Gunmaster45
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I was under the impression Winchester's production quality somewhat deterierated throughout the times in production, and some were hit or miss, but I must have been ill-informed. I've handled several '94 Winchesters, and all but one had that annoying sloppiness in the lever. The one without the slop was a pretty old one, like 1920s I believe. Most of the 1892s I've handled though range from the early 1900s (up til about 1930 I think), all very impressive in functionallity.
As for the Savage 99, the example my dad owns must not be best quality, because frankly I didn't like it very much. The action was heavy, awkward, and the gun just has strange ergonomics.
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No you're right Winchester went up and down over the many decades that rifles were being made at the old site. Like any long running company. There are good years and not so great years, but over all Winchester was pretty consistent whne it came to QC.
Sometimes it had nothing to do with QC, but technology. I've spoken to gunsmiths who specialize on 19th century firearms. I've been told that some of the 1873's, 1876's and 1866's that they've worked on are beautiful firearms, but metallurgy was still evolving and some of the examples had soft steel. Excellent workmanship but soft steel.
I've also been told that some of the rifles and shotguns turned out during the 1920's were spotty. But in the 1920's Winchester was diversifying and had gone into the production of flashlights, tools, roller skates, and so on. For a few years Winchester actually owned a line of hardware stores where "genuine" Winchester products (firearms were secondary at this time) were sold. Naturally this bizare experiment was a miserable failure. I assume that there was just to much going on at Winchester and quality control wasn't as important.
On the other hand the 1950's is considered to be one of the best decades that Winchester ever had. If you get hold of one their rifles or shotguns from that decade (assuming it's been cared for) you've got a good one.
Winchester also made a comeback in the 1980's. And many of the changes introduced in 1964 were actually done away with by the early 90's thanks to CNC technology.
I own of the new Winchester Model 1895's. It was manufactured in 1996 and shows all the benefits of late 20th century technology and metallurgy. It's a beautiful and tight rifle.
But truth be told I prefer Marlin's lever action rifle. I own both a Marlin 1894CS in .357 magnum and a 336A in 30-30. I think the Marlin design is tighter and stronger. I bought my Marlin 1894CS brand new in 1983 and I've never had any trouble with it.
Sorry Winchester.
Savage redesigned the 99's stock in the sixties or seventies. They did away with that extreme drop in the rifle stock, gave it more of a shotgun butt instead of the 19th century curved butt and beefed up the front stock. In my opinion those changes made for a more comfortable rifle. That's what is used in the original Dawn of the Dead (1978) as well.