Quigley Rides Again!

[Greycat]

Gentlemen,
I've had my Uberti "Quigly" 45-70 for a few months now and am pleased with the quality of the action and barrel (rifling twist turned out to be 18 and not 20) and the progress I've made in load development.
I'm shooting the BA "money" 517 grain 20-1 bullet ahead of 67 grain of Swiss 1.5 powder and a .030 poly wad.
This is giving me consistant .75 MOA five shot groups (not counting one fouler).
I got this thing mainly for side matches (SASS) and gong matches, but the shilouette bug is biting me again.
With a 34 inch barrel and weighing in at 13 lb. 9 oz this puppy is just a might heavy for this sport.
Does anyone have any actual experience in having the 34 inch barrels shortened to bring the weight down to 12.2?
What length did you have to remove to get there?
Y.S.
GC

[Chill Wills]

Graycat, Welcome to the world of real gun powder in cartridge rifles!

There is a formula to see how much you can reduce your rifle's weight by cutting the barrel that takes into account the cal. and round or Oct and diameter. (the weight of barrel steel per inch) BUT, You can not get down to 12.2lbs even if you cut it to 30 inches.

The good news is that most local matches will let you get by and shoot with them because they just want you to join in. Great guys in this sport! That is, until you start beating them with that SUB MOA load! I don't know where you are but I am glad I don't have to shoot against you:kidding:

[Doc Highwall]

Maybe you could have part of the barrel turned down for weight reduction.

[NickSS]

A buddy of mine had the same trouble with a 45-70 Shiloh long range express with a heavy 34 inch full octagon barrel. He had it cut to 30 inches and it was still over weight so he had the barrel turned down to half round and half octagon by a machinist buddy of his. The result was the rifle would make weight and still shot great. It turned out to cost him less to do this than to have the barrel replaced by a couple hundred bucks.