Welcome to the WACA forum. 

It sounds like you have the start of an interesting project if you have a 405 takedown receiver.  Not a lot of 405 TD’s out there and they are highly collectable.  Finding the parts may take some patience, but well worth the effort.

As far as I know, there are two main variations of 1895 magazines.  The first is the deeper version used on all flatsides (SN’s 1-5,000+/-), 38-72’s and 40-72’s, hold five rounds and are flat across the bottom.  The second version is used on all second model 1895’s except 38-72’s and 40-72’s.  Most are the second versions and are easy to identify as they slant upwards toward the front of the rifle.  Both versions should hold any of the nine calibers offered in 1895’s.

I think the trouble you are having is because it is kind of tricky to load rimmed cartridges like the 405 in the 1895 magazine.  They should be loaded by holding the cartridge vertically and pushing the bottom of the cartridge down just in front of the spring clips at the rear of the magazine and then rotating the cartridge forward and down into the magazine.  Push the cartridge to the back of the magazine as you do this.  As you load the next cartridges, make sure the rim of the subsequent cartridge is in front of the rim of the one previously loaded or it will not feed no matter how hard you try.  The rimless cartridges like the 30-06 are much easier to load as you can just push them straight down horizontally with no worries about overlapping the rims.

Just to make sure, I went out to the gun room and loaded 405 cartridges into the magazines of several ’95s with different chamberings without a hitch.  Let me know if you are still having trouble and we’ll see if we can’t figure it out.

Todd,

There are four rimmed cartridges offered in 1895 takedowns that I believe use bolts with the same dimension across the face, 30-40, 303 British, 35 WCF and 405 WCF.  The only way to know for sure would be to obtain factory records based on the serial number.  Unfortunately, if yours was built in 1913, it would have a serial number greater than 59,999 and the factory records are only available up to that number.

The 35WCF followed by the 405 WCF are the most common rimmed takedowns that I have encountered.  I see fewer 30-40 TD’s and rarely see 303 British TD’s.  I’ve seen a total number of ’95 TD’s at 805 oft quoted, but I don’t trust that number.  I think that may be the number available only from the existing records and doesn’t take into account those produced after serial number 59,999.

I have not seen a good source for dimensions for the takedown ring.  I suppose a good machinist could replicate one.  The hardest part would be to reproduce the slack takeup mechanism and the latch.  One would also have to lengthen the threads on a barrel to screw into the takedown ring and machine off portions of the threads to fit the receiver.

Of course the easiest way to complete the gun would be to find a complete front half for sale, but that’s the part I was talking about in my earlier post when I said it may take some patience.