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Would the barrel from a modern Winchester 1886 EL fit on the receiver of a Browning 1886?

I would say yes because they are both made by Miroku. The front end of the receivers are the same. The difference is in the rear of the rifles. The Winchester has the tang safety and rebounding hammer. The Browning does not.

I had a barrel from a 1886 EL fitted to B-71 and then had the chamber opened up to 45/90.

However before you switch them over, the dimensions of the Win 1886 EL barrel and the Browning 1886 SRC barrel are identical. Apart from the front sight and the Win barrel set up for a half mag there is no real difference. The internal dimensions were also the same.

JFE, thanks!!
1) where did you get a Winchester EL barrel?
2) was it an old barrel, or a new Miroku barrel?
3) who did the work for you?

pharmvet, I have a Browning lightweight barrel in 45-70 if yourself or anyone needs it, just pm me.

Pm sent

The barrel was taken off an EL that was converted to 50/110. The work on the B-71 was done in Australia, so unlikely to be of value to you. There are a few changes I made to the way the mag tube is held on that are worth doing if you go down this path.

Let me also say that had I known what I know now I would not have done the conversion. Why? In most of the 1886 rifles with the right bullets (bore riding designs) you can cycle and chamber 45/90 length shells and duplicate 45/90 ballistics with a stock 45/70 chamber. The only possible disadvantage is trying to duplicate really high velocity loads using shorter bullets, but who really needs a 300gr pill doing 2600 fps. Most 300gr pills aren't designed for that speed anyway.

I’m basically wanting a Winchester 1886 EL in .45-70 but with a Browning receiver.

That’s going to be messy and/or expensive. I seriously take a look at a Pedersoli rifle. They have a model that is similar to the Win 1886 EL.

The alternative is to buy an EL and have the Browning parts swapped in and have the slot where the tang safety is welded over.

A second of what JFE said. I had an EL for a while that had the browning trigger parts installed and a filler in the safety slot. Worked great.