1873 Rifle Idea

[wvfarrier]

Keep in mind this is just boredom at work (Idle hands and all). Its my understanding that the toggle linkage of the 73 is the so called "weak point" in the rifle. If that is correct, could one (not me as I dont have the skills) make new linkage from titanium to make it more robust? I mean, the action on my 73 is incredible smooth, to the point of being "incredible". Even compared to my 92 series rifles the 73 just feels better. Anyway, thoughts?

[gamekeeper]

The toggle link is not as weak as some think, as long as it is in good condition and fitted correctly I would trust it.

[Scott Tschirhart]

I'm shooting a .44 Magnum chambered 73 and I'm not worried about it.

Now, what I would really like is an old style Henry or 66 rifle chambered in .480 Achilles

[765x53]

There may be many different forms of titanium. What little titanium I had experience with, was soft as butter to drill and brittle as glass to bend.

[wvfarrier]

Thats interesting. I had a tomahawk made from titanium thats near indestructible. My son uses it as a breaching tool in his Army kit

[M. M. Wright]

You can buy a new set of links from Lee Shaver that are made of the best tool steel and heat treated to make them far superior to the originals. Very tight tolerances too that help tighten up head space on my SRC from 1896. By the way, they also fit my Miroku/Winchester that is about 2 years old just in case you wondered how close of a copy they are. And the barrel on both of them slugs .431. But I've whined about that before.

[wvfarrier]

Thats good info!

[leverman44]

I'm shooting a .44 Magnum chambered 73 and I'm not worried about it.

Now, what I would really like is an old style Henry or 66 rifle chambered in .480 Achilles

I recently bought a used 1873 in 44 Mag and trying different loads in it that right now are in the .44-40 range. If you load your own what does your rifle like?

[KWK]

Titanium isn't much stronger than the better steels, but it is less stiff. Made to the same dimensions, a titanium part will deflect nearly twice as much as the steel part. It won't break, but it will spring.

[M. M. Wright]

I load a 200 grain RNFP that I cast of 20:1 for the four 73s that live here. Mostly propelled by ffg Goex but sometimes I load the 200 grain XTP over some H-110/WW296. Too much trouble to look up how much so I just won't tell you.
The rifles are 2 Uberti. One is the 24 inch octagon while the other is the 20 inch octagon. Then there are the 2 SRCs that are Winchester. 3 of them have a tang sight, either Marbles or Lyman. There is another Marbles lying around here somewhere that goes on the 4th one.
I size my bullets .429 so I can get them into the chambers of my old Colts but that leaves them pretty loose in the Winchesters. Good enough for ringing steel though.

[Griff]

The weakness in a toggle is that it doesn't have any sort of mechanical locking lug(s) to form a mechanical barrier to bolt thrust. It relies on the alignment of the links to keep the bolt closed. The bolt, pins & links are tool steel, the weak part is the frame. Frame stretch is the problem with repeated battering of hot rounds, At least that's my understanding.