That always makes me a little nuts, when I try to decide if I'm committing some sort of sacrilege in parting out a decent original old gun. I have mixed emotions considering how many have been reworked, so I'm glad it's you and not me making the decision!

A word. Check the receiver as Winchester used a small shank for those that were to be Pistol level cartridges. I have an early Hiwall with the small shank. Rebuilt it into a 30-30 with a Douglas premium air gage barrel. Planned to shoot light weight bullets and drive them hard and shoot Woodchucks. But had to give up on that plan because of the small shank size. Have never got back to it in 30 years. If you do take yours apart I could be interested in the Barrel. HTH Regards
FITZ.

I'm not a Winchester single shot collector, but I'm guessing that most of the pistol sized cartridges like the 32-20 were made on the LoWall action; and the High Walls were mainly for larger calibers.  I would leave it as it is.  If you want something heavier, you should  pass it on to someone who appreciates it as it is; then start with something that isn't so original.  I do have to confess that I really like the 32-20 which would certainly make me want to keep it as it is.   

George

It definitely is a #1 action, I knew that at the time I bought it.  I bought it as a low wall, but the picture showed it to be a high wall.  I'll not use it for anything bigger than a .38-55, so the small shank is fine.  The serial # is in the 4700 range, so it's a very early gun.  They hadn't standardized on low walls for the smaller cartridges then.

On bringing it home and looking at it with some magnification, it is obvious that someone used something abrasive to remove some of the rust freckling, and ended up scratching one side of the receiver quite a bit.  The whole barrel is the same way.  No reason for that, rubbing it with a wood block and some oil would have taken off the rust freckling without any scratches.  But, it is what it is.  The scratches are too fine to see easily without magnification, but they're there.

On using a poorer action for a custom?  I've just gone through and squared up and sanded the pits and buffing waves out of a converted varmint high wall.  Still doesn't look perfect, as the screw holes were egg shaped a lot by the buffer.  I need to drill out and fit an oversize lever pin to hide the worst sins from that buffer.  I have an inordinate amount of time in that action to get it looking pretty good, and still have another 3 hours to go from the 80 grit to a 600 grit ready to case color finish.  It still has a scope screw hole in the top ring that really needs welded up too.   

The amount of time I have in polishing that action is about equal in worth to what this one cost me.  I can probably polish it up to case color in 2 hours or less.  Absolutely no choice here; I'd much rather break up a great condition rifle than spend days cleaning up and polishing a beater.    I'm going to try the stocks on my early, panel side low wall that has mediocre stocks.  I have an idea they will really dress it up.

If this was a 50-110, or a 40-70, or 38-55 or 38-72 or other desirable cartridge, wouldn't be much of a choice.  Collector value would exceed parts value.  But a #1, small shank, .32-20 with idiot scratches down the barrel and in the receiver finish on one side?  Every collector that you try to sell it to will say "too bad about the scratches and the caliber and the barrel size".  "I'll take it off your hands if you sell it cheap, and use it, I like the .32-20".   

The barrel is of value to someone to restore a low wall, though, as a shooter.  It will be valued a lot more in that context than on this rifle.

dave

Fitz, you may want to dust off that 30 yr old high wall project and get it going. Win 94 threads are about .030" smaller than the small high wall threads. 30/30's work fine on them.