M1886 .50-105 factory rechambered to .50-110???|Page 2|Winchester Rifles|Forum|Winchester Collector

Unless it was the original purchaser that still had the original barrel, I don’t see how anyone would “come up with an original 50-105 barrel”. I also do believe that if Winchester were to change a barrel out, that they would not have sent / given back the original barrel upon return. 

I personally would prefer to see the actual ledger page entry. Dave Kennedy when interpreting the ledger page back in 2006 may actually be noting that the physical ledger entry page note was changed from 50-105 to 50-110. He also obviously wrote the Cody letter well before 2017, and possibly before knowing any of these rare 50-105s had surfaced. Which I think only four of these guns are “known”. 

Also the original factory record keeper may have merely changed the entry to say 50-110 instead of 50-105. As noted on page 28 of the Summer 2017 Collector, the subject article on the gun states the ledger entries for many of the 50-105 guns have marked 50-110 above or below the 50-105 caliber marking in the ledger. It also appears from the article that per Dan Shuey’s research, the only difference between the 50-105 & 50-110 was the “Wad” used in the casing.  

So I believe what we have is a case of a minor internal cartridge design change, and a nomenclature change, but you literally have the exact same cartridge. And that the 50-105 is the experimental forerunner of the 50-110 cartridge. 

Sincerely,

Maverick

Maverick said
Unless it was the original purchaser that still had the original barrel, I don’t see how anyone would “come up with an original 50-105 barrel”. I also do believe that if Winchester were to change a barrel out, that they would not have sent / given back the original barrel upon return. 

I personally would prefer to see the actual ledger page entry. Dave Kennedy when interpreting the ledger page back in 2006 may actually be noting that the physical ledger entry page note was changed from 50-105 to 50-110. He also obviously wrote the Cody letter well before 2017, and possibly before knowing any of these rare 50-105s had surfaced. Which I think only four of these guns are “known”. 

Also the original factory record keeper may have merely changed the entry to say 50-110 instead of 50-105. As noted on page 28 of the Summer 2017 Collector, the subject article on the gun states the ledger entries for many of the 50-105 guns have marked 50-110 above or below the 50-105 caliber marking in the ledger. It also appears from the article that per Dan Shuey’s research, the only difference between the 50-105 & 50-110 was the “Wad” used in the casing.  

So I believe what we have is a case of a minor internal cartridge design change, and a nomenclature change, but you literally have the exact same cartridge. And that the 50-105 is the experimental forerunner of the 50-110 cartridge. 

Sincerely,

Maverick  

Thanks for the insight Maverick.  I didn’t know the history of the 105 being the forerunner of the 110.  The wad also makes sense because black powder cartridges are not like smokeless loads.  There shouldn’t be an air space when using black powder.