Mine is a bit out of the ordinary. For years I had been searching the gun shows for a nice example of the Navy's 1895 Winchester-Lee straight-pull .236 (6mm) rifle. Every one I came across had a sewer pipe bore..those early smokeless powders combined with the fastest twist of any U.S. rifle up to that time ( 1-71/2") were pure poison. Then my taste in firearms changed, & I began searching for a sporting rifle. These are even more scarce than the military version. Finally I found a nice one..bore was very near mint..but dealer informed me lands were a bit rounded so came down on price some. While waiting for rifle to arrive, I picked up a book on early Winchester bolt action rifles. I had always assumed Winchester had converted the militaries over to sporting rifles after the Navy had dropped the Winchester-Lee just to use up surplus stock...not so, my rifles serial # indicated it left the factory in January 1898...nearly 6 months before the war with Spain started. Once the rifle arrived, the real work started. I had ordered cases from Buffalo Arms..converted .25-06 brass. Over the years of searching, I had picked up a few Ideal/Lyman 6mm moulds. I cast up samples of 245498 & 245499. I cast some using Lino on account of that fast twist & some of a softer range-scrap-WW alloy. Annealed Hornady G.C. were applied. Lube was Lyman Super moly..I sized to .244 for .001" over rifles .243 groove dia. I found out those "worn rounded" lands were in fact Metford rifling..a form of rifling I had always wanted to try with cast. Using light starting loads of H4227 from an older Ideal Handbook..loading went smoothly. However, in chambering things quickly went sour. This rifle has no camming action..one must smartly shove bolt forward in order for the large locking lug on bolt bottom to engage corresponding shoulder in action. No matter how tight case necks were, bullets were being shoved deeply into case. A chamber cast revealed rifles throat was .0005" (1/2 thou.) UNDER groove dia.! How in the heck was this going to work? I have always sized to at least .001" over groove dia. for smokeless for good seal. I finally had to size whole bullet to groove dia. First 3 bands were sized to bore dia. The annealed gas-check spung back .001" for a .244 dia. and I was hoping this would at least seal bore. The sights are an open buckhorn rear and German silver blade front. On account of this and 50+ year old eyes, testing was done at 50yds. 10gr. H4227 and the Ideal 225498 grouped to sights and 5 went into a 3/4" group. Recoil was mild but muzzle blast sharp & case necks blackened. Next range sesson had me trying a new powder for me, IMR TrailBoss. Interesting, again 10.grs. gave 3/4" groups shooting to sights. This new powder had same mild recoil, but much less muzzle blast..but case necks were now left clean. I moved back to 100yds. and shot a 1 1/4" group, which was an eye opener with open irons! I must admit to using a Merit adjustable iris disk on shooting glasses which really sharpens those sights. Oh, I never did get around to using that hard Lino alloy..my softer range-scrap-WW worked just fine with not a spec of lead in bore. All in all..a very interesting experience working with this early small bore sporting rifle. I learned a lot!
Last edited:
