A very good friend owns two 94’s. Both of them are in excellent mechanical and aesthetic shape. No cracks. No stock issues. Like any boxlock or sidelock...be sure to periodically check the tightness of the hand pin and breech pin. Those two pins being tight is crucial to stock longevity. Sometimes, even with those pins tight...stocks can develop cracks. Numerous reasons. Poor fitting from the factory to include this final shaping of the top tang and if applicable side plates, poor stock design or action design, etc.
Most 1894’s that you’ll encounter fall into the “heavy use” category. Some are down right beat up. I can only imagine that these old workhorses were fed anything and everything from home grown bp loads to the heaviest smokeless loads used at the time not to mention heavy high brass loads popular in modern times.
I’m not quite sure how she’ll pressure adds into the equation of stock longevity. There’s some pretty high pressure mild recoiling loads out there that would have zero detrimental effect on the stock. The action....now that’s a different story.
Ive used for years an extremely low pressure load using 800x, federal gold medal and 1 1/8 Oz of shot. Somewhere in the 4500 psi range. Low recoiling it is not. I found it to be easy on the action and barrels, but pretty brutal for an old stock to take.
Something to think about.
