I am dickering with a fellow over his Hi-Wall. Serial number is a 5-digit one and the action IS an original Hi-wall.

Little of it is still Winchester other than the action and trigger. Stock is a decent 40 year old or so replacement with a bunch of well-done small animal inlays, semi-schuetzen shape. Barrel looks like a truck axle...round, about #4 or #4-1/2 taper. Bore is dark but no individually discernable pitting. Butplate looks unaltered, but doesn't look Winchester to me...looks much like a "white-metal" plate from a schuetzen rifle which has had the prongs removed.

The only reason I am interested in the rifle is that it has a MINT condition original Winchester single-set trigger. The owner doesn't know that...he thinks the screw is for adjusting the unset trigger pull weight, and had it turned in so far the setting mechanism wouldn't work at all...but a half-turn counter-clockwise and the set works perfectly.

Chambering of the rifle is unknown at this point. He bought the gun used 30 years ago and it has sat in his safe unfired all this time. At first I thought it was a .32-40 from visual inspection of the chamber...but the barrel is definitely a .30, not a .32. So I am guessing it is a .30-30. That would be all right, as I would have it rebored to either .32-40 or .33-40 anyway, to freshen it up.

It also has a minty tang sight which looks right for the period but is not Winchester.

Any guesstimates as to a range I should be looking at paying within? I really want that trigger! Will buy the rifle to get it, if I can get it at a fair price.

That's a harder question than it might at first seem. Last year I picked up a High Wall 50's style varmint rifle for seven hundred. With that trigger the one you are looking at would be worth more. My guess, twelve hundred tops.

quote:

Originally posted by L. Rivard:
That's a harder question than it might at first seem. Last year I picked up a High Wall 50's style varmint rifle for seven hundred. With that trigger the one you are looking at would be worth more. My guess, twelve hundred tops.

Interesting...matches what I have said to a friend almost exactly. My own thinking so far is that just about any sound Hi-wall-actioned gun is worth maybe $700-$800 if in good shape.

Going upward in price from there, the closer it is to all original, the more it is worth. And this trigger should add maybe $250 to the value. On the other hand, the fact that the barrel is plain as mud, has no markings anywhere as to maker or chambering, not under the forend, not anywhere, does detract some.

So, so far, I would jump at it for $800 or $850, might want it at $1,000, and would call absolute tops about $1,150 to $1,200 though I probably won't elect to pay that for it after thinking it over thoroughly.

He does have another Hi-Wall in much nicer almost all original shape, Winchester #4 octagon barrel, double-set triggers, schuetzen stocks and butt plate, in .33-40 (freshed out from .32-40 by one of the Denver barrel-makers...Schoyen, Petersen, one of those guys)...that I might rather buy for $2,000.

The real attractive buy is his third gun, which is of no shooting value to me, but which I could make some money on. It is an original Hartford (or Bridgeport, I keep getting the two confused) Sharps in .45-70, plain as a fence rail but excellent bore, etc., which I could get for $700.

He doesn't really want to sell any of them, but is moving into an "assisted-living" retirement home where they won't let him have ANY firearms, so he has to try to find them homes among folks he knows and likes.

I'd grab that .33/40 in a heartbeat! Actually they all sound like great buys.