Approximate cost of shortening a lever action

Improving and repairing firearms. Rifle bedding, barrel work, stock replacement and other ways to improve your firearms.

Approximate cost of shortening a lever action

Post by Kelsey Cooter » 26 May 2021, 12:24 pm

Any of you blokes had a lever gun shortened?

I'm currently borrowing a wild old girl that I'll probably buy from a friend. It's a 94 chambered in 44-40 and has an 11.5" barrel. It's a piece of crap but impressively accurate and alot of fun.



It got me thinking it would be cool to cut down a miroku 1892 carbine barrel to 13" (for an overall length of 770mm) to have a great little farm gun / pigging gun.

As far as cost goes do you think I'm fairly on the money here or am I way off?

1hr to disassemble
1hr to cut down and crown barrel
1hr to cut new front sight dovetail
1hr to cut down mag tube
1hr to reblue
1hr to reassemble and admire what a cool little carbine I've just made

6hrs @ $100/hr =
$600 total cost?
Kelsey Cooter
Corporal
Corporal
 
Posts: 408
Queensland

Re: Approximate cost of shortening a lever action

Post by rc42 » 26 May 2021, 1:28 pm

Which part of QLD are you in?

I've made use of a really good armory in Brisbane (Tingalpa) called Under Resistance Armory.
I would suggest that you ask them (or your nearest gunsmith) for a quote.
rc42
Staff Sergeant
Staff Sergeant
 
Posts: 794
Queensland

Re: Approximate cost of shortening a lever action

Post by Kelsey Cooter » 26 May 2021, 1:30 pm

North QLD, yeah I'd say John Cooke in Townsville would be keen to do it. Just yarning on the net for a bit of fun at the moment
Kelsey Cooter
Corporal
Corporal
 
Posts: 408
Queensland

Re: Approximate cost of shortening a lever action

Post by bladeracer » 26 May 2021, 2:56 pm

Kelsey Cooter wrote:Any of you blokes had a lever gun shortened?

I'm currently borrowing a wild old girl that I'll probably buy from a friend. It's a 94 chambered in 44-40 and has an 11.5" barrel. It's a piece of crap but impressively accurate and alot of fun.



It got me thinking it would be cool to cut down a miroku 1892 carbine barrel to 13" (for an overall length of 770mm) to have a great little farm gun / pigging gun.

As far as cost goes do you think I'm fairly on the money here or am I way off?

1hr to disassemble
1hr to cut down and crown barrel
1hr to cut new front sight dovetail
1hr to cut down mag tube
1hr to reblue
1hr to reassemble and admire what a cool little carbine I've just made

6hrs @ $100/hr =
$600 total cost?


No idea on costs, but are prices still down around the $100 per hour level?
I don't know if you're allowed to do your own work up there, but I shortened the mag tube on my JW21 (Winchester 9422) down to 5rds, very easy job.

Cutting the barrel is also very easy with a saw, and crowning it takes a few minutes in the lathe, if you want to bother - I would shoot it first and see if it needs crowning at all. I wouldn't go down that short though, depending on chambering, I'd keep it in the 16" to 18" region. .44 Mag would still have some real punch with a shorter barrel though. Cutting the barrel really short though might require removing the barrel from the receiver to be able to re-crown it properly. Just file it square, deburr it and see how it shoots, then cold blue the cut. You can screw a front sight on rather than cut a new dovetail if you prefer - Brownells lists dozens of different types of sights.

My '92 .357 Magnum is 24" and takes 12rds. Shortening the barrel to 16" brings capacity down to 8rd. Shortening it to 13" would make it a 5rd tube - based on the .357 Henry Mare's Leg. My rifle is 1080mm overall, with the old-style curved butt stock - the more modern butt stock makes the rifle about 30mm shorter.
Attachments
Rossi92 parts diagram.JPG
Rossi92 parts diagram.JPG (103.91 KiB) Viewed 1974 times
Practice Strict Gun Control - Precision Counts!
User avatar
bladeracer
Field Marshal
Field Marshal
 
Posts: 12655
Victoria

Re: Approximate cost of shortening a lever action

Post by bladeracer » 26 May 2021, 6:28 pm

Tiger650 wrote:You could maybe up ammo capacity a little by using .38 ?


Not really, old-school lever-actions have a minimum/maximum cartridge length they can feed. You could certainly load either round to be significantly shorter, like wadcutters, and fit extras in the tube, but I doubt they'd feed. A wadcutter .38 would be 1.155", a .357 Magnum round is 1.590" long, so you'd save .435" per round - in a 12rd tube you'd fit 17rds in it, but I'd be impressed if they feed through the action.

Some tube-fed .22's can feed anything, but they have a controlled feed system, like the Winchester 9422, or Henry 001, so cartridge length doesn't matter. I had a Winchester Model 190 semi-auto that would feed whatever you mixed up in the tube with no trouble at all.
Practice Strict Gun Control - Precision Counts!
User avatar
bladeracer
Field Marshal
Field Marshal
 
Posts: 12655
Victoria

Re: Approximate cost of shortening a lever action

Post by pomemax » 26 May 2021, 6:44 pm

Cut of with Hacksaw as Blade said and buy a crowning tool and bore guide.
https://www.cncwarrior.com/Barrel-Crown ... /25453.htm with the correct https://www.cncwarrior.com/Crowning-Fac ... /25487.htm recrown with an electric drill and cutting oil .
then just use some blueing paste on it .
pomemax
Warrant Officer C2
Warrant Officer C2
 
Posts: 1165
New South Wales

Re: Approximate cost of shortening a lever action

Post by Kelsey Cooter » 26 May 2021, 6:57 pm

Thanks for all the info guys! The idea of making it that short is purely for the ridiculousness and a bit of fun.

Thanks for the links Pomemax that is cool!
Kelsey Cooter
Corporal
Corporal
 
Posts: 408
Queensland


Back to top
 
Return to Gunsmithing