Do you think that altering an early 1885 Winchester by lining the barrel to a different caliber reduces its value, and do you think that the alteration increases or decreases its sale-ability~??  I have a pretty nice totally original in totally obsolete caliber that it renders the piece to being a wall-hanger or collector piece only and really need to know what you think. You can also tell me if you are a collector or a shooter~!

That's a difficult question to answer with the limited information provided.
If it's a high condition rare rifle it definitely hurts the value.  If it's a just an old brown gun with a bad bore, IMHO, there is no collectors value.  Make it into something you will enjoy guilt free.
Exactly what do you have?

There will be people with the exact opposite opinion, but as an original 25 RF I’m interested in it. And I know I can shoot it.

As a low wall converted to 38 special, I’m not even interested in it enough to ask condition unless the price is rock bottom knowing I can rebarrel it into something interesting.

I am probably mostly a collector, but I won’t buy anything I can’t shoot. If I wanted something to shoot competitively, it probably wouldn’t be a Low Wall any way.

craigster wrote on Oct 10^th, 2025 at 2:44pm:


His other posts state it's a .25 Stevens RF.

There are lots of posts on converting 22 Hornet brass to 25 Stevens on the internet.  Mostly they instruct on using 22 blanks to keep everything in rimfire configuration.  I think I’d go that route, but with a center fire block.

I generally find that the well-heeled collectors are often rarer than the pristine, factory-original items that they’re allegedly so anxious to buy.  On the other hand, a “shooter” in reasonably good condition (original or not) generally has a larger pool of interested potential buyers than an unshootable wall hanger or safe queen, although they may not think it’s worth as much as the putative well-heeled collectors of pristine originality might.  On the other hand, I might very likely think it’s even more valuable for the work put into it and the utility it has for me, and refuse their lowball offer.

Meanwhile, I have a cool rifle that I can shoot all I like and so amortize whatever “investment” I made in the gun for years and years to come.  Worrying about what I might or might not “get” for it decades from now is right in there with worrying about Globull Warming or an asteroid strike sometime in the future, as far as I’m concerned.

Did you really buy this thing for an “investment?”  A good CD would be better.  Even Pope rifles have taken a dip from what they were bringing a decade or so back.  Generally, the people who want their money out of them only take them to collectors’ shows, never out to the range or the dump to shoot.

The original factory products were mass-produced articles of commerce, not one-at-a-time handmade products of a shop or a “school,” like Hawken rifles or Pennsylvania flintlocks.  There are plenty of other examples out there, some in better condition for the collectors to fight over, so the idea that this making of a shooter out of a nonshooter is “destroying a Unique and Irreplaceable Piece of History” is just so much hyperbolic melodrama, AFAIC.

John Taylor wrote on Oct 11^th, 2025 at 10:32am:

Thanks John.  I think my hang up right now is the fact that a rifle this old made well before smokeless powder has such an amazing bore.  I don't have a bore scope but the lands and grooves are very well defined and look quite sharp.  It's a bit dark but not so dark that you can't see those lands and grooves.  I was actually blown away when I got my hands on it and was able to take a really close look at the overall condition.  The furniture has a few dings and scratches but not deep with no  gouges, and has probably a good 75% if the original finish.  The metal ha some surface rust but no pits, and mechanically it's very tight.  It's quite obvious that its early owners took quite good care of it.

Old+timer wrote on Oct 12^th, 2025 at 10:47am:


Without pictures, $500 maybe less depending on description and if it’s not a known source.
High is impossible to establish.

I would enjoy seeing it since I like the cartridge, can you pm some to me or email, text to phone?

Send me a pm for contact info.