New 45-70 Bolt action

[DonT]

I was at the gun shop the other day and he had just purchased an oldtimers collection.  Seems the family needed the $$ to pay the nursing home bills.

Anyway as I was looking thru the guns I noticed an odd piece with a BIG hole in the barrel.  Having a soft spot for big bores I looked it over.  Appears that someone had converted a (I am assuming) P14 or maybe a 1917 to 45-70.  It has about a 17/5" tube on it, a williams rear peep site mounted on the bridge and a lyman ramped front site on band (like a safari rifle but the band only goes 80% around the barrel).

IT was nicely done and nicely restocked.  Appears it "may" have been bedded but I have not pulled it apart yet.  The rear sight ears were removed and the front receiver ring was cleaned up and the only lettering remaining is ERA.  It appears to have british proofs on the action.

The gun would not function or chamber rounds from the magazine so I made a single shot block for it.  Made it out of oak and if it functions correctly will make one out of aluminum using the oak one as a pattern.  I find it is easier to make my test patterns from wood then when the bugs are worked out recreate them in metal.  At this point it now seems to function 100%.

I pretty much expected that it would not properly function as a repeater due to past guns (converted enfield by gibbs and a Siamese Mauser conversion) I have owned in this caliber.  Seems like they can be a little tempermental when it comes to anything but single feed.  But thats OK since I am not going to use it for much other than punching holes in targets.  Also I have found that even a single shot bolt action can be cycled very quickly if set up correctly.  You just hold the round in our left fingers against the stock, open the action to eject the fired round then roll the fresh round into the action.  The recess in the home made follower easily catches the round and lines it up.

Not sure if I am gonna keep it or not but I just gotta shoot it before I decide...

DonT

[LONGTOM]

I rebarreled a Rem model 30s express (P14 action civilized) to a 28" 225 Win.
Everyone said I would have feeding problems with it because of the rims.
Not so as long as you remember to keep the first round all the way back in the magazine and make sure each round after that has it's rim in front of the other.
I haven't had not one minutes trouble with feeding as long as I do these two things when loading.
I really don't see why the 45-70 should be any different.


LONGTOM

[DonT]

Longtom,

I agree but someone had done some grinding on the lower opening in the reciever and on the mag follower.  The rounds either jam against the follower and the edge of the receiver as they feed, almost so bad sometimes that it is difficult to get them unstuck.  Or it will only hold one round and if you try to put more in there they all come flying out. 

If I decide to keep it I am going to pick up another unmodified follower and fool with it.  But honestly I have no problem with it being a 100% reliable single shot.  I shot a lot of singleshots (sharps copy and remington roller) and as a kid growing up my mom (Yup my mom taught us to hunt, dad was a salesman & on the road 5 weeks at a shot) taught us the only shot that counted was the first one AND you ate what ever you killed.  She would give us one round, we came back with game we got a second and that is back when you could buy a whole brick of .22 ammo for under $5.00 or a box of .410s for a $1.99 and the local Holiday Gas Station...  Oh them were the days.  If you missed you got to go out the next time with an empty gun after which she would dole out one more round for the Next Time.

You take care and have a great week.....

DonT