Acknowledging the reader’s concerns regarding pressures and velocity limits for the Model 86, it seemed like it might be a good idea to go over the development of the Winchester Model 1886 - from its inception through its quiet demise in 1935 - and outline the general design characteristics of the rifle and its limitations.

To begin, the Winchester Model 1886, introduced by Winchester that same year, was the creation of John Browning. Inaugural cartridges included the .45-70, .45-90 WCF and .40-82 WCF. The .40-65 WCF, .38-56 WCF and .50-110 WCF were added in 1887, followed by the .40-70 and .38-70 in 1894, the .50-100-450 in 1895 and the .33 WCF in 1903.

With the exception of the .33 WCF, all the cartridges chambered in the 1886 were designed for blackpowder with a peak operating pressure of around 28,000 psi. The .33 WCF was a smokeless cartridge from the get-go that developed upwards of 40,000 psi in the relatively new nickel-steel barrels.

By 1919 most of the cartridge lineup for the Model 86 were discontinued, leaving the .45-70, which was discontinued for a second time in 1931, and the .33 WCF.

As the various cartridges came and went, the Model 86 also experienced a gradual transition, ranging from the initial 10-pound rifle with a 26-inch barrel and magazine, to the extra lightweight and lightweight designs that cropped up around the turn of the century. By the time the 86 disappeared, paving the way for the introduction of its second cousin the Winchester Model 71 in 1936, the .45-70 and .33 WCF lightweights weighed less than 7.0 pounds and handled like field-grade shotguns.

There were essentially two versions of the lightweight rifles: an extra lightweight .45-70 with a 22-inch barrel and a lightweight .33 WCF with a 24-inch barrel. From about 1899 on for the .45-70 and 1903 for the .33 WCF, barrels were nickel steel with a tensile strength of approximately 100,000 psi.

All was well and good until 1964 when Marlin introduced the .444 Marlin on the Model 336 action. When Marlin also introduced the  .45-70 in the same basic rifle design in 1973, folks reasoned, and rightfully so, that if the .444 Marlin was a 40,000-psi cartridge, you could load the .45 caliber right up to the same pressures - and a lot of folks did just that.

So the .45-70 existed in limbo. Some folks just loaded it right up to 40,000 psi and went hunting. Others admonished those hot-rodders as irresponsible, or whatever.

In the meantime, starting back in the 1950s, a gent by the name of Harold Johnson out of Cooper’s Landing, Alaska, just ignored the debate over the .45-70 and proceeded to neck the .348 WCF case up to .45 caliber, forming the .450 Alaskan. With his wildcat case design in the Winchester Model 71, Johnson boosted 400-grain bullets along by 51.5 grains of IMR-4198 for about 2,100 fps from a 24-inch barrel.

While Harold Johnson was building and shipping .450 Alaskans all over the world. Harold Fuller, the man who made Johnson’s reamers, came up with the .450 Fuller that was more suitable for chambering in the Model 86 with nickel-steel barrels. Of the two wildcats, the .450 Alaskan generated a bit more power, but no beast on earth could distinguish between a 400-grain bullet at 2,100 fps or the same bullet at a more leisurely 2,000 fps.

Not to be outdone, P.O. Ackley came up with still another version by necking up the basic .348 WCF case and blowing the shoulder diameter out to .535 inch. The Ackley wildcat boosted velocities with 400-grain bullets to nearly 2,300 fps - and to this day represents phenomenal power from a lever-action rifle that is harnessed to a maximum of 42,000 psi. With 500-grain bullets, the .450-348 Ackley Improved runs right up and dances on the heels of the .458 Winchester Magnum.

The problem with boosting the .45-70 up to 40,000 psi back in the 1970s was that there was no real reliable pressure data to use for reference. Most loading manuals took pressures up to 28,000 psi but left serious reloaders to flounder around between 30,000 and 40,000 psi. For that reason, and even up to present day, there was a lot of variation in terms of maximum loads from one reloading manual to the next. About the only load anyone could agree on was 53.0 grains of IMR-3031 with a Hornady 350-grain bullet for about 1,850 fps, depending on barrel length. Finally in 1980, Hornady stated the obvious: “This rifle (the Model 95 Marlin) is the same basic action as that of the .444 Marlin which operates at 40,000 CUP.” Whew, someone finally admitted the obvious.

The Hornady Handbook of Cartridge Reloading Third Edition took its 300-grain hollowpoint .45-70 bullet to 2,100 fps from a 22-inch barrel and recommended several powders that pushed its 350-grain bullet to 1,900 fps.

Following Hornady’s lead, it didn’t take long for the rest of the industry to accept the brute strength of the Marlin Model 95 as a fact. What folks forgot, or overlooked, however, is that the Winchester Model 86 with nickel-steel barrels had the same brute strength.

It is my opinion the Model 86 Winchester was overlooked during the evolution of the .45-70 because most folks simply didn’t know it was two distinctly different rifles: those manufactured for heretofore blackpowder cartridges prior to 1899 and those made after. For the most part, rifles manufactured prior to the turn of the century used barrel steel that was not up to the pressures routinely created by the new smokeless powders. When the .30-40 Krag (.30 U.S.), .30 WCF, .25-35 WCF, .32 Winchester Special and .33 WCF came along, they were all loaded with smokeless powder and re-quired a new kind of barrel steel - Winchester called it “Nickel Steel especially for smokeless powder.”

Even though the .45-70 and .33 WCF were chambered in nickel-steel barrels after 1900, the former was still limited to 28,000 psi, and the latter was a 40,000-psi cartridge. So, where early barrel steel was limited to 28,000 psi, an extra lightweight .45-70 or .45-90 WCF could be loaded to 40,000 psi if you could find reputable loading information.

The problem back then, and even today, was the lack of .45-90 WCF brass, which is why Johnson and Fuller elected to neck up the .348 WCF case to .45 caliber in an effort to generate more power than was available from the standard .45-70. And, it appears they even had lawyers back then - who would admonish anyone not to load the .45-70 up to 40,000 psi and risk the chance that one of those hot pills might find its way into an 1873 Springfield rifle or carbine or a prewar Marlin Model 95 or Winchester 86 that did not have a nickel-steel barrel. The obvious solution was the .450 Alaskan, .450 Fuller or the .450-348 Ackley Improved in a Model 71 rifle. The one little detail that most folks seemed to have missed, however, is that even the Model 86 .45-70 or .33 WCF rifles with nickel-steel barrels could be rechambered to the .450 wildcats based on the .348 WCF case.

Just when it seemed everyone understood all the details regarding the .45-70, the Marlin Model 95 and the pre-World War II Winchester Model 86 rifles and carbines with nickel-steel barrels, Browning (USRAC) came up with the Model 71 and the Model 86 rifles and carbines. The Browning reproductions appeared to have confused all the folks who wrote loading manuals, and while the modern reproductions of the 86 were certainly as strong as the Marlin Model 95, you wouldn’t know that by reading the disclaimers in the manuals. Even by the mid-1990s, the Winchester (USRAC) Model 86 rifles were considered to be the weak cousin of the Model 95 Marlin.

Now that we have all that straight, there is at least one more item that needs clearing up: overall loaded length. The proper (recommended) overall loaded length for the .45-70 today is 2.54 inches - partly due to the simple fact that is all the modern Marlin Model 95 can handle. (The pre-World War I Marlin 95 could handle cartridges with an overall loaded length of 2.88 inches.)

If you want more power than is possible from the .45-70 in the modern Marlin Model 95, there are at least two options: rechamber to .450 Alaskan or have the action altered slightly so it will handle the Wild West Guns’ .457 Magnum. Of the two choices, the latter is the least troublesome in terms of gunsmithing and is more in keeping with the overall design strengths of the Marlin action.

In a nutshell, the .457 Magnum is a slightly longer .45-70 case that required minor modifications to the Marlin 95 so it will handle an overall loaded cartridge length of 2.625 inches, nearly .15 inch more than the .45-70. For the trouble of lengthening the action, you can drive a 350-grain bullet to about 2,200 fps from an 18.5-inch barrel or a 400-grain bullet to just over 2,000 fps. In effect, you can beat the .45-70 loaded to the same pressure levels by 100 fps or more. And, in a pinch, you can also fire standard .45-70 ammunition in a .457 Magnum chamber.

The question some folks have is how this whole business of .45-70 versus .45-90 versus .457 Magnum or .450 Alaskan, etc. stacks up against the new .450 Marlin. So far as we can tell, the .450 Marlin exactly duplicates what handloaders have been doing in the .45-70 for nearly 25 years. The only difference is the belted case design used on the .450 Marlin eliminates any chance that you can use readily available .45-70 brass. The benefit, of course, is that the .450 Marlin is loaded right up to 40,000 psi (on average) and with the new Hornady 350-grain flatnose jacketed bullet is capable of fending off just about any beast you might run into on this planet.

The .450 Marlin and .457 Magnum also deal with the “lawyer factor” since neither cartridge can be chambered in older, heretofore blackpowder .45-70 rifles that would probably disintegrate if subjected to 40,000- to 43,000-psi chamber pressures. The fly in the ointment is that the .457 Magnum can be fired in a .45-90 WCF chamber, but anyone who is silly enough to do that in a blackpowder rifle, which can be worth up to $10,000 to a collector, is probably certifiable anyway. The .457 Magnum can, however, be safely fired in a .45-90 WCF with a nickel-steel   barrel.

For a reasonably fair comparison of all these cartridges, I fired Buffalo Bore loads in a Marlin Model 95 with an 18.5-inch barrel, a Browning Model 86 carbine with a 22-inch    barrel and a Winchester (USRAC) Model 86 takedown rifle with a 26-inch tube. The .457 Magnum was fired in a Wild West Guns Marlin Model 95 Co-Pilot with an 18.5-inch barrel. The .45-90 WCF is a Winchester Model 86 takedown made up from a .33 WCF with the barrel cut back to 21 inches. The .450 Alaskan is a Winchester Model 71 with a 22-inch barrel.