45-70 round ball load. need some of you x-perts to weigh in

[crackerjack57]

after all the reading i have done on Google i was skeptical on trying a round ball load with my 45-70 buffalo classic. i heard that the accuracy would be good to 50 yards but dropping off quickly after that. well being the guy I am i thought i would try it regardless. my load was a federal 210 primer, 7 gn of unique, a tuft of cotton to hold powder on top of the primer, fill the case with C.O.W. leaving just enough room to insert a cast at .458 round ball. ( about 12 Bnl ) i pushed the round ball in flush with the top of the case. no lube at all on the round ball.

first 2 shots at 50 y were dead center and 2" high. I was impressed. the next which i only had one more loaded cartridge i thought i would just try at a 4x4 target I had set up at 100y. i had a marker at dead center which I aimed for thinking that hopefully i would at least hit paper somewhere traceable. however to my surprise i was dead nutz center and 1" low from where my typical hunting rounds go.

Now I know that its only one shot. possibly the next will be 2 houses over. I dont know. can some of you experts fill in the blanks please? did I just get lucky or is this something I can expect and should pursue further. and if to go farther then what should some of my expectations be and what are some of your results with a round ball load.

[Texantothecore]

Roundball is very reliable. Many .45-70 shooters use them for can killing.

Try them at 300 yards. You may be surprised.

[shooter93]

Look for the articles by Frank Marshall......he did quite a bit of loading with round balls in various calibers. All his articles are interesting actually.....one of the old timers.

[runfiverun]

hey I remember him.
he used to write back when gun writers did little experiments and then wrote about them.
and not so much just done 'free' reviews for err,,,, schilled for, umm,,,,, wrote everything great about err, wrote about the free,, jeez........ okay write about whatever it is they write about.

[rintinglen]

In my experience, the problem was flyers. I'd get 8 shots in a pleasant, tight group, and a couple would be 6 inches out at 50 yards. I ran through a box of Speer 457 balls with limited success, and finally gave up altogether. I was using a Marlin Cowboy.

[four70nitro]

It's probably been 40 years - but used to load round balls in a Remington rolling block .45-70 - lots of fun for a plinking load....

[smoked turkey]

I have had similar results with 6.5 gr of Unique and round ball at 50 yards. I did not try at 100 yards. I have since purchased the collar button for just this situation. I use it at 50 yards, 9 gr of Unique and approx 1 grain tuft of Dacron fluffed up in length and width to fill the void between the powder and the base of the boolit. It works very well. I can't honestly say it is much better than the round ball at 50 yards since I have not done extensive testing with either at this point. They are fun to shoot and lend a new dimension to shooting the 45-70.

[crackerjack57]

I have had similar results with 6.5 gr of Unique and round ball at 50 yards. I did not try at 100 yards. I have since purchased the collar button for just this situation. I use it at 50 yards, 9 gr of Unique and approx 1 grain tuft of Dacron fluffed up in length and width to fill the void between the powder and the base of the boolit. It works very well. I can't honestly say it is much better than the round ball at 50 yards since I have not done extensive testing with either at this point. They are fun to shoot and lend a new dimension to shooting the 45-70.

I have also used the dacron but curious as to everyone speaks of dacron. does anyone ever use cotton batten like from a cotton ball? i have used both but mostly the cotton. it works very well for me and no chance of a possibility of melted plastic ringing my chamber or barrel. not that the chance is hi in this regard.

[Firearm Nut]

You might have just hit upon the right barrel vibration harmonics. Your hunting bullet leaving the muzzle at a higher velocity does so at the bottom of the barrel's vibrations, its arc is lower, while the slow moving ball leave the barrel at the top of the barrel's vibration, and has a higher arc. They both cross the line of sight twice at a near point and a far point. In your case the far points of both projectiles is extremely close together. It may be the same case with the near point as well.
Once you find the near point, you can use the ball load to take grouse at that range when your out hunting deer with your regular deer bullets. No sighting readjustment necessary.

[35remington]

I'd not assume that if Dacron supposedly rings cotton will not. Conversely if you assume cotton will not ring why would you presume Dacron does so? I see no persuasive proof either way.

Dacron is far more widely used for the job so that probably gives the consensus opinion on it. I would use neither and orient the charge before firing. I highly doubt any characteristic of Dacron contributes to ringing as opposed to cotton.

As long as the Dacron takes up all airspace in the case I've never heard of a report of ringing associated with it.

[crackerjack57]

Thanx for weighing in on the barrel ringing. In the past I have used both cotton and dacron but being a new hand loader compared to most of you all i thought that I just had not shoot enough for the ringing to happen. if many of you have used dacron for a long time without issues then I have 2 great options.

[35remington]

Most have that no issue experience. That would be all if used right most likely. Just fill all available space with it.

[stubert]

No one has mentioned it, but without some sort of lube you are going to lead up the bore. I have seen black powder rifles with leaded bores from shooting mini's, and they had lube.

[Texantothecore]

Roundball and Johnson's Paste Wax is a marriage made in heaven.

[crackerjack57]

I have never had issue with leading. I can always powder coat.

[Texantothecore]

Try seventy grains of black powder topped with a roundball at 300 yards. Quite a hoot.

[BAGTIC]

Been using RB and JPW for 30+ years. The most important thing is to use a ball that is plenty big to insure good engagement with the rifling. I do most of my RB shooting with single shots and find that deep seating the ball and bulky fast burning powders eliminates need for fillers

[tinhorn97062]

A while ago, I made up some roundball loads. They consisted of Remington brass, CCI 200 primer, (3) .457 Speer round balls on top of 12gr Power Pistol. At 50yds, the pattern stayed tight enough to be pretty devastating to a deer. I haven't fine tuned it much, but was mostly just testing out a theory. I was satisfied enough with the results to pursue it further at some point.

I think (2) or (3) .490 round balls swaged through a .460 Lee push thru would fly a bit better, but that's just an assumption.

[crackerjack57]

Thanx for the additional reply's. Right now all that I tried was a federal 210 primer, 7 gn unique and one I believe .459 round ball. Im not at home to confirm but i think im right. because I use only 1 round ball there is a whole lot of space. therefore fillers. educate me...... if I shove 3 round balls down the case wont it bulge the case further down?? Just trying to learn. on my single shot H&R buffalo classic at 100 yards i get roughly a 8" or so group.

[tinhorn97062]

Thanx for the additional reply's. Right now all that I tried was a federal 210 primer, 7 gn unique and one I believe .459 round ball. Im not at home to confirm but i think im right. because I use only 1 round ball there is a whole lot of space. therefore fillers. educate me...... if I shove 3 round balls down the case wont it bulge the case further down?? Just trying to learn. on my single shot H&R buffalo classic at 100 yards i get roughly a 8" or so group.

(3) .457 round balls didnt bulge my cases a single bit. I crimped the 3rd one very lightly to where about half of the ball was sticking out the top.

[longbow]

Not .45-70 but I used to shoot lots of round balls trhough my .44 mag Marlin. Mine were 0.440" then sized to 0.434" though so slightly football shaped and 0.002" over groove diameter. I was loading those over 10 grs. of Win 452AA with pretty good results. Dipped them in tumble lube after loading.

However, having said that, I elected to go with an Accurate design for a .45 cal. 165 gr. TC boolit reduced to 0.434" diameter... basically like the old collar button which was a round ball weight stubby boolit. Those work exceptionally well.

I have also shot purchased collar buttons through a .45-70 I had many years ago. They worked well too.

Short story is that in my experience, round balls work and can provide decent to good accuracy with light loads of powder but lightweight boolits are likely to work better especially if you want to kick velocity up some.

If you have the round ball mould and just want to use it then it should do fine but if you want a purpose made boolit for plinking and small game I would go with a collar button or a lightweight design with lube grooves.

Longbow

[DocSavage]

I have used a cast 250 wadcutter over a charge of 2400 in a Browning High Wall and get very good accuracy out to 50 yds. Haven't tried 100 yet perhaps at a later date.

[crackerjack57]

Well Gentlemen...... I want to thank you all for your input. with the given info I have made a few more trips to the range and have found round balls to be way more accurate then I would of ever thought possible. I have no problem doing a 4" group at 100 y all day long using 1 ball and 7 gn of unique. in addition to that i am also loading 405 gn hollow base with BP as it was first loaded a hundred years ago and also had results that were if even possible better then 2400, 4759 or unique. I will also do some additional experimenting with BP and 1 or 2 round balls. I have FFG on hand. Im not sure how the powder situation is there in the US but here in Canada its a little tough to get a lot of the powders unless you want something for a 50 BMG. so me plinking around with BP has been a real eye opener also. I'm not a young guy any more but I'm not a old guy either however where I'm at I'm a real young guy when it comes to black powder. OK. I might be flattering myself a bit. not quite a young guy!! anyway really easy to get BP but tough to get smokeless powders. I'm going to do additional experimenting with round ball and the 405 gn boolets using BP too. any suggestions on loads appreciated with the BP. Im shooting a H&R buffalo classic 32" barrel.

[Michael J. Spangler]

Have any of you compare the accuracy of a single round ball to say 405 grain bullet at the same or similar speeds?
I have read that some guys say the normal weight bullets tend to be more accurate than a round ball. not sure if anyone else has seen this?

[crackerjack57]

Im sure that would go without saying. dont think that there is anyone out there doing 300 yard matches or beyond with round ball but to my surprise if you read the thread above there was someone that said to try out to 300 and that I might be surprised. he never stated he did it but eluded to that fact. so far I have tried out to 100y and did way better then I would of ever thought. my purpose in this thread was just to open discussion on something I knew very little about and get some of the wisdom of the seasoned round ball shooters. up here in Canada a 50 or 100 yard shot with a round ball taking down a white tail deer or something smaller just gives another option instead of a 405 grain pill that thumps on both ends.

[big bore 99]

I shoot them regularly out of my buffalo classic. I don't use any fillers, just tilt them up to load. I tumble them in alox, then when dry tumble again in a very small amount of paste wax. Great at 50yds.