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I recently received my Browning Model 71 conversion to 50-110 back from Turnbull and I absolutely love it! It's got a 26" rust blued octagonal barrel and I added the extended tube magazine. I added checkering to the factory buttstock and installed a Pachmayr decelerator pad. I also had them install an aluminum pillar around the screw that holds the buttstock to the frame for added strength. We replaced the factory forend with a custom checkered forend in order to accommodate the octagonal barrel. It's got a Marble's silver bead front sight along with a Marble's bullseye rear sight. I also had them color case harden the receiver, hammer, lever, and forend cap. All other metal finishes were blued and the wood received a nice red oil finish.

It's shooting great with everything that I have loaded for it so far. I plan to carry it on a cape buffalo hunt that I have scheduled for July. The load that I plan to use is a 450 grain Swift A Frame over a Starline case full of RL15, ignited by a Fed 215 LRM primer.











DJH

Damn 'beautiful hammer' i love mine, hope you fill the freezers with it for many seasons to come.

Thanks bud, I appreciate the load development help!

DJH

You're most welcome 8Point, you're gonna have a blast with that rifle.

Saw one of his units, I think it was a 45-90, on a local rack years back. I sure wish I had bought it. I suspect it would have been a very fine investment.

PM sent....

Beautiful rifle. My neighbor has a Winchester 1886 in 45-70 by Turnbull, it looks and shoots great!

Beautiful rifle!

The 45-90 cartridge has piqued my interest as of late. I'm currently struggling with the desire to build a rifle that will shoot this cartridge.

Thank you Mrhp! After reading your post about your desire to build a 50-110 I decided to create this post since I just recently received my conversion back from Turnbull Mfg. Best of luck should you decide to move forward with your project!

50 years from now, some fellow will be paying $40k for that rifle...

Meanwhile, chances are the car you bought last year that cost 5X this rifle will be razor blades.

Very nice!

Was up at 3 a.m CST waiting on a cc cold reading the campfire, i showed Wife your post as she was sitting me a mug of coffee down............AWE, she said, do you need to buy another rifle sweetheart? well yes i do Dear! ; ] LOL!

I am so glad I could help!!

Wowzer , that's a beautiful 71.

That is a great looking conversion.

Looking forward to reading about your Cape Buffalo hunt.

Beautiful for sure. Another "Oh my !" moment when I saw that.

Is 2.85" the longest COL that will work through an M71 or 1886 ?
That would apply to either .50-110 WCF or .45-90, both having 2.4" cases and allowing 0.45" of FN bullet projection forward of case mouth ?

Very nice

I have often seen a max of 2.88” quoted. It is harder to achieve that with the 50/110. The max OAL is also a function of the meplat width and how much work has been done to get the loaded shell through the loading gate and into the magazine. When Marlin shoehorned the 45/70 into the 336 action they had to make a few changes. One of them was to put a bulge in the mag tube opposite the loading gate. This was to allow the fat 45/70 case enough room to swing around and fit in the mag tube.

If you look at original 50/110 factory loadings, most bullets have a short nose and a narrow meplat. I’m guessing they would be around 2.7-2.75” in OAL.

I have 50/110 and a 45/90 conversions built on 1886 and 71 (Miroku) actions respectively. I try to keep OAL down to 2.80” in the 50/110 and 2.85” in the 45/90. That gives me a small margin of safety if I need crank out shells quickly. There’s no point having a levergun that has feeding issues.

JFE,
That was good info on the meplat size and the COL being important in feeding those lever actions.
I tried my Brownining/Miroku 1886 .45-70 and 2.800" is the longest I can work through the loading gate and lever up to start chambering.
Yes, the narrower meplat of the 400-gr Swift A-Frame loads easier than the broader meplat of the 400-gr Barnes Buster, both at 2.800" COL
even though both are too long to fit in the no-throat .45-70 chamber with .457"-grooved barrel.
Amazingly the Hornady 480-grain DGX-Bonded at 2.780" COL will feed through loading gate and chamber without resistance in the SAAMI .45-70 Govt. chamber.
It is only .455" diameter above the cannelure, tapering to FN meplat of about 0.250" diameter. Might be safe ?

8point said "The 45-90 cartridge has piqued my interest as of late. I'm currently struggling with the desire to build a rifle that will shoot this cartridge."

The Miroku/Winchester 1886 45-90 TD handles 45-70 and 45-90 ammo just fine. Mine is very plain externally, but all standard internally.

From 300 grain light game loads to 450 grain DG loads at 2150 fps, it has proven to be an accurate and effective hunting rifle.