45-70, 45-90, or 450 Marlin?

Tac-O ,

That is a beautiful rifle .
With that semi-crescent butt-plate , get ready to "FEEL THE THUNDER" , especially with bullet weights of 400 gr. and heavier .

DMP25-06

Haha yes if I ever want to shoot off the bench I may have to get a shoulder pad. I expect it to be about the same as when I used to shoot my 12ga slug gun that had no recoil pad. Those were 545gr slugs traveling at 1450fps!
 
45-70 gotta be my favorite caliber, have quite a number of them from a 40 year old Siamese Mauser conversion bolt action to a Ruger No. 1....including a Winchester 1886 Lite (more recent vintage), An H&R Centennial trapdoor, A Chiappa 1886 takedown with a hard chrome matte finish (very weatherproof), Marlin 1895 carbine (had this one many years), another Marlin 1895 rifle with factory half round/half octagon barrel and, I just ordered a Pedersoli Rolling block with double set triggers. All of the above have been tasked with trimming the numbers of wild hogs on my friends ranch down in S. Texas. The Siamese and Chiappa have taken bear in Canada, in New Brunswick and Quebec respectively. Can't go wrong with any of the above.
 
45-70 is the way to go. This one started life as an H&R Buffalo Classic. My buddy and I got a competition going with our own redneck buffalo shoot. I got a little overzealous with my hand loads and broke the stock....now it's a buffalo sniper! I still have one with the original stock, an 1895 Marlin and a trap door. Enjoy that pretty rifle!
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Since I've got a brand new 1886 and need to shoot it, I also need to clean it first. I've always stripped my bolt guns completely and cleaned and applied my own lives before shooting, but I've never owned or disassembled a lever gun before. From what I've seen in videos, stripping and reassembling the 1886 is quite the puzzle for a new to lever guns person.

How necessary it is to clean all the action internals prior to shooting? Is cleaning just the bore sufficient?
 
Since I've got a brand new 1886 and need to shoot it, I also need to clean it first. I've always stripped my bolt guns completely and cleaned and applied my own lives before shooting, but I've never owned or disassembled a lever gun before. From what I've seen in videos, stripping and reassembling the 1886 is quite the puzzle for a new to lever guns person.

How necessary it is to clean all the action internals prior to shooting? Is cleaning just the bore sufficient?
Clean the bore and use Hoppes 9 to wash out the internals then remove as much as you can. Tear down not required. Put a drop of gun oil on the pivot points.
 
Hi-

Brand New to the Forum.

Now that you have it, are you going to shoot .45-70 as wel?. I too recently purchased this rifle and have searced many formus for the answer to the question- Can I shoot .45-70 with this 1886 Winchester .45-90. 90% of the time the answer I see is yes- yet I am still a little nervous. I don't plan on shooting hundreds of rounds of .45-70 but since .45-90 is virtually impossible to find and I do not reload, my choice is limited.

Thoughts?
 
Hi-

Brand New to the Forum.

Now that you have it, are you going to shoot .45-70 as wel?. I too recently purchased this rifle and have searced many formus for the answer to the question- Can I shoot .45-70 with this 1886 Winchester .45-90. 90% of the time the answer I see is yes- yet I am still a little nervous. I don't plan on shooting hundreds of rounds of .45-70 but since .45-90 is virtually impossible to find and I do not reload, my choice is limited.

Thoughts?
A 45-70 is basically a short cased 45-90. There is no reason you should be concerned about shooting them in a 45-90 action. If you compare the two, rim, case etc diameters are all exactly the same. No different than shooting a 2.75" 12 gauge in a gun chambered to take 3.5" shells. Shorter no problem, longer doesn't so 45-90 in a 45-70 doesn't work same as a 3.5" in a 2.75" shotgun chamber.
 
Hi-

Brand New to the Forum.

Now that you have it, are you going to shoot .45-70 as wel?. I too recently purchased this rifle and have searced many formus for the answer to the question- Can I shoot .45-70 with this 1886 Winchester .45-90. 90% of the time the answer I see is yes- yet I am still a little nervous. I don't plan on shooting hundreds of rounds of .45-70 but since .45-90 is virtually impossible to find and I do not reload, my choice is limited.

Thoughts?
Hi-

Brand New to the Forum.

Now that you have it, are you going to shoot .45-70 as wel?. I too recently purchased this rifle and have searced many formus for the answer to the question- Can I shoot .45-70 with this 1886 Winchester .45-90. 90% of the time the answer I see is yes- yet I am still a little nervous. I don't plan on shooting hundreds of rounds of .45-70 but since .45-90 is virtually impossible to find and I do not reload, my choice is limited.

Thoughts?

Hi! . Now that I have all the components I need to load 45-90 for my gun, I think the only time I would ever shoot 45-70 cartridges out of it is if I were in some sort of pinch in a hunting scenario and it was close range hunting. From what I could find, the people who have done it said the accuracy wasn't great, and it ended up being harder to clean because they had to clean that length of chamber, and it was much more likely to lead the barrel heavily if shooting cast.

It might take a bit of searching, but I highly recommend loading for that gun. The only rounds I've seen available for 4590 or $3 per round and very hard to come by. I would also recommend shooting gas checked bullets if you want to put a heavy load of smokeless in there.

How about some pictures of this new gun??
 
Just as an update, i am pretty sure that was the best decision I've ever made on a gun purchase, and I've been shooting black powder out of it, and the satisfaction rate is extremely high!
 
Just as an update, i am pretty sure that was the best decision I've ever made on a gun purchase, and I've been shooting black powder out of it, and the satisfaction rate is extremely high!
You must be getting good at stripping it down and cleaning. BP is great fun but in a lever it is a lot of work to keep them clean enough.

By the way, the people that told you it is harder to clean and not accurate when shooting 45 70 out of it does NOT match my experience. Out of the 1886, Sharps and the Uberti I have done this in the accuracy was no different and smokeless is no harder to clean out of the chamber than the barrel.
 
You must be getting good at stripping it down and cleaning. BP is great fun but in a lever it is a lot of work to keep them clean enough.

By the way, the people that told you it is harder to clean and not accurate when shooting 45 70 out of it does NOT match my experience. Out of the 1886, Sharps and the Uberti I have done this in the accuracy was no different and smokeless is no harder to clean out of the chamber than the barrel.

Maybe I got some bad information! I haven't done it myself, so of course take what I say with a grain of salt. But, if you reload or want to start, I would definitely go that route.

Yeah taking it apart ain't too bad after you do it once. There's some good videos on YouTube that show some of the tricks to help.
 

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