doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion Classic & Custom Single Barreled Sporting Rifles @ doublegunshop.com Strength of 1895 Winchester?

Will a Winchester 1895 from 1915, .30'03 cal., be OK with factory ammo if rebored or rebarreled to .35 Whelen? Extraction?

IIRC the original bad rep of the 1895 with the '03 & '06 cartridges was due in at least some part to increasing headspace issues. Apparently this problem didn't happen with all rifles, only with some.

IMO you'll be fine as long as your smith ENSURES that the headspace is minimal in the beginning. To me this would mean that a rebore MUST have the barrel set back one thread in order to clean up the original chamber, not a big deal but still of some importance in my mind.

Additionally, I recall some sort of confusion about the actual headspace dimensions of the factory 35 Whelen back when it was legitimized; this may have been a brass issue rather than a chamber issue but IMO it's worthy of investigation.

Sounds like a worthwhile alteration, I wish you good luck with it!
Regards, Joe

There was an article in the American Rifleman in the early 1950s which gave what was the maximum load for a Winchester 95 in 30-06. The problem was returning GIs wanted to shoot 8mm mauser in them. It wouldn't work just like in woundn't work in the 03 Springfield.

The higher pressure of the .30-06 caused stretching problems with the steel that was used in the 1895s at that point in time. (Not a problem with the new 1895s of today). Re-barreling to .35 Whelen very well could have the same problems?
You should check with someone who really knows about .35 Whelen pressures in relation to the pressures of a .30-06.

A few year back I wanted a lever action .35 Whelen so I looked into my options. I consulted with Cliff Labounty who at the time had recently pioneered a process to rebore DR's.

My choices cam down to a modern Browning or Winchester 1895, made in Japan by Miroku, or a Browning BLR, also made by Miroku.

I went with the BLR simply because one was available to me at the time. Cliff rebored it and I still have the gun, it shoots wonderfully.

Here is some more info on the 1895 and it's limitations...

http://www.leverguns.com/articles/model_1895.htm

Very interesting link, Thanks.

Yes sirree. I have a 1939 era Win M71 rifle- only offered in .348 Win. I also have a G&H Mauser in .35 Whelan made in 1934. I have used both for Black bear and Elk in MT. and CO.- the .35 being a BA is scoped, the M71 has open sights-

The M71 is the only lever action centerfire rifle I own, all the rest are BA- all of those are the Mauser long extractor design and wear Leupold scopes.

IMO- the stronger lever action of that era was the old Savage 99- the .300 Savage was close to the great 30-06 in performance, so I have read. As far as action strength, I once read that Parker Ackley rebarreled a 12 ga. M1897 Winchester into a 30-06 and it worked flawlessly- truth??

Because I can still shoot open iron sights accurately, and assuming I have a good supply of ammo at hand for either the .348 Win (hard to find today) or in some cases, even the .35 Whelan- I could take either one (prefer both) for a Alaskan or NW territory survival rifle)--

??siree. I might be missing something, but how is that germane to the question of M95 strength?

Back in the 1990s there was a smith named Fred Zeglin who had a shop called "Z-Hat Custom". He had a series of wildcats or "almost proprietary" ctgs. based on the '06 case and if I recall correctly barreled '95s for them. If he's still on the green side of the grass, he might be a useful source. I think his wildcats were called the "Hawk" series.

The discussion and the link are interesting and shed further light into the dark corners. The description of the breech face battering around the firing pin hole is especially interesting and VERY revealing, at least to me it is.

The description of the battering is identical to the battering caused by initial excessive headspace.

The firing pin strikes the primer and simultaneously indents it & drives the entire case forward against its shoulder, as far forward as the chamber will permit. The priming compound ignites, driving the primer (but not the case) back against the breech face. This is where the battering begins, with the running start imparted to the primer. The powder then ignites and may or may not drive the case head back against the breech face. If the case DOES drive back against the breech face, the battering becomes much worse.

I posit that the '03 & '06 examples were afflicted with loose chambers and maximum headspace, as already recounted. I further posit that repeated firings would first cause and then exacerbate an even worse excessive-headspace condition.

As circumstantial but compelling supporting evidence I cite the extreme LACK of negative reports on the rifles chambered for the 7.62 Russian cartridge. The dog that did not bark in the night if you will. This cartridge has MUCH LESS capacity than the 30-06 but yet produces velocities that almost always equal or exceed the '06. Obviously, very obviously, the Russian cartridge must have been loaded to even higher pressures than the '06 so why didn't THOSE 1895s get the bad rep?

Ah, you say, but the Russian cartridge has a larger rimmed footprint and so would exert less pressure per square inch on the breech face. Oh, I say, but the primers are exactly the same size and so the smaller-diameter battering as previously described should still have occurred, but apparently did not! Therefore I conclude that pressure, per se, was not the prime cause of the '03 & '06 problems.

So therefore I return to my initial analysis and recommendation of taking extra care in the headspace determination. If pressure and old steel was really the problem then I should have noticed this about 40 years ago when I began working with early Win 1885 single shots and modern hot cartridges. NO SIGN of battering in any of my walls but then again all are chambered to minimum headspace. JMOFWIW.
Regards, Joe