Gee, Jim, if we agreed, where would be the fun?
Yep, Mike, but at one point, .50-70's were selling for $6.50 and .45-70's were going for $12.50. That would have made it profitable to rebarrel especially with skilled labor getting all of $2.50 a day.
AFAIK, the barrels will interchange (I don't know about details, as I have never tried it), so if a supply of barrels was available, why not change to the more modern and available caliber? In our own day, we have seen cut up M1 rifle receivers welded back together and modified to an M14 configuration, a lot more complex job than rebarrelling a Model 1868.
Jim
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