Best Bullet For The 45/120?

[Chakta]

Hello Gents, I am wanting to find out what is the best bullet for my new Pedersoli rifle in the 45/120 caliber. This rifle was rechambered by a gunsmith Mr. Lee Shavers of Southwest Missouri. I wish to shoot it over 600 yds as well as hunt Bison, elk and moose and mule deer with this rifle. Any help on this subject is appreciated to the up most! Thank you Chakta, in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas and Missouri. :-?

[Old Caster]

This completly depends on how the chambering was done. Most rifles have a little free bore before the rifling will touch the bullet so if your rifle has relatively short free bore you must use a lighter (shorter) bullet. If it has a lot of free bore you can use a heavy bullet (an advantage). If I were you I would find out how much free bore you have and then get in touch with Paul Jones or Brooks molds and talk about which bullet would work the best considering the length you have. When you cast, make sure you use lead and tin mix only. Any alloy with antimony in it can make cleaning lead out of your barrel a nightmare because before you put it away the day you shoot it, all the lead must be out of the barrel for sure so as to not allow black powder to exist under it and anything with antimony in it makes that task more difficult to the point that you can't be sure you have got it all. Another thing I think is important is that a large bullet like this has to be cast with a ladle to make them quality and I like to run the temperature around 800 degrees. If when you load your rounds and you use Swiss, don't worry about pouring your powder through a drop tube because it won't make any difference. With Goex it is important to pour very slowly so the level will be consistant. Both only need slight compression, in the neighborhood of .050 to .080 of an inch. If you use Pyrodex, slow pouring is even more important or your level will not be consistant and consequently your compression will also be different. You can use a drop tube but it is still completely necessary to take as long as 10 seconds to pour the powder in. The Pyrodex needs to be compressed as close to .180 as you can get and this can only happen consistantly if the slow pouring is done because if it isn't done correctly it can vary as much as .250 of an inch. You can experiment trying a card wad and I did at first and finally decided it wasn't important. If you wan't a good lube most everyone used SPG but I don't know if this was just because it was popular or because it really was the best. -- Bill --

[montana_charlie]

Hello Gents, I am wanting to find out what is the best bullet for my new Pedersoli rifle in the 45/120 caliber. This rifle was rechambered by a gunsmith Mr. Lee Shavers of Southwest Missouri.
I also have a Pedersoli Sharps that was rechambered by Lee Shaver, but mine is a 45/90.

I have an NEI mould that casts the PJ Creedmoor bullet in 20-1 alloy at 560 grains. While it shoots very well for me, it is a little too heavy for my 45/90.
The 45/120 has enough extra capacity to handle the added twenty grains.

You can contact NEI to find a mould like mine, look at the same weight Creedmoor mould on the Paul Jones site, or send me a PM to discuss buying mine.

CM