Home Forums Lever Action Central Big Bore Levers 1895 .40-65 ?

Have access to lots of cheap PMC .40-65 ammo, 260 grain lead bullet at about 1300 fs. Anyone ever rebarreled a modern (336 based) 1895 to this calibre? Should work easily through the action and magazine. What twist, groove and bore dimensions would be best?

Well you'll have to search a little to find a barrel that ammo will fit. They loaded that with .406 diameter bullets, most of the 40 cal barrels you can get nowdays are .408. Guaranteed from actual shooting experience with the stuff, it will turn a barrel into a sewer pipe.
Might check with Shilen and Douglas barrels for a smaller diameter barrel. 1-16 twist is about all you can find these days.
Another option might be just reline the barrel on one of the Marlins. I think Brownells has barrel liners for that, also check out Track of the Wolf.
You can rent the chamber reamers from Reamer Rentals .com

good tips,thanks. How about outside lube on the bullets?

I've been just pulling the bullets, dumping the powder and using the primed cases. But the lube looks to be some sort of bluegreen colored typical hard smokeless lube. The bullets are fairly hard, but they'll do fine melted in with other alloy for plinkin or maybe handgun bullets.

Ranch13, have now read more about the leading from this ammo.
Seems to be a known fault. Could this be from shooting it through an oversize bore or is it the fault of the alloy or the lube?

Leading problem is mostly from bore size, being to big for the bullet.They sized these to be used in original barrels, which is fine, but finding a 404-406 barrel nowdays isn't very easy these days.
The alloy they used is just fine.The lube looks to be an ok lube for smokeless.

Ranch13, thanks again. Will now do some research to see if I can find a .406 barrel or liner preferably with a slower twist than 1-16, the original WRA twist I think was 1-26, will check that.