I need to replace some parts on a Win. Trapper 44mag I just bought. The end of the carrier is broken and possibly the nub on the end of the link. It may be the broken carrier that lets a round drop under it and not the link. The front sight has been filed down too far, who knows why. Possibly a cowboy action bubba. The sight is a soldered one. Can this be removed without damaging the blueing? Anyone with experience on these or suggestions? I have an older Leupold 3X that would probably be good for my ageing eyes but I want to fix the front sight anyway. Winchester still has a parts catalog and I hoped to order all parts needed on one order. Thanks, Tom.

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The front sight was not soldered on by the factory. Most any sight mfg can help you with the sight, Williams, Lyman, etc. Depending the type of solder used on your gun it may be possible to remove it without damage to blueing by careful use of heat. I suggest a gunsmith.

The carrier can be obtained from Gunparts.com.

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Thanks for your response. I talked to a local gunsmith about the sight and he suggested a little heat with a propane torch. If that doesn't work he said to just file it out. The slot is square cut, not dovetail. Numrich did not have the carrier in stock for this model but Winchester still has a catalogue and parts service. I have not had time to take the rifle apart yet to see if I need any other parts before placing an order.

My .45 colt Trapper is soldered on from the factory and my buddies .44 mag appeared to be as well. Mine shows no sign of any groove being milled into the barrel and I assumed Winchester felt the barrel was too thin on these larger calibers.
If yours is soldered on it is going to be Silversolder unless someone did some home gunsmithing. Silversolder melts at higher temps than lead/tin solders and may require quite a bit of heat to remove. I would be awful leery of applying too much uncontrolled heat to any rifle barrel and particularly one that thin. You might give Steve Young a call and talk to him. He's a top notch lever gunsmith and still has reasonable prices. He is also a wealth of info.
http://www.stevesgunz.com/
Good Luck,
Fiream

You are correct, the front sight IS soldered in place. I was looking at the newer trappers which are dove tailed in place. The change over was around 6,000,000 when USRA introduced the heavier (larger diameter) barrel. Sorry, I had forgotten that the older ones were silver soldered. "Older" ones being those made from 1980 to about 1990.

Firearm29 is correct, front sight removel on these guns is for a very good gunsmith and not the home workshop or wanna be gunsmith..

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Sure enough, my serial is 5480xxx. My buddy bought his within a week or two of mine so I'm sure his is in the same range. I had to special order it through RSR and was disappointed when it showed up with the permanently attached sight as I intended to put a small bead on it.
Was the sight changeover about the same timeframe when they added the cross-bolt safety?
I had been an avid Winchester enthusiast up to that point but lost interest in the new ones once they added it. I didn't mind the Angle Eject modification but that big safety was just too much. I don't remember paying much attention to them after that point. I sure wish I'd grabbed one in .357 at the same time. I was just getting my mind around the tang safety when Winchester went poof.
Thanks,
Fiream

I was mistaken when I thought the sight was set in a groove in the barrel. It's soldered on the outside radius of the barrel. This rifle is serial no. range 5.5 million and has the thin barrel. Thanks for all the information given on this.

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Yes, the crossbolt safety was introduced with 6000001. The angle eject and rebounding hammer was added about the same time near 5200000. A Model 94 of that period can have either the rebounding hammer or the angle eject but very shortly all 94s had both. Then in 1986 when USRA went into chapter 11 (bankruptcy), many of the guns were made of any combination of parts that Winchester (USRA) had on hand. Some very strange configurations came out of the factory during that period.

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Thanks for the info JBledsoe. Very interesting. I will have to go through mine and inspect them a little closer.
Thanks Again,
Guntoter