Old winchester 1885 hi-wall in 44wcf

PerversPépère

PerversPépère

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HELLO!
Last week, one of my friends droped by with an old Winchester falling block carbine in 44WCF caliber.

Poor old thing was almost untouched until some ... let's say misguided soul... put some sanding paper to it to "make it pretty"... :mad:

My friend bought it but just too late to save it. So he was left with an otherwise valuable collectible reduced to blah status. The rifle languished a few years in a closet while my friend thought of having it re/barreled/finished/customized, $$$$$.... you know the story.
Now it is in lying in a dissassembled state in a box, in my home.















Among other outrages, I think (but I'm not sure) it has been shot with or drilled to accomodate .410 shells, I dunno... :bangHead: Just to be sure, I'll make a Cerrosafe chamber cast when I find some free time.

QUESTION: If take time and effort to ressurect that old rifle, where (in Canada) could I have the barrel relined in an useful caliber, be it 32-20, 44WCF, 38-55 or something that action can handle?
I know it will never be anything else than a restored antique rifle but I like that old Winny.

Any suggestions?
PP.
 
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OK! now here's the real Mc-Coy!
Pmatuk's sharp eye saw it immediately! put that on my very early morning wake-up (4:30h. this morning) and presumably my blurry eyes on a notebook screen.
I replaced the pics. If you want to see the Rolling block pics, I'll post them again here.

BTW, can I still find new wood for this one?
PP.:redface:
 
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in my opinion if there is no provinance to a famous person ,you have a project piece. If the bore is poor I would not hesitate to rebarrel it to any other of your listed calibers.Would finish cleaning the receiver and send off the receiver and other visable metal for color case hardening to oscar.
there are a few places that sell semi inleted stocks for original 1885 hi wall winchesters in different grades of fancy .If your a wood working person you can fit the wood yourself or if not it will cost more to have it done tastefuly .
you will find a used new manufactured for less ,but by refurbing this one you will have a rebuilt custom vintage winchester in new condition the way YOU want .
 
That is quite a low serial number. It has definitely been messed with in a number of ways unfortunately.

There area few sources for wood around. Treebone Carving, and CPA rifles are good sources. That rifle would have been colour case hardened. I know that there is a fellow back east who does it. A really high quality barrel can be had from Ron Smith in Alberta. You won't find better barrel for a single shot anywhere else. His prices are surprisingly good, especially when you figure out how much work he puts into them. Replacement action parts can be had from Montana Vintage Arms and a few other sources like Dan Zimmerman. As far as a good gunsmith to work on it, I don't have any rcommendations in Canada, although I wish I had the name of a good single shot gunsmith here.

Chris.
 
One consideration is that the 1885 came with two different size barrel shanks.

The smaller one was used for the pistol calibers, mostly, sorta, (because there does not seem to be any truly hard rules about how they did things), and if you have a small shank it may limit your choices of cartridge for a rebarrel.

I'll dig out the numbers if someone does not beat me to it. Off the top of my head the small shank is about .850", and the large one is right around an Inch.

Nice catch!

Cheers
Trev
 
Oh, thank you so much guys! There is some really useful info I can use. :dancingbanana:

Pmatuk, can you tell me who is Oscar and where I can contact him ?

Raton57, here are the pics of the Remington Rolling Block rifle:















 
Seems I cannot obtain the complete postal address for Ron Smith. And I can't find a webpage for his enterprises either.
I guess that guy is really good and too busy to bother having a web site!
I'll have to phone him.
PP. :)
 
PP: Any number of decent gunsmiths can reline that gun, no problem. Track of the Wolf has the liners and ships to Canada.

For wood, I would go the Treebone route and do the inletting yourself (if you have skills) or have the smith do that too.

Gunco in Ottawa has a goodly amount of experience with these old hi-walls. I've seen several Hi-wall restorations that were done there and they all came out top notch.
 
Ok. I saw Treebone page and they are very interesting for price and availabilty.
I'll go and ask if Track of the Wolf has 38-55 or 44-40 liners.
Meanwhile, I'll have that barrel off the action. Any special precautions to take?
PP.
 
If you do not have proper tools, I would not take the bbl off. Those old actions are easy to crack - they are very surface hard and soft inside. Not like a modern action.

Even as an action, that is a very valuable gun - I would take it to a pro who has experience working on them.
 
Damn, some folks should just never pick up a rifle, what's been done is just criminal!
However, it's just the project for a gunnut to tackle. Good luck! I love messing with old stuff like this, and I presume you do too.
 
Claven2 said:
PP: Any number of decent gunsmiths can reline that gun, no problem. Track of the Wolf has the liners and ships to Canada.
For wood, I would go the Treebone route and do the inletting yourself (if you have skills) or have the smith do that too.

Gunco in Ottawa has a goodly amount of experience with these old hi-walls. I've seen several Hi-wall restorations that were done there and they all came out top notch.
Click to expand...

Did they resume shipping liners to us? last time I tried about 3 yrs ago they had stopped Canadian shipping on liners.
 
PerversPépère said:
Seems I cannot obtain the complete postal address for Ron Smith. And I can't find a webpage for his enterprises either.
I guess that guy is really good and too busy to bother having a web site!
I'll have to phone him.
PP. :)
Click to expand...

Yeah he does stuff the old fashioned way. Including the way he makes the barrels. I've got a few of his barrels on single shot rifles and they are excellent.

Congratulations by the way on getting that rifle. The original Winchester Single Shots are my favorites.

Chris.
 
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