Winchester 1886, 45-90 design

[Chicken Thief]

My experience with BP barrels is that if the last 4" or so is good then it will shoot ok. From there you are able to tweak. I had a Swedish 12.7x44R that looked like a sewerpipe due to corrosive primers, BP and lack of cleaning, but it would shoot to les than 2" at 60yds all day long.

Take a feel along the barrel at the 7" mark, if you can feel a slight lump then a stuck boolit was shot out at some time. With wads and a grease cookie you can make it shoot "just" as good as new.

Dont dispare friend, youre not alone!

[Hednign]

w30wcf...... Please tell me where I can get 1 ton of that poly material!!! Best news Iv had since I discovered the swedish girls. Thank you extremely much for the tip.

Chicken thief...you might be right about that. Iv seen more than one sewer pipe shooting very well myself. So I shouldent paint the devil on the wall before Iv tested the beast.

Im more than gratefull for your help and input. Ill be back with more during the process. And certainly when the test firing is done.

By the way. Does any of you know how deep the rifling was when these rifles were new? Iv seen through 3 1886 rifles. Two 45-90 and one 50. All of them had wowfully low rifling. I cant realy see why they would make them so low.

Ok. Ill be back. Now I have to Google poly material/wads........Buffalo arms... of course

[Chicken Thief]

LDPE is nothing more than milk jugs my good friend
Cut a tad larger and it will expand to absorb slight differences in the barrel.

Milk jugs, sprinkler fluid jugs, eddike jugs, you get it!

[Hednign]

LDPE is nothing more than milk jugs my good friend
Cut a tad larger and it will expand to absorb slight differences in the barrel.

Milk jugs, sprinkler fluid jugs, eddike jugs, you get it!

LOL... Iv used that for years. I just thought "poly wads" was some kind of magical stuff made by Harry Potter or something. We just dont use the word "poly". Everything gets a little more fun when we go international....

BUT... I didnt use wads over the powder when I tested the 45-90. Ill do that and see what happens.

[Chicken Thief]

LDPE = Low Dencity Poly Propylene.
I use that and if i need to fill more room a beer coaster is cosher filling!
But then again that would be the slightest of your problems
Those who want to flog you out of funds will tell you that the consistency of their "milk jugs" are way better than what you can make at home.
But my friend please proof them wrong, and make that smokepole of yours shoot like there's no tomorrow

[w30wcf]

Regarding poly wads, even though milk containers are made from a similar material they are not the same as a .06" thick low density polyethylene wad which is much thicker.

http://www.buffaloarms.com/Detail.as...60399&CAT=4116

If you PM me your address I could send you 25 or so to try.

If you make your own wads a good wad punch would be a must to fit the case precisely. You could try multiple layers of material from milk containers.

Another option to try would be to use 1/4" or so of poly shot buffer or corn meal under the bullet to asct as a gas check.

Good luck,
w30wcf

[Hednign]

I guess you`r right. I would love to try a few. But I might aswell order a few square feet. When I said Iv used that kind of material for years I forgot to mention that Iv never tried it in rifle cartridges before. Just revolvers. Paper wads made out of our milk and juice boxes yes, but no poly material. I have to try it.

[Sixgun Symphony]

To be honest. As a black powder long range shooter myself I dont get it.... I mean, black powder long range is black powder long range. Using duplex loads is nothing but cheating. If the fouling is a problem, go pure smokeless. Fouling is a part of the BP science. Got damn it....

I never had problems with BP fouling up my guns. Maybe they are using the wrong lubricant on their cast bullets? I use Lyman Black Powder Gold.

[bigted]

a question and maybe i missed it...is this an early winchester or a new model? this WILL effect the preassure capability of the rifle. the new japchesters are capable of the stated 40k preassure but id go carefully with an old origanal rifle in these preassures...on the other hand a feller named Mathews frequently loaded 350 and 400 grain boolits ahead of his [and Elmer Keith's favorite load] 53 grains of imr 3031 which is a heavy hitter as i tryed it in both my japchester 85 and the marlin 1895 lever...itl hit ya pretty hard and Mathews and Keith loaded this monster load in '86 winchesters soo...you be the judge.

second i have an older lyman/ideal manual which states as a natural load with bp duplex loads of using 4227 powder for the duplex smokless portion. ive loaded 45-70's and my 45-120 with the prescribed 10% smokless using the imr 4227 and also imr 3031 as the powder against the primer and then 90% GOEX cartridge powder for the rest and the cleanliness is phonominal to say the least for lever hunting loads.

also a bit about the rcbs boolits that are designed for the levers ...they are such...45-300fp...45-400fp...45-500fp boolits and i can say for sure that the 500 casts up a 530 grain boolit that gets my attention with the 120 case. the coal with these boolits are all three the same and the extra weight is all inside the case where the 90 case will do better then the 70 case with the extra .300 length of available powder room.

i like to use powder as my filler also and so when i want / need power in excess of the bp loads i always fall back on the duplex loads that Mathews, Keith, Write all wrote about and lyman/ideal listed as loads for the 45-70 and 45-90 rifles...i bet you can get to the power level you want with these loads

[bigted]

wow i gotta try to read more then the first page huh!!! well all but the knowledge about the youth of the rifle and the outcome i guess that most of my last thread will stand.

what was/is the final outcome of this thread? would like to hear about the success or failure and the reassons why for either...thanks.