I'm a sucker for store brands. Glenfields, JC Higgins, Ted Williams - I love them all. Besides being good guns, they are often great buys.

My Illinoisan brother recently got this Sears Model 54 from a guy who bought it in the 70s thinking he could shoot deer with it. He was quickly disabused of that notion, and stuck it in the closet with an unopened box of ammo - where it stayed for the next four decades.

I traded him out of it - I had a refinished Smith 1917 and he had just watched Fury and was obsessed with getting one. I came up short on that trade, I know, but he's my little brother and I'll make it up on the next go-round.



Here it is, with a clean Model 94 of about the same vintage. The Searchester is the gaudy one on top.

It is mechanically identical, but cosmetically it has its own little quirks.

That shiny loading gate is an eye-catcher:



There are an abundance of holes in the side - all from the factory.



The fore-end has this oddly large cap.



The magazine tube stops just short of the muzzle.



The butt plate doubles as a walnut cracker or a recoil increaser.



The barrel proudly announces its Sears heritage.



One other nice thing about store brands - there is absolutely no reason not to shoot them. I will relieve this gaudy booger of its unfired status as soon as I figure out where to shoot around here.

So, confession time - anyone else here have a fondness for these store-brand beauties?

__________________
“What you got, ain’t new.”

I like the store brands too. I have a nice Western Field (Montgomery Wards) marked Mossberg 472 lever action and a JC Higgin's (Sears) marked High Standard 12g pump.

Yours would look perfect sitting between them on my rack.

Sometimes, if you know what you're looking at, those 'house labels' can be pretty nice. I know a number of the JC Higgins rimfire pistols were a Unique from France...and pretty nice shooters.
I have this model 103-10. O/U in 12ga


It's a Marlin 90.

One of my favorite rifles is a SEARS Mdl 53 .30-06. Just another post '64 Winchester model 70.

When I took this picture below it had a Weaver scope. Keeping with the store brand tradition it now wears a Montgomery Ward Western Field 4x40 scope with a post reticle.

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C & L

All those holes in the lever gun are for scope mounts and peep sights, being pre-drilled from the factory saves money! That back pair is for Williams receiver sights. I have a Marlin with the same holes and one of those sights. Ivan

I learned to shoot shotgun with a JC Higgins Model 20 (High Standard) 12 gauge pump that my Dad won on a 10 cent raffle ticket. Has some nice features like a magazine cutoff for crossing fences or swapping duck for goose loads and a little silver shield inset in the buttstock for your initials. 50 years later it still runs like a Swiss watch.

I later traded into a Ted Williams (Laurona) O/U that still shoots better than I do.

Yep, store brands are sleepers.

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I need ammo, not a ride.

I have two JC Higgins bolt action tubular mag shotguns, one in 16 ga., the other in 20 ga. Back in the 60's I learned to hunt with the 16 ga. It has accounted for untold numbers of squirrels and rabbits and a few quail ( back when we had wild birds). I also have a JC Higgins 16 ga. "single barrel" which is what folk's around here call single shot shotguns. It belonged to an Uncle and was his main hunting implement for 60 some years, he shot everything that walked, flew, climbed or crawled with that gun. They are not fancy or "tacticool", but they are practical, functional and have proven track records.
I also have a Montgomery Wards marked M-98 bolt mauser that was sporterized and chambered for the venerable 30-06.
It is one of my most prized hunting rifles. It is beautifully executed, light and deadly accurate. It has accounted for several deer, and two elk.
Note:That is a wicked butt plate on that Searchester.

One of my two all-time favorite shotguns I've owned was a Stevens 311 SXS in twenty gauge, 28" modified and full, with the Sears name on it, a beech stock and forearm, and some kind of black epoxy coating on the receiver. Not a raving beauty, but it balanced wonderfully, patterned nicely, and took a ton of game (mostly doves) for me. I loved the little double, but parted with it in a financial emergency.

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Oh well, what the hell.

Nice rifle! Needs to be shot.
Two (smaller?) dummy screws are for the peep site. The 4 in a row slightly largerones are for a true side mount scope. Can't be over the bore because of the top ejection. Weaver made the mount and probably still does.

I say small and large screws,,they look it in the pic,,maybe not.
If they are,,the small are 6-48,,the standard scope and sight mt screws. The larger will be 8-40, another standard 'gunsmith' screw size used when a bit more holding power is needed.

Lots of good buys in the house brand guns.
Marlin Glenfield and their others marked JC Penneys, ect
The High Standards for Sears already mentioned.

I shot a couple Sears/Roebuck-Ranger marked Stevens 520 shotguns for a number of years. Beautifully made and at less than $100 each in near new condition, you couldn't ask for more.
No one would buy them 'cause of the name on them.

It was a wonderful time when we could muse over the Sear and Wards catalogs and pick out a new rifle or shotgun. Anyone remember the Western Auto brand?

Western Auto branded guns and ammunition was "Revelation". I have a full box of 50 Revelation .22 Longs.

I'm not getting why it couldn't be used for deer. What chambering?

My first gun was a Glenfield .22 SS. Still have it.

Now that's a good looking Searschester. I always wanted one, but lived/hunted in shotgun only country, so I never could justify to myself buying a "high power rifle." I didn't even have a 22 until I was about 30 years old.

I was full grown before I knew there was anyplace to buy guns other than Sears-Roebuck. And the next place I knew of was J.C. Penny's.

My first gun came from Sears, an Ithaca M-66...my son has that gun today. My second, the first gun I ever picked out and bought myself (my mother had to call in the order) was a Sears/Stevens 311, 12 double. I worked all summer on a farm for $5.00 a day to get the money. A Sears truck bought it to the house a couple of days later. I foolishly sold it for something else...

But the Sears gun I really kick myself for selling was a 20 ga SXS made by AYA of Spain. Man that was a nice gun. I think I paid about $200.00 for it back in the late 70's. A lot of money for me, but even then inexpensive for a SXS 20 ga. At the time I was told the guns were made for Sears by AYA and finished by their apprentices. A little simple engraving, and fairly nice checkering on the stock and forearm. In a world of pressed on "checkering" that gun was sure pretty.

Even today both of my shotguns are "Sears" brand. A 12 ga Mossberg that came with two barrels, a 28" modified and a 24" slug barrel. Got it about 1977 or so, paid $99.00 for it. I've still never used the slug barrel, but that 28" barrel will carry No 1 buckshot just fine. Every deer it's ever been pointed at, hit the ground.



It's accounted for a few squirrels and doves along the way too.

The other one was my fathers. He didn't hunt, but used it for the local fire department turkey shoots. He won a pickup truck load of turkeys, hams, and bacon slabs with that gun, plus "side bets" and even rented the gun out to other shooters.

It's just a Sears 200, with a 30" full choke barrel. I don't know that I've ever fired it. It just gets wiped down with an oily rag once in a while.



I don't know how many hours I spent in the Sears gun department waiting for my ex-wife back in the day. "I'll be Sears when you're finished." Haven't been in one for years now.

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John 3:16 .

Its a 30/30, but Illinois was (and I think still is) a shotgun-only state for deer.

__________________
“What you got, ain’t new.”

My Illinoisan brother recently got this Sears Model 54 from a guy who bought it in the 70s thinking he could shoot deer with it. He was quickly disabused of that notion

Just wondering why he could not shoot deer with it?

JC Higgins and Sears sold FN Mausers in .270 and .30-06. Nice actions.

See post # 14, right above yours.

A friend of mine had a Sears Model 54. It was slightly more accurate than another friend's Winchester M94.

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John 3:16
WAR EAGLE!

Ah, got it.

Glad I live in the Lone Star State:-)

Eleven holes on the left side of that receiver !!!
That dude looks like Dr. Frankenstein was on the production line
that day.
But i too like the store brand guns. Ever since working in my Uncles
Western Auto store in the mid 70's as a teenager.
We sold many lever action Winchesters with the brand of "Revelation".
They looked like heck compared to the real thing and those old lever
guns rattled like a muffler draggin'.
But the darn things shot fairly well.
I suppose there has been a lot more game killed for the table with these
(store brand guns) than has been killed with the big names.

They were Cheaper...it's what the average Joe could afford as a "tool"
to put meat on the table day to day.


Chuck

__________________
They hold no Quarter

Revelation.

I traded into a sears 270 from the fifties on the FN Mauser action.

the blue was fine. The stock finish was long gone. I removed the fore end tip the pistol grip from a broken stock off a Weatherby. It looked like a FN Weatherby minus the big Monte Carlo cheek piece. Everyone that saw it swore it was a Weatherby even thought Sears was stamped on the bbl. I'm talking knowledgeable gun folks.

the stock was the slightly lemon color French walnut. I used the old hand rubbed oil finish.

I'm embarrassed to say what someone traded to me for that one.

P.S
I also used the Weatherby recoil pad

I've looked for more but folks semester to now know what they are.

I know where one in 06 is for 350 in a pawn shop. No guns until our house is built.

Williams gun sight company used to or may still do made a side mount for the 54 lever action winchester. Frank

I actually just picked up a Sears 54 with the peep sight installed. It's an interesting gun for sure, and the price was definitely right. I've read that while made by Winchester, it's NOT a 94 and parts aren't interchangeable.

Anyone know of an aftermarket buttpad to put on this rifle? It's definitely getting a cheek rest too.

My first defense shotgun was a JC Higgins pump that I cut the Dial-A-Duck muzzle brake/choke tube assembly off of, making it 19". Was totally reliable. Wish I had kept it.

And I'm putting walnut stocks on a Glenfield 30A 30-30, which except for birch stocks is the Marlin 336A.

I forgot I have a Ted Williams 300 (a Winchester 1400) too. It's my least useful gun --- limited to 3 2-3/4 shells, no steel --- but an heirloom so it's with me forever...

I got a Coast to Coast MASTER MAG CC880 12GA 28in vent rib(Mossberg 500). My dad bought it from a pawn shop before I was born(not that it matters) in the early 90s. I will never sell it because its the only firearm he ever(to my knowledge) owned(My nuclear family are not gun people, in fact my mom and younger brother mildly antigun. oh and I live with them, so that's fun. However I have softened their positons. END OF TANGENT). It is also the only gun I can't seem to find a name for(yes I name me guns). I plan to put an 18in barrel and MAYBE a heat shield and use it for HD. I just hope he would approve of the changes(He pasted in 07). I'm debating between collecting more store brand or WW2 and older military rifles, but that's a topic for another day.
Brian

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young and smart

Circa 1980s and a buddy came to visit me while I was attending college in Nacogdoches, TX. He got bored and asked what we could do. I told him that we could go dove hunting except I only owned one shotgun, and that sharing a shotgun while dove hunting just wouldn't work. He asked if there was a gun store close by, and I told him there was a Western Auto just around the corner.

We visited the Western Auto and he found a Revelation 12 ga. pump that he felt was affordable. At the check out counter the sales lady asked him if he wanted "foreign theft" insurance on the shotgun. My friend told her that he just wanted the shotgun to go dove hunting today, and it would probably spend the rest of its life as his truck gun. The sales lady again asked if he wanted "foreign theft" insurance for his shotgun. My friend repeated his previous answer, and added he did not envision any future travel outside the United States - especially with the shotgun.

The sales lady gave him a nasty look and again asked him if he wanted "foreign theft" insurance for the shotgun. This time, my friend said: "I'm sorry, lady, but I really don't know why you keep asking me about foreign theft insurance for this shotgun." At that, the sales lady said: "No. I said FOUR-N-THEFT", and she said it very slowly - as if to a backwards child. When my friend gave her a blank look, the sales lady then began doing a (vocal) imitation of a siren while raising her arms up and down. Suddenly, we both got it...she was asking if he wanted to purchase a replacement policy for the shotgun in case of FIRE and THEFT! D-oh! We both started laughing, and the sales lady got mad and told us to get out of her store. No dove hunting for us that day, nor a Revelation shotgun purchase, but we had a good laugh for many years over that one. Thus, my only experience with Revelation brand shotguns.

Regards,

Dave

Mechanically the Sears guns were 94's with certain special trim features to make them distinctive as a Sears model. I have only repaired a couple of them over the years. A damaged lifter was replaced with a standard one for a model 94 without any issues. I also replaced a butt stock on one with a standard stock as well (owner dropped it out of tree stand). The fore stock is closest to some of the commemorative models Winchester was making in the 60's and 70's and if one needed replaced would be harder to find but could be done.

Sears, at one time, was considered to be the largest firearms retailer around. Over the years they offered many store brand firearms. Differences between store brand and name brand were mostly cosmetic, mainly aimed at making the Sears guns appear distinctive from the standard, run of the mill, production models. Sights, stocks, chrome plated small parts and bolts were common and could be changed without cutting into the bottom line of company profits.

I had a Sears Model 190 Winchester .22 semiautomatic and also a Sears Antonio Zoli O/U 12 gauge. The latter was quite plain, but a decent shotgun. I hadn't used it for a long time and sold it a couple of years ago. I don't know what happened to that .22, it vanished somewhere sometime over the last 30 years.

Many years ago i bought a Sears Ted Williams 30-06 from the used gun rack at a local gun shop, its a Win Model 70 with the Sears brand name on it. Looked like it was never used. Well after some haggling i got the gun for $300 out the door, and to top it all off i have never shot anything through it that didnt group under 1 inch. In my eyes, its a fine hunting rifle.

If I recall correctly, the "Ted Williams" version was the top-of-the-line of any sporting goods item that Sears sold. That's the version I always wanted, but never could afford.

Regards,

Dave

It sounds like you're far more familiar with both the 94 and the Sears 54. My statement that they're not the same comes from some research into replacing the floppy trigger and putting a proper rubber buttpad on. The side with all the screws is another clear indication that this is not a Win 94. Swapping parts seems to be a "file to fit and paint to match" affair, but to be fair these are 50 year old guns and that's not out of bounds even for higher-end makes.

Just working on 94's can be a pain at times with a long production period, the 1964 redesign and various changes in the 70's and 80's as well. The Ted Williams line started @ 1964 and both rifles and shotguns were variations of then current Winchesters (though I have heard of a couple earlier Ted Williams branded Hi Standard made shotguns I have never seen one) and I used parts for the post 64 versions without issue. I have worked on far more of the Sears 22's and shotguns than the 54's though as they were popular guns and often used heavily.

The left side of the Sears 54 appears different from the same era Win94 because the 54 has factory side scope mt holes and recv'r sight holes in place w/ dummy screws in them. 6 holes in all all accross the top edge of the recv'r PLUS the larger dummy plug screw for the disassembly access of the bolt/lever pin mixed in.
I think the 94 only has the 2 rev'r sight screw holes w/ dummy screws in place as they came from the factory,,alot less cluttered.
The others are just the standard cartridge guide, carrier, link and hammer screws as found on the 94 also.

Sears always seemed to be big on having their house brand guns D&T'd for 'scopes going way back.,,even to the early Marlin 39 in their catalog w/the bbl side mt Weaver scope.

Pre 64 94's will have the cartridge guide screws entering from inside the frame,,no slotted head showing on the outside. One of a couple quick ways to tell a pre from a post '64 Model 94.
(You go in through the removed loading gate opening to remove the left one,,then through the removed left cartguide screw hole you just took out to get the right side)

Quickest way to tell a pre-64 and a post-65 Model 94 is to look at the link in the receiver. This is the part that the finger lever protrudes from, and which drops down when the action is opened.

The pre-64 has a screw at the front pivot point to retain the cross pin. The post-64 lacks this screw.

Because many gun shops will have rifles stored muzzle up in racks with their underside facing out, this makes it very quick to check what's in their inventory. I skip over the post-64 guns and look for the pre-64.

Here's my 54. Duracoat gray (metal) and black (wood). Looks sharp and helps weatherproof as well.

Long time ago I had a J.C.Higgins 30-30 lever action carbine. Forestock the same style as the 54 in Post #36. Swapped that forestock out for a Winchester 94's (including a 94 barrel band) and installed a Williams receiver sight. Most accurate 30-30 I ever had! It got swapped round about between seven folk I know, some of us multiple times, until it ended up in the hands of somebody smart enough to hang onto it for keeps. I think she still has it after 20 years.

I know I am digging up an old thread, but I have a model 54 Sears 30-30 as well, it's a nice shooter. Mine was not terrificly cared for as the finish is wearing off the stock, but it was not fired a lot- these old levers get buttery smooth the more they are fired, and mines still kinda chunky.

I love it though, and I got it for about $150 less than a similar vintage used Winchester 94 (of which the sears is a copy). I love old Sears garden tractors, and other stuff from the 70's so it was a no-brainer for me to buy it. I also have two Mossberg 500's that I believe were purchased from Sears in about 1973, both have scalloped (jeweled) lifters and bolts, one s a 500AB (12 Gauge), and one is a 500C (20 gauge) - both were lightly used, with very good original wood furniture.

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OK! This almost zombie thread has returned and I still see no answer to my burning question from the OP's #1 post......

What in the heck are the blue blobs that appear to be fastened to the background in the picture....????

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Dean
SWCA #680 SWHF #446

Handholds - it's a climbing wall, right ?

Larry

Haha, sorry about that!

Yes, they are climbing handholds on a kid's playhouse.

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“What you got, ain’t new.”

Ohhhhhh! That's what they are. Heck, I thought they were the Phantom of the Opera's defective mask collection.

Regards,

Dave

Back when I was growing up, in my smallish home town the only places to buy guns were a couple of hardware stores, Sears, Montgomery Ward, and J. C. Penney. Penny's didn't carry much, and Montgomery Ward had more guns than Sears. M-W sold old military surplus rifles. M-W also had a gun house brand - Western Field. When I was a kid, I had a Wards Western Field .22 bolt action rifle, I think it was made by Mossberg.

Here is my J.C. Higgins Sears & Roebuck 103.350 12 ga. (aka Marlin Model 90).

I passed on it several times in the LGS until I shouldered it. Great balance. 27" bbls.:





Iti s a great shooter!!

Best,
Charles

Zombie thread, perhaps, but there are many really great posts here! Many establishments sold sporting firearms in the past: I remember Winchester Model 70s on display in Macy's as recently as 1969 or 70.

Kaaskop49
Shield #5103

I have a Sears lever .410 around here someplace. I remember getting it at a yard sale in Vermont when I was 19 or so.
I also remember thinking it was a 30-30 till I tried to load it.

Bought a Model 200 in 20 gauge. Just a 1200 Winny but it was what I could afford back in 72. My friend had a pump made by High Standard which was quite a difference in quality if ya ask me.

Sears once sold a really neat-looking .22 semiautomatic rifle which I believe was made by Hi Standard. I have seen several at gun shows, and I probably should have bought one. One feature I have not seen elewhere was that it had a carrying sling that operated somewhat like a spring-loaded tape measure. It rolled up in the buttstock when not in use.

I have 1 of Those J.C.Higgins Model 31 & Yes Made By High Standard,Sling Retracts into The Stock & When in Use Hooks to A Stud of Sorts below the Magazine Tube.