Winchester Hi Wall headed my way in 38/55!

[oldred]

Green Mountain sells .379" barrel blanks, and always has. I've purcahsed from them numerous times, and always been pleased with the accuracy of their barrels.

Are you sure about that? I couldn't find anything except .375 before and a quick search there just now brings up zero results for .379? In fact the .375 barrel I have now that came from GM was chosen because I couldn't find the more traditional bore size there.

[marlinman93]

Their Classic Tapered octagon BPCR barrels were .379" the last time I bought one. That was 7 or 8 years ago. I just looked again to see what groove they are, but they don't specify now. Just shows the 1:12 twist, barrel weight, and dimensions externally. Guess I'll have to give them a call and ask.

http://www.gmriflebarrel.com/w381236...-octagon-bpcr/

http://www.gmriflebarrel.com/classic...ls-4140-steel/

[oldred]

Their Classic Tapered octagon BPCR barrels were .379" the last time I bought one. That was 7 or 8 years ago. I just looked again to see what groove they are, but they don't specify now. Just shows the 1:12 twist, barrel weight, and dimensions externally. Guess I'll have to give them a call and ask.

http://www.gmriflebarrel.com/w381236...-octagon-bpcr/

http://www.gmriflebarrel.com/classic...ls-4140-steel/

First off let me apologize for the poor way I worded my question, of course you know what you bought and I didn't mean for it to sound as if you might not know, what I meant was do they still offer them now. Also I never looked at any of the pre-finished barrels because I was in the market only for raw blanks and I "assumed" the already profiled, octagon, etc barrels would be the same bore as the raw blanks.

[marlinman93]

No offense taken oldred. I usually buy profiled barrels from GM as I don't have a mill that I can profile them with. Not sure either how their unfinished blanks compare to profiled blanks, or what they sell today.

[skeettx]

So, this is what I would do, get the gun. Load one cartridge with the .379 bullet, see if it will chamber in the rifle.
If so, and you loaded a mild to medium load, shoot it and measure the inside diameter of the case or see if the
bullet will fit inside this fired, unsized case.
Please report back
Mike

[BCRider]

Is it the .38-55 chamber length or the shorter .375win length?

Another 38-55 guy here.

Be careful when calling out the chamber and casing lengths. Starline carries two lengths for 38-55. I believe the longer is for the older Ballard single shot 38-55 and the shorter is the later Winchester lever 38-55 which got adopted by a lot of the single shot rifles around that time as well. And then the .375Win is shorter than either of those. And thicker walled at the mouth to boot.

Bullet diameters are lots of fun with the various 38-55's too. I've got two now. A Swedish action which got given a Shiloh Sharps barrel transplant and a new Uberti Winchester 1885. The Sharps barrel was mistakenly chambered by someone with the fatter "lever" size reamer that needs .380 size bullets. But the barrel is really happy with .376 to .377. Then the Uberti that slugged at groove diameter of .379 isn't really happy with that size but plays really well with .382 to .383". It's been a roller coaster ride for me and my 38-55 shooting but I do love the cartridge for the moderate kick compared to a 45-70.

[50target]

Another 38-55 guy here.

Bullet diameters are lots of fun with the various 38-55's too. I've got two now. A Swedish action which got given a Shiloh Sharps barrel transplant and a new Uberti Winchester 1885. The Sharps barrel was mistakenly chambered by someone with the fatter "lever" size reamer that needs .380 size bullets. But the barrel is really happy with .376 to .377. Then the Uberti that slugged at groove diameter of .379 isn't really happy with that size but plays really well with .382 to .383". It's been a roller coaster ride for me and my 38-55 shooting but I do love the cartridge for the moderate kick compared to a 45-70.

Ain't that the truth with the 38-55. I have one of the Uberti HW and it drove me crazy. Can't assume anything. Put .379 in her and you'd do better loading them in a slingshot. Put .380-.381 in it and life is good. Have a pristine Stevens 44 and she is OK with down to.378. Go figure.
Enjoy & good luck.
Bob

[koger]

The rifle shoots anything between .375-379 great. I settled on sized and lubed 265gr cast from a double cavity lee, 377 as she comes out of the mold, just run thru a sizer to lube, for now, may start pan lubing soon. I am shooting 24.0 grains of IMR4198, and she keeps 5 shots in 2" at 140yds off sandbags. I am one happy camper.