New Member, Not New to Winchesters


.22LR
Posts: 10
Joined: Thu Mar 08, 2018 7:16 pm
PostPosted: Thu Mar 08, 2018 7:48 pm
Good day to all from Colorado. I've been an active firearms enthusiast for more than 60 yrs having learned to shoot when I was 8 back in 1955. I've been a lurker on this site for a fairly long time and finely decided to join.

After a long, long search of some 20 years, I finally found myself a reasonably priced, pristine, pre-1964 Winchester 88 in .308 back in 2012. Actually, I had given up on ever finding a good example, however, a friend mentioned that his sister had one from her husband's estate and asked would I like to see it. Talking with the widow, I found that she ordered an 88 with select wood and a recoil pad from her local gunshop in Sept. 1959 as a Christmas present for her husband. She showed me the original receipt that showed the custom order. Winchester's custom shop installed it and delivered it to her gunshop in time for Christmas.

When her husband opened it at Christmas, he said that it was too pretty to take out hunting so he put it in his safe and it just sat until he was ready to use it. Sadly, he developed Parkinson Disease a few years later and he was never able to fire it. After inspecting this rare, unfired beauty, I agreed to buy it at her asking price. Here it is as it came from the factory with it's beautiful stock.

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Like many here, I have other leverguns, 8 in all, but I believe that the Winchester 88 is the pinnacle of levergun design and beauty and I'm proud to own this one.

As I don't keep what I don't shoot, I've set it up for deer and elk hunting. Even though I agree that it's almost too pretty to shoot, I have and being true to it's Colorado heritage, I added a period correct Redfield base and ring set and one of their Revolution 3-9 scopes (in deference to my 'seasoned' eyesight).

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Set up for hunting and shooting both my 150grn and 165grn hunting handloads, this beauty is a decent shooter with a smooth action and crisp trigger (for an 88) that helps me produce 1.5-2 MOA groups out to about 400 yds. In all, I couldn't be happier with it as it's one of my most favorite rifles.

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