Saw a BFR Today

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branrot

New member
I saw a huge revolver. Turns out it was a BFR (Biggest Finest Revolver; though I think it really stands for Big F***ing Revolver) made by Magnum Research. Had about a 10 inch barrel and shoots (get this) .45-70. Wow.

Anyone ever shot one of these? I thought my .44 Mag Anaconda was pretty heavy duty, and my DE .50 even moreso, but this thing looks insane. Anybody???
 
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Shmackey

New member
Haven't shot one, but Dean's firearms in Denver has a few. Some of them are merely huge, whereas others have no right to be as big as they are. If it had something to put against your shoulder, it'd be a rifle.
 
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Blackhorse

New member
I've shot the 45-70 in old springfields, pedriselli (sp) and the marlin lever, can't imagine shooting it is a pistol, seen those big bad boys they are wild looking and expensive.
 
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Kaboom

New member
Great shooters and not at all hard on you. I shoot several 405 gr over 36 gr of 3031. very mild mannered round. Now 41 gr. of RX7 under a 405 gr. cast will get your attention. Very nice well made revolvers at half the price of a Freedom Arms.
 
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Eric Larsen

New member
I got to meet "MAXINE" too.....

Maxine is the 45-70 BFR....wonderful shooters and considering the reloads the guy was trying out...452gr with unknown powder..it wasnt as bad as I thought it would be. My dad says the guy tries to load them alittle on the "upper end"....felt like it.

The gun is accurate enough to split a playing card on its thin edge at 15 yards...offhand. I did it on the 3rd try....very nice gun.

Shoot well
 
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ACP230

New member
A friend has one and I shot it a couple of years ago. He loaded some rounds with 300 grain bullets and the recoil was milder than I expected. The gun was well balanced and accurate. I wish he'd bring it back to the range again.
 
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mdlowry

New member
I looked at their website, and noticed that the BFR is also chambered in 444 marlin in addition to some "normal" revolver calibers (475, 454, etc). :eek:
 
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Erich

New member
Anybody else remember those old brass-framed .45/70 revos made in Indiana back in the '70s and '80s? Are those the Phelps revos you're talking about, Mike? I thought they had a different name . . . Century or something like that? I seem to think they were made near Green Castle . . . . Anyway, I used to see them sitting (not very) used on the shelves of Hoosier gun stores pretty frequently. Not too expensive, either.

I'm amazed there'd be a market, but . . . What a country!
 
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Mike Irwin

Staff
Eric,

IIRC the Phelps revolvers were made by a one-man shop somewhere in the midwest. Not many made, very nice quality. The ones I've seen have been steel framed...
 
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Erich

New member
Hi Mike,

Well, you got me interested in the trivia on these things, so I ran a search. The ones I was thinking about were made by a company called Century, by a fellow named Earl Keller.

Here's what our friend John Taffin over at Sixguns.com (are those guys the greatest, or what?) has to say about the .45/70 revos:

"In the early 1960's, Idahoan Stu Brainerd and Arizona Gunsmith Clarence Bates put their heads together and came up with two working sixguns that would handle the .45-70 rifle cartridge. They were not the first as Elmer Keith reported on a rather crude .45-70 revolver in the late 1950's.

By the mid 1970's, Earl Keller of Indiana had started producing the Century Model 100 .45-70 sixgun and I waited eight years to get mine which is serial number 276. That should tell us how many of these big sixguns were made before Keller's passing.

The current Century Model 100 is advertized as having a frame of 120,000 pound tensile strength bronze and stronger than the original guns. The cylinder and barrel are 4140 steel and in addition to the .45-70 chambering, Century has added the .30-30 Winchester, the .375 Winchester, the .444 Marlin, and in a special sixgun known as The Mother Load, the .50-70. All of the Century sixguns weigh right at six pounds which helps to dampen recoil of these rifle cartridges quite effectively. I would much rather fire a .45-70 or .50-70 from a six pound sixgun than a six pound carbine."
from "Sixguns Beyond the .44 Magnum" by John Taffin, at http://www.sixguns.com/range/beyondthe44.htm

Now I'm getting interested in these things (not to own, just to know about). Tell us about the Phelps revolvers!
 
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ACP230

New member
I saw some that I think were made by Century at the 1988 NRA Convention in Orlando. I couldn't afford them then, and can't afford the BFR now. Some things never change, eh?
 
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PPK

New member
The Century revolver at the range where I work spends most of its time being broken. When it works, though, look out!
 
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Kernel

New member
BFR.... if you buy it with the optional two wheel axle, trailer lights, and Class III load-leveling hitch it'll tow pretty nicely behind a 1/4 ton truck. -- Kernel
 
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22lovr

New member
If I had a grand, I'd buy one......

It's kinda like a mountain-climbing enthusiast. When asked why he climbs, he responds with "because it's there."

Why would I want one of those hog-leg cannons? BECAUSE IT'S THERE!

Oh yeh, I'd love to own one!
 
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caz223

New member
45/70 BFR

I saw one of those sitting next to a deagle in .50.
Compared to the stretched BFR, the deagle looked like a walther.
That gun is HUGE.
 
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