Question for 45 70 shooters

[200Apples]

I have never had good luck with 4227 as far as getting a complete burn. There seems to always be left over grains of powder in the barrel. I have been meaning to try it in a rifle or carbine to see if it works better there. I have even tried a very heavy crimp to prevent this.

Thanks, Steve.

Yeah, I get the same thing with 3031 when using it to make Trapdoor loads. I mentioned 4227 because when I got my .45 Colt dies I opted for the latest Hodgdon manual and it featured a bit by Taffin on the .45 Colt in which he suggested 4227.

I can't remember what I bought it for but I'll betcha it was for my .45-70... have to go find m' notes! (and then get them into a binder!).

In reading some of what was linked to that Search Results I posted, somewhere someone commented on the left over kernels of powder... saying that they did burn, but that they hadn't been "consumed"... interesting. Might have been talking about AA5744, but 3031 does the same thing.

Heck, even with the Remington CoreLokt 405-grain sjfp "Safe In All Rifles" 1300-ish fps .45-70 loads there are left over kernels.

[W.R.Buchanan]

There will likely be unburned powder grains left behind with just about any powder. in a .45-70. It is a strait walled case and there is nothing to hold the powder down as it is burning. It's like putting an M80 in the bottom of a trash can. Everything goes out the top when the bomb goes off!

With a bottle neck case the charge is restricted from going out the hole by the choke effect of the bottleneck, thus more of it will be consumed.

My goto Powder for loading my .45-70 rounds is AA5744 it works perfectly across a wide range of charge weights and boolit weights.. There will always be unburned kernels left in the bore. And that amounts to exactly nothing..

I use RCBS .45-300 RFNGC Which drops from my mould at .461 and 325 gr. I would not hesitate to shoot anything up to Bull Elk size with this load and boolit. 325 gr at 1500+ fps is more than enough to take a animal that size. Most cast boolits between 300 and 450 gr will go clean thru virtually any animal in any direction and leave a nice 1/2" hole behind.



When arriving at my load I started at 25g r of 5744 and worked my way up until I got a usable trajectory out to 200 meters and recoil that I could tolerate over a 40 round course of fire. 33 gr was doable but 35 gr was a bit too much. Velocity is 1550 fps. the gun is sighted dead on at 150 Meters and needs +6 MOA at 200M.

I can shoot 40-50 of these in a morning Short Range Silhouette shoot and not have any after effects.

My 1895 CB has a pretty serious Pachmayer Recoil Pad and a Gray-Coil Recoil reducer in the stock which brought the weight up to 8 lbs,(needs to be more like 9 lbs.)



My gun also has a Lyman 66 LA Receiver sight mounted that allows me to make predictable and repeatable elevation corrections, which have been sussed out at all 4 Ranges for the Silhouette shoots. these Elevation Offsets also will suffice for anything else that gun would ever be used for as 200 meters is about all the farther a .45-70 should be used on any Game Animal.
I can't say enough about these Receiver Sights the all Steel Lyman and Redfield Receiver Sights were among the best sighting devices for Leverguns every devised. Once you learn to use them they are every bit as effective as an optic and they also don't affect the handling of the gun like a big Scope does.



I don't want to hear about Old Eyes either. I am 71 and wear Progressive Lens Glasses full time and can shoot peep sights pretty well, and guess what,,,,

I learned how to do it! And you can too!!! It ain't that hard.

My best group with that gun was 5 shots at 100 yards into 1.75". The gun has an XS White Line Front Sight which is very easy to see, even with "Old Eyes!". And since that's all you need to focus on to shoot accurately if you can focus your eyes on something 3 feet away you are good to go.



The other boolit I would use if needed (like for the Elk Hunt I'm hoping someone will offer me?) is RCBS .45-405 RFNGC Which has exactly the same nose as the 300 gr boolit. Also the 500 gr version is more of the same with the difference being more driving bands. All three of these boolits were designed specifically to be used in Leverguns and will result in the correct OAL to run perfectly in both Marlin and Winchester guns.

Needless to say if shooting the .405's running up in that 1500 fps range I'd only be shooting a few to get the elevation corrections and then 1-2 for the hunt so I could take a significant increase in recoil without dying.

Since the Mechanical Zero on this gun was set using the lightest and therefore fastest and flattest trajectory, using Heavier and Slower Boolits will result in Positive Elevation Offsets on the Receiver Sight.

All of this would be sussed out at the range off a bench, and recorded in my little Sinclair Sighting Data booklet for future use. I can go directly to any given distance with that sight and know that the gun will actually shoot there. You's guys should try this!



Randy

[Calif Hunter]

To clarify, I was speaking of using 4227 in pistol rounds in response to 200Apples comments about using it in .45 Colt cartridges.. I have never tried it in a .45-70 so I have no experience with it there. In handgun rounds, I tried a heavy tight crimp to see if it would help with a slower burning powder.

Taffen and other writers have often cited 4227 as a good powder for handgun rounds, but I have not shared their enthusiasm....but I am sure they know more than I do.

[200Apples]

Do they? though... I wonder.

You've done more than your share of huntin' and var-mint gettin'.

I mean absolutely! no disrespect to one of my major influences, John Taffin, but there may be times when all gunwriters will overlook some things in order to heap praise on a particular product. It's only natural.

[200Apples]

W.R.B., thank you for another! outstanding, informative, knowledgeable post.

I will latch onto a steel 66LA when I find one or two.

[W.R.Buchanan]

Thanks, I'm doing a write up on how to use these sights effectively and I will post it here when done. It is kind of long winded and will take several pages to be complete. But you'll be able to read it and have a decent idea of how to work these Sights and really any sight, Iron or Optic as they all work exactly the same way.

Typically a Hunting Rifle should be sighted in for the "Maximum Point Blank" range to give the user the most usable range with a dead on hold. This is why I use 200 yards for the Mechanical Zero on my .223 carbines and .308-.30-06 rifles. Dead on at 200 yards is generally about 12" low at 300 or 6" low at 250 which is considered the Point Blank Range for these and many other cartridges. Also with these cartridges at 300 yards simply holding on the top of the back of the animal or head of the man sized target will yield a hit somewhere Center Mass and result in a lethal hit. This is not hard to do with these sights.

One final point,,, Virtually every battle rifle made after about 1935 has had Aperture type sights,,, and there are several good reasons for this.

The least of which is the simple fact that they work really well.

Randy