The average 1866|Page 4|Winchester Rifles|Forum|Winchester Collector

I know the topic of this thread started with, “The average 1866” but Burt Humphrey took us off course with his far from average (i.e. wonderful) ’66.  I’ve never owned a ’66 but that’s not due to zero desire.  I happened to be watching one of Mark Douglas’s videos this morning on the M1866.  This one is also very far from average.  It had great appeal to me.  In fact, if I could own the one in his video and the one Burt has, I’d be … well… words escape me as to how happy I would be.

Mark has great fun shooting the rifle and does a great job of explaining the topic of conversion from rimfire to centerfire:

Buck1967 said

steve004 said
I know the topic of this thread started with, “The average 1866” but Burt Humphrey took us off course with his far from average (i.e. wonderful) ’66.  I’ve never owned a ’66 but that’s not due to zero desire.  I happened to be watching one of Mark Douglas’s videos this morning on the M1866.  This one is also very far from average.  It had great appeal to me.  In fact, if I could own the one in his video and the one Burt has, I’d be … well… words escape me as to how happy I would be.
Mark has great fun shooting the rifle and does a great job of explaining the topic of conversion from rimfire to centerfire:

  

Stunning video and thanks for sharing! That would indeed be a dream Winchester to own! 
  

Believe it or not, my wife recently acquired that 1866 and encouraged me to make the video.  I married far above my station.

Just yesterday, I loaded up some black powder cartridges and did some more shooting with it.  Mark

steve004 said

Mark Douglas said

Buck1967 said

steve004 said
I know the topic of this thread started with, “The average 1866” but Burt Humphrey took us off course with his far from average (i.e. wonderful) ’66.  I’ve never owned a ’66 but that’s not due to zero desire.  I happened to be watching one of Mark Douglas’s videos this morning on the M1866.  This one is also very far from average.  It had great appeal to me.  In fact, if I could own the one in his video and the one Burt has, I’d be … well… words escape me as to how happy I would be.
Mark has great fun shooting the rifle and does a great job of explaining the topic of conversion from rimfire to centerfire:

  

Stunning video and thanks for sharing! That would indeed be a dream Winchester to own! 
  

Believe it or not, my wife recently acquired that 1866 and encouraged me to make the video.  I married far above my station.
Just yesterday, I loaded up some black powder cartridges and did some more shooting with it.  Mark
  

Wow!  Yes indeed!  And as I recall, this is the same wife that has let you shoot her Colt Lightning .50-95!
  

Nice – that 66 carbine was a Christmas gift from my wife a long time ago – the gun came from Tommy Rholes. A unique feature of very early 66 carbines is the rifle butt – both 66 rifles and carbines were fitted with rifle style butt stocks until around serial #22,000. I personally like the look of the rifle buttstock better than the later carbine style butt. 

I’m just reflecting that the two extremely nice Model 1866’s, featured in this thread, were purchased by women.  Not that there’s anything wrong about that.  I’d like to see even more of that

steve004 said
I’m just reflecting that the two extremely nice Model 1866’s, featured in this thread, were purchased by women.  Not that there’s anything wrong about that.  I’d like to see even more of that
  

Amen Steve! I’m not sure which is more impressive in this post, the 66’s or the woman? In either case and in my humble opinion, neither are average 😀 congrats guys!

Mark Douglas said

mrcvs said

Mark Douglas said

Cowboy103 said
If one was ever able to acquire a good shooting centerfire 66 would It be possible to order some rounds from you? Would pay good money as expected.

Unfortunately, our gunsmithing insurance policy won’t cover us for manufacturing ammunition unless we send them a boatload of money.  We’ve considered manufacturing obsolete ammunition in the past.  However, the cost of liability insurance and the inevitable intermittent component shortages have kept us from taking that plunge.  To make it economically feasible, we’d have to produce fairly large quantities on a consistent basis.
If you reload, I bought the 44 Henry dies from CH4D and the bullet molds and crimp die from Old West Bullet Molds.  Remember that the 44 Henry is a heeled base bullet and there is a definite learning curve to getting a correct crimp with a collet-type crimp die used for heeled base bullets.  Mark
  

What if you manufactured it and sold it to a customer provided they agreed to sign a waiver?
  

I’m certainly not a lawyer, but it’s my understanding that waivers are nearly worthless when it comes to product liability.  Even if we were to prevail against a claim in a court of law, it would likely ruin us financially.  To risk everything without any liability insurance just to sell a few rounds of obsolete ammo would be taking on far more risk than I would ever consider. 
I’d encourage anyone who wants to shoot these 1866’s to make their own ammo for them. The tooling and components are available.  Besides, making your own ammo is a big part of the fun.  Mark 
  

Well said and explained Mark! As a previous business owner, the word “NO”, was a very important thing to adhere to, and made for many successful years, for us. You didn’t get to where you are by mistake, as you’ve earned you’re great reputation and following.

Tony

Chuck said
 
Or buy a new firing pin and the striker and modify them.  Grind the pins off the striker and have a pin inserted in the end of the firing pin.  This will allow you to shoot center fire.  
  

Chuck. I like your enthusiasm for the simplicity of converting an 1866 to centerfire.  However, this is exactly the type of improper conversion I talked about in the video and even showed a firing pin/striker assembly that had been converted in the manner you described.  It’s a very bad idea to fire one that’s been converted this way (don’t ask me how I know) When converted this way, the face of the striker and the newly installed firing pin retract into the bolt far enough that the primers back out nearly all the way and most of the time are now unseated enough that they are impaled on the firing pin when the cartridge is ejected.  

Take it from me, it’s not a lot of fun to clean up the black powder blown past the primer (and possibly the primer itself) out of your receiver after firing, not to mention lovely experience of the puff of burnt black powder exiting the top of the receiver.  Note the two puffs of black powder smoke from this never before released still photo. This 1866 was fired using the converted striker shown in the recent video.  It caused no damage, but it sure made a mess in the receiver.

In my experience, the only correct way to convert to a Henry or 1866 to centerfire is to bush the front of the bolt like shown in the video and make a new firing pin.  It’s a pretty simple process for an experienced gunsmith or machinist and can be returned to rimfire relatively easily.  Of course, there will be some shallow threads that aren’t original but can’t be seen with the original striker installed.  A second bolt would always be ideal if one could be located.  

Mark

Mark Douglas said

Chuck said
 
Or buy a new firing pin and the striker and modify them.  Grind the pins off the striker and have a pin inserted in the end of the firing pin.  This will allow you to shoot center fire.  
  

Chuck. I like your enthusiasm for the simplicity of converting an 1866 to centerfire.  However, this is exactly the type of improper conversion I talked about in the video and even showed a firing pin/striker assembly that had been converted in the manner you described.  It’s a very bad idea to fire one that’s been converted this way (don’t ask me how I know) When converted this way, the face of the striker and the newly installed firing pin retract into the bolt far enough that the primers back out nearly all the way and most of the time are now unseated enough that they are impaled on the firing pin when the cartridge is ejected.  
Take it from me, it’s not a lot of fun to clean up the black powder blown past the primer (and possibly the primer itself) out of your receiver after firing, not to mention lovely experience of the puff of burnt black powder exiting the top of the receiver.  Note the two puffs of black powder smoke from this never before released still photo. This 1866 was fired using the converted striker shown in the recent video.  It caused no damage, but it sure made a mess in the receiver.
In my experience, the only correct way to convert to a Henry or 1866 to centerfire is to bush the front of the bolt like shown in the video and make a new firing pin.  It’s a pretty simple process for an experienced gunsmith or machinist and can be returned to rimfire relatively easily.  Of course, there will be some shallow threads that aren’t original but can’t be seen with the original striker installed.  A second bolt would always be ideal if one could be located.  
Mark
  

You are probably right.  I’ve never shot them that way.  But the striker is threaded onto the firing pin and is the bushing. Can’t you just not thread it on all the way to take up any space?  The striker can’t rotate once installed.  I’ll have to watch the video again.  I did learn a lesson once.  I had some once fired cases that the backside of the cartridges were bulging out. The original cases will bulge in the rear because there is so much space between the bolt face and the case.  The strikers hit the case and the area between them never touches the case until they bulge. 

Honestly when I was making my first post I was thinking, should I really post this?  I shouldn’t have.  I purposely left out some info.  Don’t mess with this unless you have some experience with what is necessary to accomplish this task.

I could not find the pic of the fired and bulged Henry cases that we talked about some time in the past.  When I showed the pic to Lou Behling he said it was a common occurrence. 

But here are some pics showing the bolt face of an unmodified rim fire and a modified to center fire. 

On the top is an original 66 RF bolt face.  See how it is flush.  The second pic show the conversion to center fire.  NOTICE that the bold face is raised to alleviate the excessive head space.