450 Alaskan cartridge

[RCS]

The 450 Alaskan was developed in the early 1950's as a big game cartridge for use at
short ranges as found in Alaska. Harold Johnson (Cooper Landing, Alaska) built the first
450 cartridge by necking-up the 348 Winchester to accept a 458 diameter bullet. Ackley
also made a 450-348 cartridge variation too.

Some years ago, a good friend of mine bought a Winchester Model 71 rifle that had been
a custom build in 450 Alaskan by George Pearsall who had a shop at 514 N. State St in
Chicago. He also had RCBS loading dies that came with the rifle, as I was set-up to load
rifle cartridges, I helped him convert the 348 WCF to 450 Alaskan. Also made a neck
expander to open the 348 case in steps to 450 diameter. We fired formed, annealed, and
trimmed the cases to the correct length. Using IMR 3031 we developed an excellent
load using 400 gr flat nose soft point jacket bullets at around 2000 + fps.

My friend took his 450 Alaskan to Canada a few times and also hunted in Michigan with it.

Gunsmiths are still building the 450 Alaskan converting the new Browning Model 71 and
there is also the 50 cal Alaskan too

My photo shows the 348 Win and 450 Alaskan49282

[nf1e]

Very interesting. Closest I get is my .450 Bushmaster.

[RCS]

The Model 71 was an improvement over the Winchester Model 1886 which started production with
black powder cartridges. I have a photo of all the standard factory cartridges (missing 45-70) and
the last cartridge on the far right is the 50-110 cartridge which was introduced in 1899 until 1935

the 50-110 had different loadings over the years such as the following:

450 gr Factory load at 1475 fps

300 gr factory load at 1600 fps

some early lead bullets had a 22 short blank inserted backwards in the bullet
by the factory49300

[dogtag]

As a shooter of military BP rifles I prefer the 348 to the Alaskan.
A collector would disagree no doubt.

[bruce]

Big bullets at moderate velocity ... fired from a lever-action ... just about ideal for up close and personal dealing with whatever can bite, claw and eat you! Sincerely. bruce.