Two more "1885" manufacturers that I dug up are Serrafile and Clerke. I believe that both have been out of the 'Wall business for many years. Anybody have any knowledge of their products? Quality? Interchangeable with Winchester parts?
If my memory serves me, several of the failed US "1885" makers made rifles with rimless chamberings, apparently hoping to adapt the virtues of the original to the favorite cartridges of the era.
It seems to me that only the Miroku-made "1885s" have succeeded in this effort. Apparently there are two markets for the 'Wall: one is people who want the nearest thing to an original Winchester that they can get, including a rimmed cartridge chambering, and the second is people who want rifle with the action and some of the aesthetics of the original, but with the balance, weight, and chamberings of a contemporary rifle.
So we get two distinct classes of contemporary manufactured 'Walls: near-clones of the original with long, heavy "black powder" barrels and chamberings (Ballard, C. Sharps, and Meecham), and slimmer, lighter modifications of the original with "modern" rimless chamberings (Miroku "Low Walls," and some earlier attempts, now extinct).
And thank God for the latter category, which helps keep people from chopping and channeling original Winchesters into re-barreled, restocked, rechambered hybrid whizz-bang monsters, as happened so often in the late '40s and all thru the '50s!
Last edited by Mike A.; 01/27/16 07:02 PM.
