doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion Classic & Custom Single Barreled Sporting Rifles @ doublegunshop.com WTB-1886 33 WCF

When I bought mine, I knew I was going to have to hand load for it, but consoled myself that Incould use the excellent 200gr Hornady flat point bullets.

I then found that they had been discontinued, and Steve Hornady,who was at the Game Fair, told me their was no hope of them being re-introduced.

I ordered some 200gr Flextip, but they never arrived. Perhaps that was fortunate as I have since heard that they tend to stick under the magazine follower in 1886 rifles.

I asked a friend who was going to Australia to try to buy some 200gr Woodleigh flat points. He couldn’t find any but did find an old box of Hornady flats points. Result!

A friend with a lathe has flat pointed a supply of 210gr Partition, and I recently acquired an NEI custom gang mould for FP GC 220gr bullets.

All I need now is a suitable non-toxic bullet for when our lead ban on live quarry comes in. I assume casting bismuth bullets would be a non-starter?

One possibility is to obtain some Barnes .338 solids or brass-only bullets and then have your lathe-owning friend
custom cut and flatten them to around 195-205 grain projectiles.
Hence, an answer.

Horrors! The British Isles banning lead or lead shot. Next they will pick up the lead ban on water fowl as in the US.
That means tungsten, bismuth or some other bloody non-lead concoction.
Do not forget Hawk Bullets in NJ.
They might consider a limited run of 338 non-lead FP bullets.

We have had a lead ban for waterfowl/wetlands for many years. What we now face, effective in about 3 years, is a total ban on the sale and use of lead shot.

For hunting live quarry bullets of .243 and above will have to be totally lead free .

We have been fortunate in that it has been accepted that there are no viable stead substitutes for lead in air rifle pellets,.22 rim-fire snd sub-.240 rifles.

If you gentlemen have not done so it would behoove you to search out a copy of the huge tome "The Winchester Lever Legacy" by Snooky Williamson, a soybean farmer from Mississippi, AIR.

He collected and shot every model of Winchester lever guns in every caliber available, hand loading the rounds and testing them for accuracy, having fired in excess of 750,000 rounds over the course of the research for this excellent book. Load data and targets are included in the book.

I read through it last year and am still amazed at the amount of data contained in it.

Williamson was very "high" in his opinion of the '86.

https://www.amazon.com/Winchester-lever-legacy-Clyde-Williamson/dp/0962026719