can be done to alleviate the problem. I do think it can be worse in some rifles than others. While mine is somewhat stiff, I tried out one in .44 mag. that was a hell of a lot stiffer, and it had been used a lot more than mine.
Lubricating and lapping certain points may help, but I think the problem is inherent in the design.
Paul B.

< !--color--> I have a 94 in .45LC. Probably have put 500 rounds through it. Action worked fine when new, and gets smoother all the time. Sounds like you need a little help from a good armorer.

I've got the Trapper in 45Colt. Still newish, still stiff. The thing to watch for is running the action slowly - it will hang up and the bullet drop inside (thinking it's a wooden shoe). But if the action is snapped crisply, it works very well.