Trap door 45-70-500

[southpaw]

I just purchased a few items from midsouth yesterday. One of the items was a lyman mould 457125. I have not been able to find any loading info on this 500gr boolit for the trap door rifle in any of my books or any of my attempts with the search on this site [smilie=b:

I was hoping that someone was shooting these big slugs out of a trap door and could give me a starting point.

Thanks in advance!!!

Jerry Jr.

ps my rifle is a pedersoli (spelling?)

[44man]

That is a good boolit but might cast a little small. I used the Rapine 500 gr Gov't boolit at .460" in a trapdoor. I used 3031 but I am sorry that I do not remember the amount. Accuracy was outstanding and right at the POA at 50 yd.
My friend with the gun moved out of state and has all of the loads.

[BruceB]

My 457125 is an older version, bought used from an Ebay seller if I recall correctly. I have no idea what its age might be.

In soft lead, i.e.: stick-on wheelweights, it casts the bands at around .457" and that long nose is only .446". In my Shiloh .45-2.1" just last week, the first blackpowder loads with this bullet scattered their holes over about eight inches from 50 yards. (The Shiloh slugs at .458".) Lube was SPG.

I was hoping that the black powder would cause the soft bullet to bump up in diameter, but this was clearly not happening. There were even some lead slivers visible on the cleaning patches. Since this is my one-and-only .45 rifle, I'll be discontinuing the use of the 457125 design. I do have a Lee 405 hollow-base, a Saeco #021 pointy 420-grainer, a Hoch nose-pour 459425, a Lyman 457406, and maybe one or two others. All of these have shot quite well with smokeless powder; ONE of them had better work with black in this rifle!

Yeah, yeah....some time back, I swore that I'd never load black again, but here I go one more time.
Some guys (me) just never learn.

[Wayne Smith]

A case full of FFG, card wad of waxed cardboard (milk jug), top of Chinese food container, or fiber wad stock, and the boolit. In an original Trapdoor this will give you more recoil than you expect.

[Larry Gibson]

You can get lots of advise here but the best money spent to learn about and load for your trapdoor will be to go to http://www.the45-70book.com. Look under "products", click on "books" and order Spence and Pat Wolf's book on loading for the 45-70 trapdoor. It is a wealth of information and will get you started. If you don't have dies yet you might want to get their specially made for trapdoor Lee dies also.

Other than that if you can pan lube the 457125s as cast of 20-1 alloy that would be best for the TD I use a Rapine mould, 460500, that gives me a .4615' bullet for my best accuracy. However most 457125s will drop 20-1 bullets at around .459 so that is ok.

I prefer a duplex BP load (essence of loading is covered in Wolf's book) for a couple reeasons; it is clean burning and I don't have to use a blow tube, it is accurate for many,many shots and I don't have to crimp. A good BP lube is necessary of course. I use Wolfs made of beeswax and olive oil (covered in the book) and it works as good as any of the commercial BP lubes. The load I use is 7 gr of 4759 over the primer with 52 gr GOEX Cartridge powder on top. Not much compression is needed with bullet seat so the case mouth is crimped straight covering about 1/2 of the front driving band. Velocity is 1260 fps out of my TD with excellent accuracy.

A very good smokeless load is 25 gr of 5744 loaded to the same oal as above. Velocity is 1175 fps with excellent accuracy also.

Cases I use are R-P and WW with WLR primers.

Larry Gibson

[southpaw]

Thanks all for the responses. I was hoping to avoid loading black powder ( the clean up is a pain ) but if it is the best route to go for this boolit gun combo then I will.

I think that I will get some 5744 and try the 25gr. What kind of accuracy should I expect at 50yds? 100yds?

I will order "the book" next payday as I think the wife would have a fit if I bought anything else after the order I just put in at midsouth.

Thanks again and keep the info comeing!!

Jerry Jr.

[montana_charlie]

Thanks all for the responses. I was hoping to avoid loading black powder ( the clean up is a pain )Are you speaking from experience?
If that experience was acquired with muzzleloaders, it might be more correct to say that 'cleaning a bore you can't see through' is a pain.

But, cleaning black fouling from a cartridge arm is as easy as three/four wet patches followed by two dries and an oily one.
No scrub brushes, no solvents, no sweat.
The wet patches can use a cup of water with a drop of Dawn, but straight water works just as well.

BTW (Bruce) - 405-grain hollow based bullets have a strong following among trapdoor shooters because they bump up (like) right now.

CM

[Larry Gibson]

Southpaw

Accuracy depends on a lot of things; condition of the bore, the load, condition of the rifle itself , the sights and how well you can shoot. With a good M1884 Buffington sight using the aperture 2-3 moa is common, many times better. With a M1879 sight (particularly the type III sight) the 2-3 moa is also obtainable if you can see a clear and sharpe sight picture (hard to do with my old eys, even with lenses, anymore. With M1873 sight 4-5 moa is common. I've a M884 that was made into a target rifle. It has a Pedersoli tang sight (with a Lyman tang sight for hunting) and an ols Lyman aperture front sight. I regularly shoot sub 2 moa ten shot groups at 200 yards with it. Like I said, the TD is accuracy capable but the "depends" control just ho accuracy capable it is.

BTW; that 25 gr load of 5744 under a rapine 16-1 460500 also shoots under 2 moa (ten shots) out of my target TD, 458125 shoots right at 2-2.5 moa.

Larry Gibson

[southpaw]

Are you speaking from experience?
If that experience was acquired with muzzleloaders, it might be more correct to say that 'cleaning a bore you can't see through' is a pain.

But, cleaning black fouling from a cartridge arm is as easy as three/four wet patches followed by two dries and an oily one.
No scrub brushes, no solvents, no sweat.
The wet patches can use a cup of water with a drop of Dawn, but straight water works just as well.

Yes I was thinking of my flint locks. I am glad to hear that it is alot easier to clean a bp cartridge rifle. [smilie=w:


The load I use is 7 gr of 4759 over the primer with 52 gr GOEX Cartridge powder on top.

Thanks for the info on the accuracy. One more question (well actually two). What is GOEX Cartridge powder? Is it 2f bp? And is it measured in volume or by weight?

Thanks again for everyones help. It is greatly appreciated. [smilie=s:

Jerry Jr.

[44man]

Yes I was thinking of my flint locks. I am glad to hear that it is alot easier to clean a bp cartridge rifle. [smilie=w:



Thanks for the info on the accuracy. One more question (well actually two). What is GOEX Cartridge powder? Is it 2f bp? And is it measured in volume or by weight?

Thanks again for everyones help. It is greatly appreciated. [smilie=s:

Jerry Jr.
Cartridge is a little more course then FFG but don't be afraid to try FFG or even FFFG. Measure by weight for a cartridge and make sure the boolit is against the powder or a wad on the powder. No air gaps. Most loads are compressed with a compression tool to just the bottom of a seated boolit. Boolits are usually soft at 20 to 1 or 30 to 1 lead and tin. They can be put in the case by hand, no case tension or crimp needed.
A LP primer will light it off and if you shoot BPCR events you can't use any smokeless behind the BP. It is not needed anyway.
You also need a lube for BP that is different then a smokeless lube. No mineral oils.