Historic Shooting Forums

Went to town to get some groceries between rain/snow storms. Stopped by the gunshow and found this nice old gal


Bore looks like it's pretty decent


Going to take a lot of scrubbing to get the grunge out.


The chamber is a bit long, maybe what they called the 45-85, or possibly the 45 Martin?

The price,,1100.

Don, how rare are the military Borchardt's ? She is a lovely rifle,unmolested and appears to be all there.Any idea what year she was built ?That's an amazing price what gun show did you find her in ? There's a barrel and fore end on G.B. for $500.00 which has sat for sometime now,Im in awe of your find,congrat's.

Randy I think the military model is the most manufactured. This one is in the 16k serial number, and they only produced around 20-22K. So I believe it to be late production .
This thing was somebody's pride and joy at one time, I feel fortunate one that gets to be it's keeper for now. Looking forward to seeing how she'll shoot.
This gunshot was at Lusk.

If it turns out to be a "45-85" as you suspect will you be able to make brass from 45-90 ? Or is it a completely different animal ?

It's looking like it's going to want a 2.25 case length. Which is not a bad thing as I have an Italian Sharps rifle that requires the same length. I made those from some cut down Norma 45 2.6 brass. I like the Norma for that as it has nothing other than the Norma brand on the base, so a person isn't likely to get it mixed up with the other brass, and end up with a cartridge that is to long or to short for the other rifles.

This is so cool, easy peasy is the rule of the day !

Yessir, no need to make things more complicated than necessary. Will be glad to see a patch go down the bore and come out white... poor ol bugger must not of been cleaned in eon's and if folks were shooting it as a 45-70 instead of the 45-85, it's no wonder there's so much lead in the bore. Bet I've about got enough out to cast a 32 bullet so far, and you can still see it hanging on the lands in places.

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Nice rifle Don. I love those old Military rifles.

If I just would have had a little foreside when I was a kid in the 50's when those Borchardt sold for $18. to $22. and the rollers where $5-6 less and bought a few and took care of them. But that was a months farm wages for me back then

That's a great find Don. I was at a show recently and saw a sporter Borchardt for sale. I didn't look at it from closer than 10 feet though as the price was $7500!

I like the Borchardt rifles quite a lot. Mine was a sporter but got turned into a modern version of a Long Range model by Curt Hardcastle. I still have the original barrel and wood. The barrel looks to be in surprisingly good shape for an old gun. One day I should do a chamber cast. I did try to see if a modern .45-70 gg cartridge fits and it does just fine.

Chris.