My dad bought an 1886 40-82 in 1929 in an auction for $1.50. The auctioneer handed it to him and said, "Here kid, use it for a crowbar." It was in one piece, except that the rear sight was missing and the receiver had pinhole pitting all over. The stock has a couple holes where a sling screw was put in, and the fore end has three sling screw holes and a small split. That old gun sat in his closet all the while I was growing up, and I wound up with it a few years before he passed away. He said he had only seen one box of shells for it in all those years, but didn't buy it because it was $15, which was too expensive for his budget. (If any of you happened to buy that box of shells, I'd sure be glad to buy it from you for what you paid for it!
![Wink :wink:](./images/smilies/icon_wink.gif)
Last fall, I bought 3 boxes of shells from Gad Custom Cartridges, and fired the old girl up for the first time in at least 80 years. It hadn't been fired for a long time when my dad bought it. The serial number is 5xxx, making it a second year gun.
The bore slugged out at .409 and the bullets in the hand loads were .406. Even though the bullets were undersized for the bore, the smokeless loads shot into a 4 to 4.5 inch circle at 50 yards. The black powder loads didn't generate enough pressure to obturate the bullets and they tumbled out of the barrel.
I am going to reload for this gun, which has the 1:28 twist which was designed for lighter bullets. I believe the original bullet weight for the 40-82 was 260 grains. I have several articles by Mike Venturino describing his learning curve in reloading the 40-82, and one of the loads he experimented with used 310 gr cast bullets. They performed well in his gun according to the article.
Have any of you guys used 300 grain bullets in your Winchester 40-82's? The reason for this question is that I will reload with .411 bullets and I can buy 300 grains bullets from LTD Bullets. I really don't want to buy 250 bullets without talking to someone with some experience in loading this caliber for the old 86 rifles. The lighter bullets are all too small for my bore. Any help will be greatly appreciated.
The 40-82 is on top, the other gun is a 45-90 that was modified in some interesting ways that I will go into another day.
![Image](http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg193/Brugeo_4082/1886Winchesters1.jpg)