Don't ask me why, but I picked up a 1895 Marlin that had been converted to 50 Alaskan.

Not sure who did the conversion. From what I can gather, Wild west Guns in Anchorage, AK and Las Vegas, NV do the conversion, but they rebore, not rebarrel. The conversion I have in hand is not a rebore. There are no remaining Marlin markings on the barrel, and the barrel diameter is quite a bit larger than the barrel on my 1895 45-70.

Besides WWG, who does the 50 Alaskan conversion on the 1895 Marlin. I'd like to contact them, provide the serial number and see if I can get some 'history' on this rifle.

Mine was done by Turnbull and was a rebarrel. It's marked Turnbull Restorations so you would know they did it. Mike Hunter also does them, as does SSK.

Thanks. Any contact info for Mike hunter would be appreciated. I also found that JES does the 50 Alaskan conversion, but again I believe his work to be a rebore. I'm going to try and connect with SSK tomorrow and see where that leads me.

here is a link.
http://mikehunterrestorations.com/

Had an email conversation with Mike Hunter yesterday. Not his work. The search continues.

Try Mic McPhersen in western Colorado. His contact info is at levergun.com. He builds Marlin levers in quite a large number of wildcat and just unusual chambers.

Mic can even go a little larger and convert the Marlin into a 510 kodiak express. About 21 hundreths longer than a 50 Alaskan. I have pushed mine to 5500 ft.lbs. with a 23" barrel. Mic does great work, but not a cheap conversion.

Well, after some digging I found out the 'back story' on my 50 Alaskan conversion.

Turns out it was a project gun by a student at Colorado School of Trades. Guy evidently dropped out and sold his projects to another student - the guy that sold the gun to the LGS that I purchased it from.

From was I was told, the barrel is a Brux (Lodi, WI). The 2nd student knew that there was work to be done on the gun when he sold it to the LGS. Specifically, the ejection port needed to be opened up, and that some work was needed on the inside of the receiver in order to permit the big 50 Alaskan to feed thru the loading port into the magazine tube.

Spoke to Brian at Wild West Guns in Anchorage, AK, and he informed me that WWG would charge in the neighborhood of $500 to make my gun feed and function properly. Given that I have less that $300 in the gun, I may very well send it North for corrective measures.

Hopefully that's all it needs,,uncobbing gets real expensive pretty fast at WWG!!

quote:

Originally posted by waterrat:
Hopefully that's all it needs,,uncobbing gets real expensive pretty fast at WWG!!

That's what I'm kinda afraid of . . .

Jim West is not a very nice guy but his shop does good work. I've had him build 2 50 alaskan marlins for me over the years. I'd not be afraid to send your gun to him to have the proper reliability work done on it.

Byron

It's on it's way with a note to call with a true estimate when they get to that point.