Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Express Rifles and Big Bores Only Browning BLR/ .450 Marlin- takedown

I hear seldom about this setup.
It offers quite alot over the Marlin 45/70.
I find it easier to handload for/ power is equivalent or better, Brass is easier to work and holds its form well.
Oh yeah thet box magazine- i don't require crimping and o.a.l. lengths can be altered through bullet seating.
Mine, I can take it down to store it way...if I like.

And you can buy a BLR WSM mag and load your 450M to 2.8” OAL (depending on bullet and throat).

What grain bullets are you shooting? Velocity?

Now I finally see enough reasons for the .450 Marlin BLR to make me look upon that rifle with more respect than I have for any SAAMI .458 Lott.
The take-down feature would allow it to be easily re-throated
with that special, magical SAAMI .458 WinMag reamer.
If I happen across one of those babies it is going home with me.

Sir Ron, you are truely incorrigible but it’s good to see you still have fire in the belly.

Knew someone that a SS takedown in 300 win that had it rebarreled into a 375 Ruger. Swore by it, always intrigued me. Wouldn't mind one of those myself!
Rick

Something to think about with the BLR:

I shot a dangerous over-pressure round in a 358 blr. The brass case head was distorted so badly, that the rifle was initially locked up. I pryed the lever open for all I was worth, leveraging the buttstock off my thigh.. The extractor did not slip and ejected the badly stuck case!

So it beat the 375 ruger bolt action, savage 99 and winchester 95 in a similar test. The cheesy extractors would slip right off the rim, leaving the case stuck in the chamber.

The BLR design is rugged and safe. I wasn't wearing safety glasses, and the thousands of lbs of hot gas pressure were diverted from my face. I was lucky.

Load that sucker to 60,000 psi with a 400 grain a-frames.......

Now I really really want one.

i have a take-down BLR S.S. 30-06 Laminated stock have never had any problems with this rifle but i have decided to stay below max pressures too. why try to do max pressures or more ? i also still like to crimp my cartridges for this rifle too when i reload. its just not worth taking chances be careful, Pete53 i should mention this i always wanted a S.S. BLR in a 338 Win.Mag. that to me would be the ultimate bear - moose rifle .

There's a gunshop in Texas that has 10 of the stainless take-down 450 marlinds in stock.

I would be interested in contributing to this project, to include getting the shooter in close proximity to a giant, rut-raged bull moose.

I would imagine that at 2.8" COAL, you would easily see 65-70 grains powder capacity with a 400 grain swift. The BLR is the best of the modern lever guns, and the strongest/safest too.

This should easily match the 450 fuller, if not exceed it. All in a gun that would allow a 2.5x Leopold ultralight scope, which the 450 fuller rifles can't.

What powder? Something slightly faster than rl 7 to get those higher pressures? Hodgdon CFE BLK?!

Cannalure tool for seating those bullets out to 2.8"?

PM sent to mainer_in_ak.
I think RL-7 and H4198 would both be great,
as would be the 350-gr and 400-gr Swift A-Frames, and a bunch of other bullets,
CEB, etc.
.458 SOCOM bullets and the new powders like that CFE Black ... many possibilities,
and many more with the re-throating and
2.8" mag box, add-on cannelures, etc.
YO!

Sad to discover a bunch of "Browning Arms, etc." scammers on the internet.
I suspect they are paying protection money to Joe Biden.
What a racket.
Is the Browning brand such bait that the hapless fall for it ?
I think when they claim to have "Authentic" firearms in their home page, that is a red flag.
Also when they have a phone number that a robot says "is either busy or out of service, please try again later."
Or they have no telephone number or physical address to be found on the web site,
contact by email only.
And you send them an email asking if they have a telephone number or a physical address and they never reply.
And if you google their business name for BBB reports or scam association,
and every time they are rats ...
What is it about Brownings ?

Here is a great article on the BLR:

https://www.gunsandammo.com/editorial/browning-blr-review/389589

https://www.browning.com/

https://www.browning.com/products/firearms/rifles/blr.html

No longer made in 450 Marlin, but .300 WinMag is available as Takedown:

https://www.browning.com/products/firearms/rifles/blr/blr-lightweight-81-stainless-takedown.html

Still making this one in 450 Marlin, not a Takedown:

https://www.browning.com/products/firearms/rifles/blr/blr-lightweight-stainless-curved-grip.html

So, could a .300 WinMag "sporter contour" barrel
on the BLR be shortened to 16" and have adequate muzzle diameter for a .458 ?
Probably so.
Ought to thread it for muzzle accessories to be used for weight and balance ?

But could the .308 barrel be rebored to .458
while still attached to the taken down takedown
mechanism ?
Could rear sight attachment on barrel cause a problem from screw hole or dovetail ?

Sumbuddy who know .300 WinMag BLR ?
Sumbuddy make SWAG ?
Sumbuddy ever rebored any BLR ?

RC - I don’t have the answers to your questions but it looks like a lot of additional complication for what originally was an easy project.

If it were me I’d just wait for one to come up for sale. An alternative is to buy a non takedown model in 450M and have that throated. There are ways to separate the barrel from the barrel extension as some guys here have rebarreled BLR’s in other calibers.

JFE,
Right on.
I believe The BLR can be Rebarreled.
Takedown also, old steel receiver and later
aluminum/aluminnium too.
The hunt is on for a .458 WinMag BLR.
Surely it has been done before.
Sumbuddy who know please do tell.

Jesse O of jes reboring claimed he couldn't remove the barrel in regular blr's. But could do chamber work to the take downs. Might be the dreaded press-fit type barrel, I dunno.

Some day, there will be a gunsmith who was once a mechanic, and had to use a hydraulic press.....

Ive got one of those 450 takedown models. The 450marlin is an an excellent design IMO, it's too bad it never took off in a big way.

Dang old pine, you have all the cool rifles! You may have just donated it to the 450 marlin+p sleeper project........

Let's make it a legend (but not a 350 legend)