.45 Colt to 45/70 Handi-Rifle

RicinYakima

High Steppes of Eastern Washington
Silk purse from a sow’s ear.

When NEF was going down the tubes and before Marlin bought the company, they made a Classic Carbine Handi-Rifle. My good friend and shooting buddy bought two in 45 Colt and gave me one, very good of him and thanked profusely. It had the buffalo rifle butt stock with metal butt plate, nice wood with some checkering and a fore end to match. Never shot well, but sort of OK. Maybe 2 inches at 50 yards with jacketed bullets and 6 inches with cast.

Another friend has a bore scope so we decided to take a good look. Just in front of the case cut in the chamber was a shallow ¼ by ¾ inch divot, maybe 10 or 15 thousandths deep right on the bottom of the chamber. Some deep cleaning and wire brushing showed that it was a burned area right in the throat.

A contact in the firearms industry said that a copper “plug” is laid in the bore of the barrel before the lug is electron beam welded to the barrel. The plug is the ground and if it doesn’t make good contact the arc burns holes in the bore. So it sat in the corner for a few years until another friend suggested I rechamber it to .452” X 45/70 and he had a reamer that would work.

This friend was one of the top BPCR shooters in the 1980’s and ‘90’s and had his rifles build with his own designed reamer. The body was cut .005” over the size of Federal Nickel cases, and the neck was .459” plus the side wall of the case plus 0.002”. The throat started exactly at the case mouth, 3 degree included angle and ran down to .445”. His cases were de-primed, re-primed, charged with powder and the bullet seated by finger pressure.

So I rechambered the barrel; to load I use a Lyman 45 caliber neck sizer and then expand with a .454” M die. Bullets are sized .456” and seated so the top drive band in inside the case neck. At a six pounds, 12 grains of Unique at 1100 f/s is a good load with Lyman #457193 at 400 grains. It squeezes down just fine into the .452” bore. It is a two inch load at 50 yards. Also I cut dovetails into the rear of the barrel to mount a Redfield Targeteer 22 sight that is a real help.

Handi 45-70.JPG 45-70 sight.JPG

Dang pictures are sideways again!
 

Ian

Notorious member
Great story, Ric, especially with the "happy ending" part.

I have one of those too and the throat has big problems. Best it does with cast is about 3" for ten at 50, managed to get a consistent 1.5" or less at 50 using paper-patched bullets that had been sized to .448". One other thing is the groove is .452", with a left-hand twist. I never imagined that a poorly-grounded electrode from the spot-welding would have been the cause of missing metal on the bottom of the chamber, but a bad ground will sure EDM-cut steel in a heartbeat.
 

RicinYakima

High Steppes of Eastern Washington
Ian, the really nice part was that its barrel metal cuts like butter and leaves a good finish. The reamer cut all the arc spots out and it was easy to do. The only hard part (pun intended) was the extractor. It had to be ground with a fine diamond burr in a Dremel tool. Ric
 

Ian

Notorious member
Here's a thread on mine where a friend chopped the barrel and threaded the muzzle for me. If I could get it to shoot like Ric's it would be a lot more fun.