Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Express Rifles and Big Bores Only Winchester 1886 50 Caliber

I bought this gun a few weeks ago and had the chance to load ammo and shoot it. It is a really scarce rifle and has 14 special order features on it and it shoots 315 grain bullets exceptionally well…

Absolutely Gorgeous
Congrats on the find and purchase.

Thanks for posting Shrapnel! I can only dream of owning a beauty like that

Absolutely beautiful 😍

Outstanding!! I must confess I’m not very familiar with cartridges for the 1886. Which cartridge is your 50 caliber 1886 chambered for?

50-100-450. The bigger brother to the 50-110. It is made to shoot the heavier 450 grain bullet.

This is it on the right compared to the 50-70 Sharps, the 50-95 or 50 Express…

You suck! 😁

That is really something!

A real buffalo cartridge! Thanks for the info.

That's a beauty!

Did you find that at the collectors show?

What year manufacture?

It was made in 1896, and I found it when a guy walking through the gun show where I had some nice original 1876 Winchester rifles on display, stopped and asked if I would be interested in a 50 caliber Winchester he had. I told him I was interested and in a few weeks I was the new owner..

jelly

Thank you for the Reply!

It's been well loved and cared for, for nearly 130 years, Amazing!

Awesome rifle! Thanks for sharing..

Very well designed buttstock for shooting with iron sights. What a great find!

Enjoy it.

Wow! I have no words to describe how impressed I am with your latest! Congratulations! By the way…..beautiful photos also! memtb

Great gun. Beautiful, rare, original. Congrats on the investment in a shazam shooter !

Hoyem says it used a .512" bullet, 2.4" case length for .50-100-450 specimen ammo with lead bullet.

Giles & Shuey, pg. 158: "Presumably designed for the African market, this largest of the lever-gun calibers
never caught on here in the U.S. or abroad. A black powder cartridge coming into the market as it did in 1895 was virtually obsolete at birth.
By the time it was offered in smokeless powder and jacketed bullets (1898), the world was rapidly changing to lighter smaller calibers in
modern 'bottle-necked' cases. And while the .50-100-450 ammunition was last loaded in 1916 and cataloged until 1920, it had essentially disappeared by 1910
by which time production of the rifles had all but ceased. The last catalog in which M86s were listed in that caliber was June 1910;
in 15 years on the market, the total number of guns shipped in 50-100-450 totaled a mere 331. It is no wonder, then that cartridge boxes are very difficult to find in this rather obscure but very collectible caliber."
An empty 20-cartridge box circa 1898 with the "Winchester smokeless sunburst" on it might go for $2500 to a collector.

Williamson said he paid $12,000 for a 50-100-450 M86 takedown (pre-1984 dollars).
He said his barrel slugged .5095" in groove and had a 1:54" twist.
But he also claimed his rifle was made in 1890, which does not jive with Giles & Shuey ... ?
2.405" max brass length, 0.610" rim diameter and 0.070" rim thickness.
He made brass for it by blowing out .348 WCF brass but had to machine the headstamp off the brass
to chamber the ammo in the tight headspace for the rim.
He shot 450-gr Barnes jacketed bullets
55.0 gr IMR-3031: 1456 fps
65.0 gr IMR-3031: 1765 fps
with tissue paper over-powder wad (115.6 gr water case capacity),
from whatever full-length octagon barrel length was on the rifle, at 90*F.

I have no idea how much pressure those loads are generating. I got some Buffalo Arms ammunition with the gun. They were loaded with 60 grains of what looked like IMR 3031. I would never shoot that in an old rifle such as this, it isn’t nickel steel.

I copied Mike Venturino’s load from his Lever Gun book of 40 grains of 5744 and a 300 grain gas check bullet. It shoots well and I am now getting a bullet mould made to reproduce that same bullet. My original cast bullets are the top 2, the copies are the bottom 2. This guy know how to make a bullet mould…

That bullet looks like an NEI mold I have. Weighs a little over 300 grains. I’ve sized them to .501 and shoot them in my 500 lever rifles. They shoot very well.
Your 86 is an incredible piece of work.

Collectors Firearms in Houston has one in .50 Express at the moment - it's not as nice as that one, however!

It is an NEI mould. I borrowed it from Mike Venturino and cast up a bunch of bullets before he sold it with the gun. It weighs 315 grains with wheel weight lead. I size mine at .512 for all my 50 caliber guns:

50-70
50-95
50-100-450