Jäger, Beginning in 1899, Winchester starting serial number was 19872. In that year the produced 6562 model 95's. So 1899 it is.
So the date stamped on the receiver predates the manufacture date of the rifle by at least four months??? I'm not a collector, but now I'm interested in the story of how that happened. I guess I should find a Model 95 collector group to check in with - this kind of stuff is probably old news to them.
I just can't see my grandfather ever bothering to do that, and why that particular date, although as a machinist he could do that as neatly as anybody if he ever decided he wanted to. There's no date stamped on his other guns I have, the hunting knives he made, etc. Not impossible, but why? It's so small you really have to be looking to see it.
I never, ever thought to ask my Grandpop the story on his rifles and shotguns. I was gun/shooting crazy even at that young, but curiosity about guns and where they came from hadn't appeared on my pea sized brain's horizons yet.
I do know that part of the reason he didn't follow the family biz of military career was he was a hunting and fishing fanatic. Opportunities for that in Scotland for a soldier from the ranks were pretty minimal. HIS grandfather was RSM of the Gordon Highlanders and fought in a couple of the Brit-Afghan wars (both won by the Brits handily, despite "everybody knows" assumptions otherwise) and a few uprisings in India and Egypt. It only took him about 30 years of being dragged around the globe to rise to that rank and a better pay scale that could afford some of the nicer things in life. I don't recall my Grandpop ever being a particularly patient man. Kind and grandfatherly - but not patient.
Over the pond was a different matter - my Grandpop apprenticed as a fitter/turner, became a fireman on some short haul railroad in Scotland, immigrated in response to railroads over here recruiting back home, and was an engineer running steam loccies shortly after that manufacturing date. A single guy with a dog named Buck and a horse named Shot... and railroad money to burn hole's in the pockets of his batchelor's pants. He was living in railroader quarters back then, according to him.
I do know he owned the rifle prior to heading back home to join the family regiment to fight in WW I after the war broke out. One of many who did that.
I probably wouldn't be here except somebody found out he was a fitter/turner and said something along the lines of "What the hell are you doing in that trench? Get your ass out of there and go report to Woolrich Arsenals and make yourself useful". The Gordon Highlanders regularly got slaughtered in WWI, and a couple of his cousins bought the farm in some of those battles: Mons, Ypres, Neuve Chapelle, the Somme, the Marne, Amiens, etc.
I have a box full of stuff: his journeyman papers, his Woolrich Arsenal pass, pictures of Woolrich Arsenal, his "Excused Wartime Service As Essential Labour" certificate, ration books, his "You can go home now, the war is over" letter, etc. He came home from Scotland in 1920 with a new N.R. Davis shotgun, a new bamboo flyrod and reel (that I also now have and occasionally fish with, complete with the silk line that was still stored with the reel in an oiled envelope) - and a new wife, a grandmother who died just before I was born.
The old boy was crazy about hunting and fishing, kept a diary on his hunting and fishing outings and his success or lack therof, etc. His only other hobbies that I know of were playing field lacrosse as a young man, and making working replicas of the steam loccies he was engineer of on a foot powered treadle lathe. He still had a tiny, tiny little workshop right beside the coal shed when I was a little kid. It wasn't for hobbies, it was for doing small piecework to augment his income. His last tax return filed by my dad after his death shows that between his government pension and union pension, his annual income was $1800 a year - that was back in the 1960's.
I don't know when the machining tools disappeared, but I have one of the three steam loccies he built - the other two have disappeared without a trace. Fed water and coal/BBQ briquettes/wood, they run.
I haven't found anything in his hunting stuff that indicates he used his machinist skills/tooling to build anything for hunting/shooting other than a hunting knife for himself, and a near identical hunting knife for my Dad. Functional stuff, not art: steel blades with bone handles, in heavy leather sheathes made by two halves held together with copper rivets.
In the Providence paper work the aperture diameter is .070. The can supply a drilled aperture diameter of .055 for target shooting or bad eyesight. Further it's stated that the large Marbles aperture insert also works well. I'm guessing that would require drilling and tapping.
I'm sure I still have the paperwork that came with the sight around here somewhere - I never throw out stuff like that. Or I can reach them via the Internet. I assume the .055" refers to the actual size of the aperture, not the size of the threaded hole it threads into? That could work if the hole left after the threaded aperture disk is removed is large enough for hunting purposes.
I'll take a picture of my Lyman 21 which does have a threaded aperture disk in it. Did have a small box of threaded disk of various sizes, might be in a drawer, I'm thinking. I did have a adjustable disk by Millit sights.
I remember seeing Lyman sights similar to this replica design on a 95 where there was a fine aperture that flipped up to reduce the diameter of the aperture you were using when it was in the down position. If I remember rightly, there was a little tit at the top of the flip up fine sight that fitted into the housing at the top of the main, larger sight. Might have even been brass. Should poke around on the internet.
That PH4 sight is awesome. That adjustable disk must be about the size of a quarter. Nice set up.
They were actually pretty common until the Lee Enfield collecting craze started about 20 - 30 years ago. Lee Enfields of the last two versions were used in competitive shooting in all the Commonweath nations. In lesser numbers, the Canadian Ross rifles were the real stars - so good that the Brits found an excuse to ban them from competition at the international matches at Bisley after WWI.
The primary makers of vernier competition sights for the Lee Enfield patterns (as well as the P14/P17 patterns) were Parker Hale, and at the top, Alf Parker and his wife. Just about every single DCRA conversion No. 4 Mk1* rechambered to 7.62 I have seen either here in the US or in Canada had either a A.J. Parker or Parker Hale vernier sight installed for shooting way out there.
My brother mounted an A.J. Parker Twin Zero on the Long Branch I gave him that placed second in the grouping testing of those rifles. Like me, he bought that sight prior to the Lee Enfield and accoutrements collection craze. I think I got mine off a table at a gun show for about $30 if I recall. I even remember when you would see Long Branch T snipers, in the wooden crate they came in, complete with scope and mount, cleaning kit, all matching serial numbers, for $300. And I used to wonder "Why would anyone want to pay that kind of money for a war surplus Lee Enfield with those cheesy scopes from back then that can't even compare to a Bushnell from today". Now buying those rifles would cost you around $7,000 - or more. A like-new Long Branch No. 4 Mk1* that sold for about $150 when I sold that bunch I bought (at a profit) would be snapped up at $1000.
I think my Parker Hale vernier with the two adjustable aperture rears would probably go for over $300 now - easily. My brother's A.J. Parker and what he has with it probably would go for $450+ now.
Interesting trivia as I understand it from the milsurp collectors out there: Alf Parker's wife was his partner in making A.J. Parker sights for the competitive trade. They sold to Fulton in England, the DCRA in Canada, and shipped them to rifle associations and individuals in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, etc.
After Alf Parker died, his widow continued making those rear sights for sale around the world - the demand slowed down as bolt guns started disappearing from the firing line to be replaced by gas guns, but it never disappeared. She made them the way Alf had done and taught her to do - on a treadle foot lathe and similar period machinery. Stopping to visit with her and see the workings of A.J. Parker became a bit of a pilgrimage for fullbore competitors traveling to England to shoot at Bisley, go shopping at Fulton, etc. And there she would be, at her foot treadle lathe, making A.J. Parker vernier target sights. No doubt a spot of tea was shared with the visitors.
If I recall, she eventually died maybe about ten years ago, well into her 90's, and apparently still making sights and replacement parts for sights until close to her death. I don't recall what happened to her machinery and what she had left for sights, parts, etc after her last day spent on that foot treadle machinery. I'd be surprised if the British NRA didn't rush in to obtain it and save it for a museum or something similar.
Here's some vernier sight bling for you:
When you start using these sights, if you're half assed serious about trying your hand out there past 300/400 yards, then you start learning about "Lee Enfield minutes" (change the sight radius... then the click adjustments are no longer the same, are they now?). I can get an enormous amount of fun laying on my belly all slung up, poking away at a target way out there. A day can go by before you know it - and the exercise portion is dealt with jumping on your bicycle to ride out to where your target is to patch it up. I do miss military ranges with a butts party to do all the scoring and patching work, but having a nice quiet range all to yourself is pretty nice as well.
I can grab my real camera with the macro lense and get some better pictures of the sight if you're curious, but there's a fair number already available, particularly on Fleabay of all the different makes and models of vernier sights for all kinds of rifles from the heyday period of fullbore competition: LE's, Springfields, Martinis, etc.
I'll get a picture of my site and the patent stampings. My 95 takedown I believe was built in 08 IIRC.
If Winchesters were altered by the factory they were stamped under the forearm, and under the butt plate or tang. Can't remember. Sold off most of my collection of Winchester takedowns and single shots in early 90's.
I haven't taken off the wood and probably never will unless it becomes necessary for some reason or other. I didn't see any other numbering or stamping other than what looked like original roll stamping at time of manufacture on the exposed metal. I took a fairly careful look at the wood and didn't see any cartouche or similar stampings. But I did see some stamping on the sling that I have never noticed before:
HOYT
1918
UJM
Now I guess I have to go back and take yet another look at the rifle end to end.