Looking to find more reviews on these. Anyone have one? Anyone shoot one?

 Taylor's Ridge Runner 45-70

Thanks in advance!

Wow!

That's a mite spendy.

Too old for any more .45/70, but it sure looks nice.

It's an 1886 clone and I don't have one, but I do have it's smaller brother - the 1892 Takedown in .45 Colt.

Armi-Sport / Chiappa sticks very closely to the Winchester pattern and the their takedown rifles are well executed.  Like the Winchester design, you take it down by moving the lever to unlock the magazine tube, then unscrew it from the front face of the barrel assembly (about 7 turns).  Once the magazine tube is unscrewed, you can separate the receiver and barrel/fore end assembly using a 90  interrupted thread arrangement. You twist the barrel/for end 90 degrees and pull ti free from the receiver. Also like the Winchester pattern, any play between the receiver and barrel/fore end is taken up by adjusting three set screws. You access them by removing the wood from the fore end with the rifle otherwise assembled, and the adjust them with an allen wrench.  They press on the rear face of the fore end assembly creating a small bulge in the metal that then contacts the front face of the receiver.  You snug them up just enough to ensure there is no play.

It's a good system, but I have noted that even with this approach, the take down rifles are not quite as accurate as their non take down counterparts, particularly with a tang sight or receiver sight, due to the potential for some play between receiver and barrel/fore end.

Some pictures...





In the bottom picture above, you can just see the three marks at 120 degree intervals around the hole for the magazine tube that are caused by the adjustment screws inside the fore end.  The easiest one to see is right in the center of the picture.

nice looking gun but I just don't think I could get myself to spend that much money on something made by Chiappa.

Chiappa (the new parent company) shot Armi-Sport in the foot when it applied the Chiappa brand to Armi-Sport firearms.

Armi-Sport actually makes very good quality reproduction firearms and that hasn't changed under the Chiappa banner.  Unfortunately, the Chiappa banner is associated with plastic and zinc alloy low end firearms and air soft toys.