New to me Win '95 .405 Win

[sestoppelman]

Been after one of these for some time, not sure how many were made but this is number 19 of the so called Texas model with case colored receiver.
Had it to the range yesterday to sight in with some Hornady factory loads and finally got it more or less on but the light was bad for open irons and old eyes. Its not drilled for a peep sight and I am loath to drill it. What I did do however was compare it to a Browning '95 in 30-40 Krag that I shoot well and found that the notch in the rear was wider and its front sight skinnier than this .405 so I carefully opened up the rear notch with needle files to let a little more light in around the sight. This is the 3rd one of these rifles to pass thru my hands, and hopefully it hangs around for a while!

 

[Bullthrower338]

Beautiful rifle Scott!

 

[BenKK]

Nice! Enjoy!

 

[enysse]

Very nice! Classic look!

 

[fsrmg1]

A very good hunting stick indeed! Time to take her out on a hunt and give us a good field report.

 

[sestoppelman]

I doubt this rifle ever goes afield. I did take one just like it to RSA a few years ago on my boys first safari. I only shot one critter though, a nice nyala. That it hammered with authority is without question. I was hunting eland primarily but never got a shot at one on that hunt. Would like to have seen it perform on the heavier animal, but I have zero doubt it would have handled it with ease with the load I used.

 

[crs]

Very nice indeed!
And it does deliver on game, even with the factory Hornady ammo which is very accurate.
There are some sources of tougher bullets if needed(Barnes, NF, Woodies, and even cast bullets) for thick skinned big game.

I know of a couple of guys that have loaded 300 grain Barnes and NF up to 2400 fps!

 

[sestoppelman]

My best handload was some 56 grs of Varget behind the 300 gr Barnes Triple Shock at about 2250 fps. I would not be afraid to tackle cape buff with that load.

 

[Ridgewalker]

Very handsome rifle! Congratulations, but I really think you need to kill something with it!

 

[Major Khan]

This is an amazing rifle , Sestoppelman. My grandfather , Sepoy Jalaluddin Khan purchased a Winchester Model 1895 lever rifle in .405 Winchester from a shop in Kolkata named " Manton and Co. " in 1931 and was very happy with it. He killed with it ( among other things ) 5 forest panthers , 2 royal Bengal tigers , a few Asian Sloth Bears and 1 rogue Indian elephant . Back in those days , we could only get 300 grain cartridges from ICI Kynoch for it. I killed my life's 1st sambhur deer with that rifle.
However , our model had a metal butt plate that made recoil very painful until he made a homemade recoil pad with rubber.
Congratulations on an excellent purchase .

 

[35bore]

Thats a very nice looking rifle Scott. I thought you had a 405 already??? Maybe I have just been gone too long, but i would have bet money you had one of these a few years back.