1876 Winchester Project Rifle

[Tully Mars]

Hi Ken,

Mine was a more complete rifle, it came with almost everything needed, but fitting was required on several parts. The carrier, lifter, bolt, firing pin all needed work. The magazine tube needed a stop added to keep the follower in place. The head space was off as well. I considered sending it to Turnbull, but have decided to leave it as it is. If I want something newer looking, I'll buy a Uberti.

This was my first 76' project too. It came from a buddy's estate, it was his project which I in turn took over. It's pretty cool to shoot it and feel him looking over my shoulder!

Next I have two 73's that came from his estate as well.

Congratulations on your finished rifle! It looks great! How does it shoot?

Tully

[King Medallion]

What a great project! I wish I would have found this post several months back while I was putting a 76' together. Funny thing is, they are quite similar looking. It's in 45-60, I shot it in two matches this fall that had Tom Horn categories!
Tully

Looks alot like the Presideo, minus the blued finish.

[KenH]

...... If I want something newer looking, I'll buy a Uberti.

...............It's pretty cool to shoot it and feel him looking over my shoulder!

Congratulations on your finished rifle! It looks great! How does it shoot?

I agree with you totally on the "newer looking", I sorta like the old look of the rifle, heck it's over 100 yrs old, and for the age looks good:)

Shooting?  It shoots pretty good.  I've only had a chance to shoot at shorter ranges around 30 or so yards.  They built a subdivision next to my property, and now the city limits join my land right next to my old shooting range.  My lot is 2.5 acres which is pretty good, but now I limit my shooting to short distance, and not so much.  There are now houses 30 ft from my property line. 

I've shot black powder, but mostly smokeless and it seems to hold a inch or so pretty easy, but that's with my old eyes and iron sights, and not the best rest.  While not a "varmint" rifle, it's certainly good enough for deer at <100 yds.

I'm very happy with it, mostly it sits next to my old Rolling Blocks and Trapdoor rifle.  I just LOVE those old cartridge black powder rifles with straight cases, or with the 40-60 caliber, mostly straight case

[greyhawk]

OK, time for an update:

I got the VTI order today with rear part of firing pin - now have both parts with a spring I've got that seems to work. Next is to make the firing pin stop to fit the Uberti breech bolt to hold firing pin in place.

I got the Uberti breech bolt and without the lever it's really hard to tell how well the breech bolt will function, but it seems to. There is an issue with the tab on bottom of bolt face preventing the bolt from fully closing and extractor grasping the rim of cartridge. From what I can see that tab (tit?) shouldn't extend past the thickness of the cartridge rim because there is not a relieved place in barrel (bottom of chamber) for it to extend into. The barrel face is flat, and I can see where a tab (tit) has pressed against the barrel face in the past. There is a nice extractor slot into the barrel on top for the extractor to fit into. I'm thinking that tit needs to be "touched" with a file to the same thickness as the cartridge rim. Does that make sense?

Ken   NO!!!!!!!! that tit needs to be fit into a nitch underneath the chamber - but its cut differently than the extractor slot - needs the barrel face flat on the bottom as you observed but with the nitch for that tit on the bolt cut in underneath (I made a picture below)  - otherwise you will have a sharp edge that might snarl the case as it goes in the chamber .
if you file that tit back its likely not gonna pick up the case rim properly (or at all) then you get the slope of the front part of extractor bearing down on the case and it drags on the bottom of the chamber = sticky feeding. The 66,73,76 allsame here, that little tab looks like nothing but tis critical to good feeding 

[KenH]

Ken   NO!!!!!!!! that tit needs to be fit into a nitch underneath the chamber - but its cut differently than the extractor slot - needs the barrel face flat on the bottom as you observed but with the nitch for that tit on the bolt cut in underneath (I made a picture below)  - otherwise you will have a sharp edge that might snarl the case as it goes in the chamber .

Yep, you're right greyhawk - I found that out later, and I SHOULD have went back and corrected the post.  Good thing I didn't take a file to the tit   The real problem was covered in another post:  The thread on "Uberti 1876 in 45-60 ejector issue or brass" confirmed the problems I was having with the Uberti bolt and Jamison brass.  I've turned down a few rounds of Jamison brass so the rim is .600" range  rather than the .615" diameter rim it comes with.  Since I set my headspace for the Jamison brass (rim .055" thick) Star 45-70 brass is pretty tight with .064" rim thickness so does need to be thinned a tad to chamber properly.  It seems there are two rim sizes for 40-60 brass.

[greyhawk]

Yep, you're right greyhawk - I found that out later, and I SHOULD have went back and corrected the post.  Good thing I didn't take a file to the tit   The real problem was covered in another post:  The thread on "Uberti 1876 in 45-60 ejector issue or brass" confirmed the problems I was having with the Uberti bolt and Jamison brass.  I've turned down a few rounds of Jamison brass so the rim is .600" range  rather than the .615" diameter rim it comes with.  Since I set my headspace for the Jamison brass (rim .055" thick) Star 45-70 brass is pretty tight with .064" rim thickness so does need to be thinned a tad to chamber properly.  It seems there are two rim sizes for 40-60 brass.

Ken
Wikipedia info (suspect maybe?) gives rim thickness of .059 to .065 for the original 76 calibres - same source says 45/70, 348  is .070 - happily my Uberti repro handles the thicker rim fine ---most originals being a bit worn likely would too.
it looks like jamison made their brass correct dimensions for the older guns.
I dont like the thought of thinning rims - think if it was me in that place I would try a few (maybe) five cases and thin them from the base then use large pistol primers (they are about 5 thou shorter than rifle primers.)
Peeling 5 thou off the base with my gear and ability would be relatively easy, thinning from the front of the rim + several more degrees of difficulty - could do it but a PITA