Home Forums Lever Action Central Big Bore Levers Cast bullet

Jim,
I have two comments on changing the throat on Miroku lever guns.

1. You may want to consider making this decision AFTER you have your Miroku 1886 45-90 in hand and can try some bullets in it.
My Miroku 1886 .45-90 handles Beartooth 325 grain cast bullets well and it has handled several brands of 300, 325, 400, 405, 450 grain jacketed bullets with no problem.

In my experience, the 450 grain jacketed and monolithic bullets are the upper limit to optimize the .45-90 weight/velocity equation, with 2150 fps 450 grain Kodiak and NFs shooting really well. Of course those are Elephant loads and not needed for most hunting in North America. All commercial .45-70 ammo has shot well in my rifle.

2. If you have a real NEED to throat it, study the case and do it. This applied to my Miroku 1895 .405 WCF as follows:
To duplicate a documented safe and successful load with the 400 grain Woodleigh bullets seated and crimped at the cannelure, I had a gunsmith extend the chamber until such dummy cartridges chambered with 25 thousandths clearance of the rifling. This worked quite well and had no adverse effect on velocity or accuracy of factory Hornady 300 grain ammo.
This was not an experiment or what-if toy, but a successful effort to reach the 400 grain velocities of the 450/400 Nitro Express, which is a well known killer of African DG . My 1895 has since take Cape Buffalo and Asian water buffalo with this load and I am confident that with the Woodie solids it can take an elephant..