Has anybody had any luck finding a BLR rebarreled to 358 Norma Mag. I read an article by someone in Alaska that had one done but it sounded like a complicated procedure because the BLR barrels are hard to swap out. Was wondering if anyone in Canada does it?
Yes that's what I think lots of recoil. Swift make a 280gr A-Frame that would make a great moose stopper in heavy timber. They say you don't feel the recoil when shooting at game, but that much might be hard not to notice. It would be like 340 Weatherby Mag power in a lever action. I like the concept. Probably an expensive build otherwise there would be lots around. Browning probably would have introduced it if there was a lot of interest.
If you must have a lever rifle in medium bore Browning made a run of Win M71's in 348 Win. Another would be Win 1895 in 405 WCF. Browning lever rifle "customs" would be tough to pull off and cost prohibitive, with bolt locking lugs built into barrel.
Your project has challenge written all over it.
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Doing anything to a BLR costs a LOT, LOT, LOT of money. There are lots of levers available in 450 Marlin, 45-70, 405 Winchester. If you want to be able to shoot spire points take a look at the Winchester 1895. It comes in 3-06, 405 Winchester and 45-70 If I was going to try to convert one I would probably start with this one.
Location: grew up in Alberta moved to SK, sure miss Alberta
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personally I would take a 45-70 and have it re done in a 45-90 or just find a 45-90 in real good shape, but a 358 Norma would just be a brutal tool
thinking it would kill at one end and wound at the other end
Last edited by u_cant_rope_the_wind; 04-21-2014 at 06:21 AM.
Thanks to everyone who has replied to this so far. I think your advice is right and some new and different ideas have come out of it. We have a BLR in 325 WSM and with 220 gr bullets that's probably as close as we can get to 358 Norma power. We have a Marlin 1895 in 45-70 and I like that too but something about the big Norma in a lever that intrigues me.
I re-barreled one to 358 Norma and one to 416 Taylor. I didn't think it was a big deal. I disliked the rifles which I considered to be heavy and clunky. Leeper
Don't know why there is all this talk of recoil. .358 Norma is not excessive by any means (essentially a .338 WM necked up a bit) and BLR's are a fairly average weight rifle.
Biggest challenge would be finding the right smith.
I re-barreled one to 358 Norma and one to 416 Taylor. I didn't think it was a big deal. I disliked the rifles which I considered to be heavy and clunky. Leeper
Did you buy them as 300 Win Mag ( belted ) and have them rebarreled . Which gunsmith shop was able to do that?
Did you buy them as 300 Win Mag ( belted ) and have them rebarreled . Which gunsmith shop was able to do that?
Leeper is a very talented smith so pretty sure he did the work himself. What he considers 'no big deal' would be a very big deal to the average smith. If he is willing to do that kind of work I would definitely pick him to do the conversion.
BLR in 358 Norma
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