Teddy Roosevelt loved the 405 Winchester. (all that really matters)
Model 95s have been out in the field killing game for 111 years.
Hornady Factory Ammo:
405 WIN 300 GR Spire Point 8241
Velocity (fps) / Energy (ft-lbs)
Muzzle 100 yd 200 yd 300 yd
2200/3224.... 1890/2379.... 1610/1727.... 1370/1250 - -
So the muzzle energy is about the same as a 200 grain bullet from a 300 Winchester mag. For the first few yards anyway.
Trajectory (inches)
Muzzle 100 yd 200 yd 300 yd
-1.5.... 0.0.... -8.3.... -30.2 -
You have 4 or 5 rounds available with a fairly rapid rate of fire with a Winchester 95.
Somebody with a 3 shot magnum bolt gun does not have much of a fire power advantage.
If either you and your 95,,,or,,, a guy with a bolt gun, run the magazine dry during a bad encounter...... neither of you will be doing very well in the speed reloading department... that is why God invented back-up guns.
John Browning invented that 1895 with just this sort of thing in mind...
PS, It sounds like you action may need some slicking up... I shoot a couple old originals and they don't have any magazine problems. Go to the Single Action Shooting Society site to find somebody who likes to play with 95s.
The .405 Winchester was developed for the Model 1895 Winchester in 1904. Firing a 300-grain bullet at the original velocity of 2,200 fps, it's the most powerful rimmed cartridge ever developed for a lever-action rifle.
It was Theodore Roosevelt's "lion medicine." Both he and his son, Kermit, used Model 1895s in .405 on their epic safari in 1909-1910. In their hands the .405 accounted not only for a number of lions (then considered pests) but also a host of other game up to rhino (both black and white) and buffalo. Over the next couple of decades the .405 was a fairly standard arm for Africa-bound Americans. Stewart Edward White, noted author of the day, swore by it. So did pioneer cinematographers and naturalists Martin and Osa Johnson.
Oklahoma lawman Charles Cottar was one of few Americans to ever really make it as an African PH. Legend has it that he started out shooting everything with a .32 Winchester Special. When he returned to the States to fetch his family to Africa, he obtained a a .405 and stuck with it to the end. Literally. In those days black rhino were common. Truculent and nearly blind, it's no great trick to get a black rhino to charge--just give him a whiff of your scent. This made them great subjects for early filming, although it was a bit hard on the rhinos: Film until the last moment, then shoot the rhino. Cottar had stopped many rhino charges during a long career, with and without a camera, but one day in 1940 he let the camera grind a bit too long before picking up his .405. He killed the rhino, but it ran over him and crushed his femoral artery. He died a few minutes later
