Browning 1885

[.452dia]

What are the differencs between the Browning 1885 Hi Wall (45-70) Sporter Version with 28 inch barrel and the BPCR Version of this rifle other than the longer heavier barrel and sights?

[Doc Highwall]

The reciever has a tang and a tang sight.
The 30" barrel is half octagon half round and was made by Badger barrels.
The butt stock has a cheek piece and pistol grip along with a shotgun butt plate to distribute the recoil better.

Google images for a good picture of one.

[bigted]

i have both and the quality is great with each but the nod definetly goes to the BPCR rifle. also i believe that the twist rate is 20 inch in the sporter and 18 inch in the BPCR.

both great rifles and shoot like a house-a-fire...but for different uses for my eye. the lite sporter is good for packing all day long for hunting and the BPCR is super for the bench or sticks for accurate paper punching. the BPCR gets the nod also for the liter recoil mentioned.

could use both for either tho and i have a hankering to use the BPCR for taking a moose and a black bear but havnt yet. do you have either or just shopping at this time?

[.452dia]

I knew about the differences in the barrels but wasn't sure about the rate of twist. I knew about the tang and tang sight but my rifle has the checkered shotgun stock and butt. Somewhere I think I saw there was a difference in depth of the rifling but I can't find it written anywhere. I have the sporter version with the 28 inch barrel. I'm really happy with it so far and it shoots the factory 325 gn. Hornady Ballistic Tip Ammo great. I took it with me when I visited my daughter in SC and burned all the ammo I had brought with me on the range then got invited on a hog hunt so I had to buy the factory stuff.

bigted, what is the heaviest bullet you shoot in the sporter?

[bigted]

i listed the depth of both awhile back and they are as such...winchester/browning 1885 hiwall hunter with the 28 inch liteweight barrel meassures .0025 inch deep rifling

the browning bpcr rifle with the 30 inch badger barrel which is half round and half octagon meassures .004 inch deep rifling.

the sporter with the lite 28 inch barrel and the 20 inch twist ...in my experience... does great with jacketed bullets and recently i cast some rcbs .452 inch slick paperpatch boolits weighing in at 540 grains and it devours them like a house-a-fire...but again that is with my duplex blackpowder load.

my smokless load is unfortunately with a jacketed bullet...namely a remington 405 grain flat soft point. it will clover these at 100 yards all day long with this load.

34 grains of RL 7 and then fill the case up with cornmeal to kiss the bottom of the bullet when loaded to depth...in a remington case...sparked with a cci 200 large rifle primer. crimped in the conventenual crimp groove that is factory made...small note here is worth mentioning as well with fillers...NEVER NEVER leave any air void ...just like blackpowder... when using any filler.


this is such a fun round and very accurate when my 6 to 18 leopold scope is mounted and benched and rested at the end of my forarm with a padded adjustable rest....with my left hand holding the butstock for height against my shoulder. i also installed a lace up butpad to the cresent butplate with some firm foam to take up the void in the cresent...this does three things for me...1- it lengthens the pull for my long arms...2- it makes even the heavy boolits fairly tame...3 and lastly it protects the heel of the stock from getting set too hard on anything so the toe of the stock is protected from the historic crack in this area. also this kinda historic buttpad is a good looking addition to my rifle ...it came from baco.

im thinking that my next step will be to shoot the rcbs 540 grain boolit with the RL-7 / cornmeal load mentioned above.