Just one more comment on the M1886... when Winchester chambered it in .33WCF, they came up with a real winner! My only criticism of that cartridge is that nowadays you can't get .338" JFSP bullets. Back in the '70's Hornady made some excellent ones. The '86's in that cartridge had better alloy steels than the originals. With the right powders...including Eley-Kynock's 4351/Herters 100, and a couple of other names, you could get 2450 ft/sec with the 200 gr. bullet. When Winchester modified the breech block and locking lugs and came out with the .348, I think they missed the boat in a way. If Browning or Miroku created a .338 Improved, you'd really have something! The main "problem" with the .33WCF on hawgs at close range, is that if one hog was standing behind another and you couldn't see the second critter, you'd get both with one shot! Cost me an extra $100 at the old Clarke Range Hunting Preserve in Tennessee back in '63!
Another time, at a gun show in San Jose, California, I found a barrelled action laying on the table. I think I paid $50 for it, and spent a couple hundred more for parts and the stock. It had the letters "W.F. EXP CO. XXXX" on one barrel flat, not stamped, but looking engraved. The original lower tang was missing, and another replacement found to give it a serial number. Although the Wells Fargo marking was NOT standard (W.F. Co. Express is standard), the Wells Fargo Museum in SFO was of the opinion that it was a local-purchase item used by a messenger in a field office. The barrel was 16-3/8" long, which is correct for a "16-inch" barrel. A .40-65WCF would have been real handy in a railroad express car. But who knows?
Anyway, there is simply NO other big-bore lever rifle than an '86!