Marlin 1889 W38 (38-40)

[Catpop]

While i'm working on the paperpatch 38-55, I decided to pull out another old 38-40 marlin 1889 and see how its bore looked. Little better than 38-55, but note much. I'll have too shoot it too see what we're looking at.
But this comes to mind: Since I can safely reline the 38-40 and since the 44-40 liner has the same OD as the 38-40 (Brownell catalog), couldn't I convert it to this mores popular cartridge?

 

[Speedo66]

I'll freely admit I'm no expert, but I do know this: the .38-40 and .44-40 use the same cartridge case, being necked down actually from .42 (.44-40) to .40 (.38-40).

Since the chamber is almost the same, could you have new rifling cut in the original barrel for the larger bullet?

 

[Speedo66]

Deleted, repost.

 

[Jim Watson]

Yes.
In fact I have a Winchester 1892 that went almost that route.
It started as a .38-40, shot out or rusted out and rebored to .44-40.
That was where it was when I bought it.
The rebore was not well done and accuracy poor.
So I had it lined. Since I was already tooled up for .44-40, I had it lined for that instead of going back to .38-40.