New member with an 1886 question.

[Rocknut]

Hi everyone, I've been lurking around here for a couple months and finally got myself registered. Other than my dads '94 that I grew up with, I just bought my first lever gun. It's a new Win 1886 EL. I did watch for the Brownings, but my lgs overbought and is closing the winchesters out for $849. I figure for the price difference I can install the browning parts and have the tang welded up and the whole thing restamped. This is where I ran into trouble, Midwest is out of the browning 1886 hammers and doesn't expect to get any more in. I did buy the one piece trigger. Is there any chance that anyone here has an extra Browning hammer that they would like to get rid of? Since that's probably not likely, does anyone have one that they could send me a good picture or a tracing of? I really appreciate any help and have really been enjoying your forum.

Dustin

[jmiller]

Hi everyone, I've been lurking around here for a couple months and finally got myself registered. Other than my dads '94 that I grew up with, I just bought my first lever gun. It's a new Win 1886 EL. I did watch for the Brownings, but my lgs overbought and is closing the winchesters out for $849. I figure for the price difference I can install the browning parts and have the tang welded up and the whole thing restamped. This is where I ran into trouble, Midwest is out of the browning 1886 hammers and doesn't expect to get any more in. I did buy the one piece trigger. Is there any chance that anyone here has an extra Browning hammer that they would like to get rid of? Since that's probably not likely, does anyone have one that they could send me a good picture or a tracing of? I really appreciate any help and have really been enjoying your forum.

Dustin

Hi Dustin and welcome. At the price you paid for that gun you got the best deal on the planet that day. Does he have any more left? If so, let us know who he is in case we want to jump in and get one. I bought a Winchester like you did and had all the work done to it to retrofit it to the original configuration. If you plan on doing it yourself you will run into a couple of problems which you already found out. If you remove the safety, it's not all that easy to fill it in and reblue the gun. The bluing is very difficult to match in that location. I took my gun to Turnbull Manufacturing to have the work done. They specialize in this type of "restoration" and do outstanding work. What they suggest is having it case color hardened after filling in the safety hole. You can't see anything after they do this. They have a package where they do the safety, the hammer, and case color the lever, receiver, and hammer. It's not real cheap but you might find that it's the best choice after you add up what you'll be spending piecing the job out and the outcome you'll be getting. Check out http://www.turnbullmfg.com to see what they have to offer.

[Pete44ru]

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Welcome to the group, Dustin - You got a nice score, @ that price.

I had two of those 1886EL's, a standard grade, which I traded for a High Grade.

You might waht to take it dancing, before you send her for plastic surgery, since they worked just fine, as-issued, for me. (YMMV, of course)

For mods, I would suggest you PM another board member, Mike Hunter, who's done more than a few ops on them.

http://www.mikehunterrestorations.com/test.html

FWIW, I covered the tang safety on mine with a Marbles Tang Peep Sight (and switched out the rear bbl open/iron sight for a folder, so I could have two different zeroes).

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[jmiller]

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Welcome to the group, Dustin - You got a nice score, @ that price.

I had two of those 1886EL's, a standard grade, which I traded for a High Grade.

You might waht to take it dancing, before you send her for plastic surgery, since they worked just fine, as-issued, for me. (YMMV, of course)

For mods, I would suggest you PM another board member, Mike Hunter, who's done more than a few ops on them.

http://www.mikehunterrestorations.com/test.html

FWIW, I covered the tang safety on mine with a Marbles Tang Peep Sight (and switched out the rear bbl open/iron sight for a folder, so I could have two different zeroes).

.

That's not a bad idea. Mine shot and functioned well right out of the box. The 300g factory ammo fed and shot pretty good. If that's what you're going to use, and it's a hunting gun, you might be satisfied with it without doing anything. I've heard pretty good reviews about Mike Hunter but he might be pretty busy or something. I sent him an email a few weeks ago and never heard back from him. Ended up taking the High Wall to Turnbull's after he didn't respond.

[Pete44ru]

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IMHO, Mike might respond quicker to a PM from here (leverguns.com), than sort though God only knows how many emails he gets.

I've found that many small gunsmith shops don't reply to emails - if they did, they wouldn't have any time to work their magic.

I'm sure that a larger outfit, like Turnbull, would employ enough staff to have a dedicated communicator person to do so.

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[jmiller]

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IMHO, Mike might respond quicker to a PM from here (leverguns.com), than sort though God only knows how many emails he gets.

I've found that many small gunsmith shops don't reply to emails - if they did, they wouldn't have any time to work their magic.

I'm sure that a larger outfit, like Turnbull, would employ enough staff to have a dedicated communicator person to do so.

.

You might be right but he has his email posted on his web site as a means to contact him. I was just doing what his web site asked me to do, and I figured if that's the way he wanted to be contacted and that's why he put it on there. It's been three weeks and no response yet. I'm thinking he isn't going to respond to be honest. I'm not picking on him, I hear nothing but good things about him. In fact, I would never have brought it up other than mentioning it in response to a post. He probably is busy but that in itself can sometimes be a problem. Turnbull's has a pretty good staff and there are people to answer the phone, so you're correct on that. It's also one of their strong points, AND they do outstanding work. I did try to contact Mike first.

[Griff]

Dustin, and Welcome to THE Forum. Either of the two suggestions are excellent.

[Pete44ru]

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No harm/no foul, Dustin - I was only suggesting an alternative to email.

Mike's website's a testbed version, so IDK if his email there is operational.

Turnbull does excellent work - I once ran across a .32-20 Model 1892/92 that was done by him, which was georgeous.


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[Rocknut]

Thanks for the welcome and suggestions everybody. I picked it up at Wild Sports in orangevale ca. They had several and allowed me to pick my favorite from a couple boxes. The sale sign said that it's an in store price only though. I'm really excited to get it out to the range and plan on taking it hunting this fall.

As far as modifying it, I'd really like to have a half cock position. My plan is to get rid of the rebounding hammer by modifying the strut and then mill a half cock notch. It seems to me like a good way to go since the hammer and spring assembly are meant to work together. Ideally I would like to also mill the profile of the hammer more like the browning in order to lose some weight and reduce lock time.

The welded tang and stamping are something I'd like done eventually but probably not right away. If I can get the half cock functioning correctly, I intend to make a slug to fill the safety hole for the time being. I have the ability to make the slug and trust myself to eventually tig weld it better than most gunsmiths could but don't know much about blueing or which steel will most closely match the factory receiver after going through the blueing process. I've seen many happy customers from both Mike Hunter and Turnbull and will be sure to contact both of them when I get to that point.

If anybody has a browning hammer out of a gun that could take some measurements or pictures would really help me out. I'm sure I can reverse engineer the notch but having some factory dimensions would be simpler.

Thanks,

Dustin