My Searchester 30/30 - Sears Model 54

[sigp220.45]

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?

 

[damienph]

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.

 

[Otreb]

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.

 

[Cocked & Locked]

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.

 

[Ivan the Butcher]

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

 

[Buford57]

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.

 

[loc n load]

Store brand guns

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.

 

[shouldazagged]

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.

 

[2152hq]

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.

 

[Revolver-time]

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?

 

[damienph]

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.

 

[jtcarm]

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.

 

[CajunBass]

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.

 

[sigp220.45]

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.

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

 

[42chevy]

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?

 

[pmhayden]

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

 

[Muley Gil]

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?

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.

 

[jtcarm]

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

Ah, got it.

Glad I live in the Lone Star State

 

[chud333]

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

 

[model70hunter]

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?

Revelation.