Rebarreling a Browning 1885 - 454 Casull or 45 Colt to 45-70

[Smokey]

Folks, I'm trying to find out whether the Browning 1885 in both .454 Casull and .45 colt can be safely rebarreled to .45-70.  When I called the folks at Browning, they said that they couldn't even comment on that - guess their lawyers have scared them away from providing this kind of information.  They wouldn't even tell me if the actions for these three calibers were the same specs, in terms of strength.  Anyway, does anyone here have some ansers to my question?

Thanks, in advance, for your responses!

[Graybeard]

The .45 Colt is a Low Wall and I'd highly recommend against trying such a move with it. You'd need a different contour barrel to make room for the longer chamber which would require fore end work. And when you finish you'd still have a rifle too light and not really suitable for the higher performance .45-70 loads. I'd give that idea a thumbs down.

Now the .454 Casull is on the High Wall action and it is available in .45-70 anyway so why mess up a nice TH .454 Casull and spend mucho bucks to make something Browning has already produced. Just get a TH in .45-70 and be done with it.

Besides except with the over 400 grain bullets the .454 Casull will do about the same thing the .45-70 will anyway. Your plans are fraught with possible problems and great expense to gain you nothing.

GB

[Smokey]

My only motivation for considering this conversion is the ridiculous price that people are asking for used High Walls in .45-70.  The .454 can be had for much less.  If it's just a matter of rechambering the .454, or even rebarreling, it could save me some serious bucks.

[John Traveler]

You can't properly rechamber a .454 Casull to .45-70.  The bullet diameters and rifling twist rate are different.

I'd take Graybeard's advice to simply buy a properly chambered .45-70 rifle and leave the .454 alone.