Meachum Highwall

[Glen Ring]

A bud of mine is selling off some of his rifles. He has a Meachum? 1885. Do any of you have experience with them? Do they take normal high wall parts??

[BFD]

A bud of mine is selling off some of his rifles. He has a Meachum? 1885. Do any of you have experience with them? Do they take normal high wall parts??

The answer is yes and no. Mostly yes.

[Glen Ring]

Brent
do they mostly take regular highwall parts?

[BFD]

Mostly they do take normal highwall parts and i have used Meacham parts in original highwalls.

Where they differ is Niedner firing pin and a through bolt in the stock. I'm not a fan of either but they work well enough.

All Meachams that I know of are coil spring actions. I do not believe he made any flatspring versions.

The rifles are generally quite excellent. I do know of one that did not pass inspection at Raton because the stock comb was too high. You might want to look into that. There is some debate about whether the screw holes in the tang are straight, but that seems to be inconsequential in as much as everyone that has one gets it shooting well easily.

[BFD]

I can add that I use(d) several coil mainsprings in my original highwall. So, the most likely to fail part is easily sourced from MVA or Zimmerman, among others.

[Glen Ring]

Thank you Brent. I have an appointment with him tomorrow. He's selling this rifle and a CPA 3 barrel set. I'm still learning about SS rifles. At one time I was am H&K armorer with my department years ago. I could take apart and repair even an MP-5 Sub machine gun...but like they say..use it or lose it.

[BFD]

Highwalls are the second simplest falling block there is, in my opinion. Maybe the simplest. Sharps is the other. Winchester set triggers can be a bit of witchcraft however.

[Woody]

Glenn,

Dito with what Brent just relayed. I prefer flatspring highwalls, but coils work just fine too. Meachum's are excellent highwalls and modern production parts are easily obtained.

Woody

[Woody]

Additionally, I just yesterday installed a MVA double set trigger and lever to one of me original High Wall actions. The tang fit up with no issues and I was able to get the spring timing easily. The only issue was the MVA tang width was a few thousands too wide for the inletting of the butt stock. I chose to reduce the width of the tang rather than widen the wood inletting, thus allowing me to re-install the original tang should I choose. That portion of the project also went easily. I really like the double set triggers over the single set, or the single triggers.

Woody

[BFD]

I wish more people shot with the wide double set. I hate 'em.

[Woody]

There you go Brent, back to disagreeing with me.

Oh well.

Woody

[Woody]

There you go Brent, back to disagreeing with me.

Oh well.

Woody

[BFD]

Can't make it too easy for ya. I stripped all of the double sets out of my guns and then inlet the metal to fit the wood putting single sets in. They shoot much better but they are haunted by trolls and gremlins and god only knows what else.

[gunlaker]

Glen the Meacham 1885's are really nice. I have had no problems with mine whatsoever, and they shoot very well. I think they are probably the best of the non-original highwalls.

Chris.

[mdeland]

The Pedersoli High Walls have the best breeching and firing pin design on any HW made in my opinion. Much better than the original and Niedner conversion designs in strength and escaping gas handling! They use a very short, circular firing pin held captive in the block by a breech block face bushing. The bushing is nested into a block face counter bore and opposite side fillister screws. Neat , easy to remove and practically fool proof.
I also differ from Woody and Brent on set triggers as well,I prefer the CC double set personally.
I have one friend with a Mechum HW and looking it over it looks very well built in my opinion.