Winchester Highwal Short Hunter

[AlanF]

Well I'm now 17 months into a 25 month overseas tour of duty and looking forward to getting back home to family and to hunting and shooting. My current inventory includes an E A Brown single shot in 256WM and a Contender carbine in 22LR, 17 HMR, 17 Mink, 204 Ruger, 257 Raptor, and a 7-30 Waters. I would like to get a big bore and I'm thinking of a Winchester Highwall Short Hunter in either 405 Winchester or 45-70 Govt. How would either of those rounds do from the 22" barrel and would I be at any disadvantage if/when my opportunity to hunt moose and elk comes along? If you have one let me know how you like it. I would like to be able to use the tang sight for my purposes to include light loads for fun shooting and and more robust loads for hunting. If there is a model better suited to the above please share your recommendations. Thanks.

Alan

[Shooter]

I have the Jap-chester short rifle in .45-70. The 22" barrel is no problem for me, as I use smokeless powder.
The trapdoor carbines had 22" barrels, so there was use of black powder in short barrels too.

[Tatume]

Although I like the 22" barrels, I do not like the curved "rifle" buttplates. The 24" guns had shotgun butts, and this is what I bought, in 45-70. I like mine very much. It is outfitted with a Williams FP rear sight and XS Sights front sight. It is a very handy rifle, and it shoots very well.

Thank you for your service.

[leadman]

Don't know which eye cup is on the tang sight, but the Hadley cup gives you choices of the aperature size. I have one on my rolling block and you can turn it to a larger hole to allow more light thru and more field of view for hunting.

[bigted]

ive got this snazzy rifle in the 28 inch barrel. i love it to pieces. the curve is something to get used to but definitely doable.

45-70 would be my choice of rounds for hunting as there are many moulds and lots of over-counter boolits for it as well as the j word bullets. a very reliable cartridge and as for rifles...id think that if you want a hunter that you could use a scope sight on to not overlook the ruger #1 rifle as this is both light weight and very strong as well.

both these rifles are very strong and i doubt you will want to shoot a full loaded round from this grand ol cartridge.

black powder is also a choice for this 45-70 and has a huge following in other places.

whichever rifle you choose please do post your final choice and allow us to drool and proclaim distaste that it didnt follow us home.

also thankyou for your service and do come home in health. welcome to the forum and may you be as entertained here as i am.

[NickSS]

I have had 22 inch barrel carbines in a single shot rifle (still have a 22 inch H&R Handy rifle in 45-70). They are a joy to carry but are hard kickers due to the light weight of the rifle and heavy bullet it fires. I have only shot one rifle in 405 Win and it was a Winchester 95 lever action with a 24 inch barrel with a crescent butt plate. It plain hurt my shoulder to a great degree. A crescent butt plate may look cool but it a hard kicking rifle it is not so good. If I were buying a rifle like you are talking about I would buy one with a longer barrel for two reasons. One is a bit more weight and the other is that a 22 inch barrel on a single shot rifle is really short compared to a bolt action rifle. In fact a 26 inch barrel on one of my Sharps is still shorter than my 22 inch barreled 308 bolt action by about half an inch.

[rr2241tx]

Definitely get the .45-70 if you plan to shoot it because the cost per round is not even comparable to .405 WCF and you can have lots of fun with 300 gr cast boolits and light loads or switch to heavy cast boolits and a stiff load for elk. The tang sight that Davidson's packages with their version is probably sufficient for most uses, hunting in timber you will probably be using the barrel sight anyway.

Thank you for your service.

[AlanF]

Thanks guys. Think I'll go with a 45-70 with a longer barrel.

[Lonegun1894]

My only .45-70 is a H&R Buffalo Classic with a 32" barrel. I am used to longer muzzle loaders, so the lenght never bothered me and it shoots well. It does have a somewhat curved butt plate, but not as curved as my .54 flintlock. The mistake many people who complain about the curved butt plates make is trying to shoot the guns off the shoulder like a modern gun with a flat butt plate. The curved plates were designed to be shot off the arm just beyond the shoulder itself, not off the actual shoulder like you would shoot a shotgun. I actually prefer curved plates, but it took me years of shooting them to get here. And having mounted a curved plate gun incorrectly and then squeezing off a shot, I can understand the complaints. There's nothing wrong with the curved plates, but it is something you have to get used to and if you mount it wrong, it will tell you as soon as you squeeze the trigger. At the same time, if you mount it right, to me at least, it almost seems to help absorb recoil more efficiently than a flat plate.

[45r]

I got the 24 inch win 45-70 with pac pad and it's a tack driver.The pac pad really helps with the recoil and the wood is pretty.CDNN has them for 900 bucks.I paid 200 more before they started coming down.Only 140 were made.I put burris base and sig rings with 3x9 leupold and it looks as good as it shoots.One inch groups at 100 yards are there with several cast boolits loads and the same with j-words.