Is the 45-70 to much gun for Midwest Whitetails?

[Just Duke]

Looks like I might be inheriting a big cow farm West of the state of Kansas so I was wondering if the 45-70 is to much gun for Whitetails?
I have a SAECO GC 350 grainer I could use in the Marlins and a PB SAECO 405 grainer I could use in the *1886's.
I'm also informed by my relative back there up the road a piece that 60 yards is a long shot and the Deer never come out of the trees. True?
TIA,
Duke


* Vision and MVA scope mod pending. :violin:

[rhbrink]

Heck no! They got some big ole deer out there!

[94Doug]

I say no way, Duke not too much. Sounds like you have the right idea for boolit weight. I just sent a SC mould to Buckshot for HP conversion, that may be the way to go.... but the saeco as it is should work.

Doug

[txpete]

its perfect and alot less meat damage with a heavy cast bullet when compaired to the high velocity cal's.:-)

[trk]

The deer go from standing to slapped to the ground. That's an advantage.

[joel0407]

Is there anything the 45/70 is too heavy for?

I'm looking at loading Plastic Sabots with 000 shot (0.360 round ball) over trail boss for sub sonic rabit load.

[Just Duke]

The deer go from standing to slapped to the ground. That's an advantage.

That's a real good advantage seeing the Hunting Channel and watching Whitetailes that were shot with an .06 run of 100 yards or so.
Thanks for your reply trk.

[Just Duke]

its perfect and alot less meat damage with a heavy cast bullet when compaired to the high velocity cal's.:-)


I'm sure you've experienced that personally with the nice Marlin Cowboy you have Pete.
Thanks for your reply Pete and fellas.

[Ranch Dog]

Nope, it is about perfect!

[testhop]

Is there anything the 45/70 is too heavy for?

I'm looking at loading Plastic Sabots with 000 shot (0.360 round ball) over trail boss for sub sonic rabit load.

i would not want to use it on rabbits or tree rats lol

[jar-wv]

It don't seem to be too much gun for WV whitetails and I'm sure they're a lot smaller than you'll be gunning for. My favorite woods gun.

jar

[Wayne Smith]

That what the Gould 457122HP was designed for, way back 100 or so years ago. Good enough then, good enough now.

For the vitality issue, my Dad shot a deer with his 30-30, deer jumped a 5ft fence and ran 60 yds. When we cleaned it there was only half a heart. The lower ventricles were completely gone. It's where you hit it, not necessarily what you hit it with. Anchor the shoulders or spine and it drops, anywhere else its gonna go somewhere.

[rob45]

Knowing that man required sustenance, God made the 45-70 to keep man from starving.

Knowing that man is prone to do evil upon his fellow man, God made the 45 Colt so man could protect himself.

On the 6th day, God made the 45ACP so that man could have fun on the 7th day.

Eventually, God decided that man was getting too smart. He was afraid that man was advancing too rapidly- all of man's genetic research might eventually lead to the resurrection of T-Rex. Thus, God gave man the 458 Winchester magnum, "just in case".


I never claimed to be good at history, and I don't think my handle indicates any bias, so take this for what it's worth to you. That's my story and...

[Just Duke]

That what the Gould 457122HP was designed for, way back 100 or so years ago. Good enough then, good enough now.

For the vitality issue, my Dad shot a deer with his 30-30, deer jumped a 5ft fence and ran 60 yds. When we cleaned it there was only half a heart. The lower ventricles were completely gone. It's where you hit it, not necessarily what you hit it with. Anchor the shoulders or spine and it drops, anywhere else its gonna go somewhere.

I here you Wayne. I always aim for the shoulder on big game that way I brake the shoulder and the bone pieces turn into shrapnel.

[Bert2368]

As far as the deer never leaving the trees, that depends on what's left standing in the field on opening day. Try leaving a few rows of soy beans in a field for wildlife food...

[lwknight]

All other factors aside, I think that a big heavy and relatively slow boolit will do less damage to surrounding meat than a high velocity , like the -06 I have seen the 7mm mag ruin a whole both hindquarters by a bad shot.

[Paladin 56]

Absolutely not. It will kill the largest just as easily as it will kill the smallest.

[mpmarty]

No, not too powerful. 45/70 is like my 3/4 Ton pickup truck w/ 4wheel drive. It can do most anything and do it pretty darn well.

[largom]

Duke, The absolute BEST way to get an answer for your question would be to invite me and my 45-70 rifles out to your farm for a test. I would also check to see if the deer came out of the woods or not.

Larry

[randyrat]

If your hunting next to private land (and it's not yours) and you don't want that Whitetail to go anywhere the 45-70 is perfect.
How big are those "Big Cows"? Dairy or Beef? Milk prices are on their way up.

[JSnover]

Too much? Afraid you'll scare'em to death before you get a shot off? :kidding:

[Wayne Smith]

BTW, every farm I have been involved with that has cows and/or horses, the deer come to the feed with them, mixed among them often. A deer's natural habitat is the 'edge', the region just within the forest line and just outside the forest line. They don't live in the open, although they go there, especially to eat something delictable, and they don't live in the deep forest. They are browsers and so are dependent on low growing plants and shrubs more than grass. These are found in the 'edge'.

[TCLouis]

Those deer will scoff at a 45-70 and so if you will just tell us where the place is and we will attempt to keep an eye on it for you, as well as prevent overpopulation. Just as a favor to a fellow Galena blaster you see.

Western Kansas that I know will have limited vegetation so I would think most of your hunting would be confined to river bottom land. Funny as a kid visiting relatives, the streams had few fish and to see a deer in the Beeler area was akin to spotting a Haint. Have not been there in years, but seems the creeks have recovered and deer are now "plentiful.

[NuJudge]

My experience with the 300gr hollowpoints is that they don't expand much, they just drill a .457" hole clear through.

The trajectory is not flat, but if you know your ranges you'll do fine.

CDD

[Dale53]

If the Lyman 457322 Hollow Point is cast of soft lead, I guarantee you it will expand on deer. Heck, even a 10% duplex load (Reloader 7) and black powder will reliably expand on deer if it is cast of 30/1 lead/tin.

FWIW
Dale53

[Just Duke]

My experience with the 300gr hollowpoints is that they don't expand much, they just drill a .457" hole clear through.

The trajectory is not flat, but if you know your ranges you'll do fine.

CDD

I'm with you on that too.

[warf73]

Duke the 45/70 is a good deer gun and with a 350gr pill it's good medican for them pesky white tail deer. I do alot of hunting out in western Kansas and the furtherst shot to date is just over 100 yards. I also use a 350gr pill in my rifle(460WBY) and so far no deer has walked away or ran for that matter after bein hit.
I say you cant go wrong with a 45/70.

[lead-1]

I know a guy that used a Contender in 45-70 for deer season every year, he told me he didn't like the recoil of a shotgun. I had a Contender with a Super 16 non ported barrel and I would much rather shoot a shotgun, lol.

[Mumblypeg]

i would not want to use it on rabbits or tree rats lol

I have done just that. Not on a regularity, but with head shots it just makes a .45 cal hole. You can eat right up to the hole...as they say.

[Just Duke]

As far as the deer never leaving the trees, that depends on what's left standing in the field on opening day. Try leaving a few rows of soy beans in a field for wildlife food...

So temptation is their boone. :redneck:

[montana_charlie]

"a big cow farm West of the state of Kansas"
Sounds like the kind of operation where they plow the ground to plant cow seed, and harvest the 'ground beef' in the fall when the cow crop is ripe.

If that is how it was described to Duke, it must have come from some city slicker who would think 45/70 refers to the day/night speed limit for eighteen wheelers.
Wonder if he realizes that the ground 'west of Kansas' is divided up into four more states, each with it's own name...

CM

[Farmall 1066]

Can't say about deer, but my 45-70 has dispatched 1 starling and a handful of prairie dogs!
Andy

[45 2.1]

I do believe Duke is going to get an education..................:bigsmyl2:

[PA Shootist]

I have hunted Pennsylvania and New York whitetails with many types of rifles (and shotguns). 350 grains of cast lead of .45 caliber with a flat point kills just fine, as experienced with my Trapdoor .45-70 and Model 71/84 Mauser (caliber 11.15x60R or .43 Mauser). There is no such thing as "too dead". It really matters more where you hit than what you hit with. I have myself seen many times clear-through the chest cavity penetration, same size out as in, but through heart and lungs, and deer runs away as if nothing happened, with larger-caliber slow-moving cast boolits. But the blood trail starts soon, and within a while the blood trail increases greatly and soon thereafter lies the dead deer. I have never seen any bullet "slap one down". Indeed very few of about 40 animals have fallen right down, most have run some, others as much as 100 yards even though heart shot.

[mpmarty]

I don't know about adrenaline high eastern deer, but here in Oregon our biggest black tails go around 150 to 200 pounds on the hoof and when I hit one with my 45/70 Marlin they do indeed get knocked off their feet. I've shot more than a dozen at ranges from ten to a hundred and fifty yards and in each case they went down immediately and were dead from well placed shots in the boiler room. I quit using my 30:06 on deer as they did in fact run some distance after my shooting partner and I placed good hits on them using Remington 742s we each hit one at fifty yards that was traversing left to right in front of us in a rock quarry and that deer soaked up four rounds of 165 gr Sierra J-words and kept right on running. We tracked him to his final resting place and it was nearly two hundred yards from where he was hit with the first rounds. I'm for slow and heavy every time.

[Just Duke]

[smilie=s:

[Three-Fifty-Seven]

No . . .I think you'd better let me keep that 45/70 for you, You'll need something much bigger! . . . [smilie=1:

I'll keep your gun oiled, and even take it out once in awhile to visit the jack rabbits! :mrgreen:

You'll be just fine with that set up!

[RobS]

Where is the farm located? I ask since parts of Kansas and Colorado are vastly flat and where there are Mule Deer that run these parts. It is not too uncommon to see Mule Deer out in the canyons and in fields as they are not Whitetails. Where there are only a few creeks that run through the landscape these deer are quite at home out on the plains and canyons.

I grew up in Western Kansas and remember hunting down in the creek bottoms with the bow and shots are close as you can be at times, but out in the canyons on the flats it would be more difficult to shoot a deer at 100 yards and more realistic to shoot one under those circumstances at 200 yards and 300 yards as there are ravines that run up and out and when you come up on the deer they'll scatter like ghosts as you make your way back up to the top of the next hill to see if they are still in the bottom. They’ll vanish on you………..poof.

I remember seeing once while bow hunting with my dad, the largest deer I’d ever seen out in those canyons just south of St. Peter, KS. 500 yards out maybe a bit more but it looked like a darn cow amongst the rest of the deer of probably 15-20 or so and from that distance we could easily see with a naked eye it had a rack and a huge one at that. When you see something like this the blood just starts a pumping, you can't stop it. We moved slowly down to the bottom of the hill and then back up to the next where we would be probably 200 yards out from where we had seen this huge monster to only see a few does running the bottom and a fork buck. The rest of them were just gone……………………not a trace; up and out through the ravins.

I would say that if you are down in the creek bottoms you’ll be fine with a 45-70 as most shots will be no more than 100 yards with some stretching out to maybe 150 yards if the deer break from the creek and head out on the top ridge as they sense something wrong or smell you. Should you hunt Mule deer then if you choose a 45-70 a newer Marlin will take the upper pressure loads and with a 300 grain slug one can make up ground with the flatter trajectory and push 200 yards pretty easy and even hit close to 300 with a scope that has some sort of bullet drop compensator reticle.

[MtGun44]

What is the nearest town?

As to "cow farm", I got a good laugh at that one. I do believe that out here in Kansas
that would be a "ranch". Although, you might be talking about a feedlot, which is a
whole 'nother thing altogether. Step one in an education that will be pretty interesting
if you can hang in
there.

OK, A ranch joke. Two old ranchers are standing on the opposite sides of their common
fence, just shooting the breeze. One asks, "Well John, what would you do if you won that
lottery that they set up down in Topeka?" The other thinks a bit and then says, "Heck,
I'd probably just keep on ranchin' 'til it was all gone."

Ranching can be like that in a lot of places.

Best of luck, sounds like a heck of an adventure awaits.

And, no, a .45-70 will be just fine on the creek bottom deer you are likely to run into. Far
enough west (like into Colorado, which is 'west of Kansas') and you'll run into mulies, too.

Bill

[RobS]

Yep ranch or .................Dairy with holsteins

[JJC]

Get to know the land and where the deer are. Use the landscape and your binos. I have had good luck sneaking up on antelope in eastern Colorado. Took one with my 45 70 a few years ago, about 70 yard shot. My wife watched the trail of the bullet go into him on a cold rainy day. Most of the shots I have taken with bolt action rifles could have been taken with irons out that way.

[ghh3rd]

inheriting a big cow farm
I thought that all cows were "big cows" :-)

[riverwalker76]

I've harvested a total of 5 Whitetail Deer here in Kentucky with my 45-70 Marlin Guide Gun over the years. Be sure to use a light bullet or you will ruin a lot of good meat.

[blackthorn]

Dead is ----dead! If you worry about spoiled meat----shoot 'em in the head!

[Adam10mm]

405gr lead (12 BHN) at 1300fps or so is perfect and accounted for several deer in the freezer.

[82nd airborne]

this could be very dangerous and i wouldnt want you to get hurt! i will give you the cb member discount if youll hire me to take care of these pesky critters causing deprivation to your farm property.

[montana_charlie]

This discussion began in November of 2009. Duke 'bumped' it back to life yesterday.
I wonder why...
CM

[7br]

From the sounds of it, you will also be in prime pheasant territory. +1 on what Rob S. says about variety of shots. If you have any irrigated crops, the corners will hold a lot more game than you imagine. Overgrown irrigation pits are great cover for pheasants also.

There are some pretty decent deer in Kansas. There are probably enough Kansans on the board to give a good idea of what you are looking at.

[selmerfan]

I harvested several deer in Iowa with a .454 Casull, which is in the low end of the .45-70 Gov't power range. I used a 320 gr. cast boolit from Lloyd Smale at 1650 fps and it knocked them flat and didn't destroy meat. I'm currently using a .357 Max with 190 or 215 gr. cast boolits with great results and all of Iowa requires slug guns, muzzleloaders, or straight-walled pistols, your .45-70 should be just fine and no, it's not too much gun.

[82nd airborne]

theres really not any desireable meat behind the shoulder anyway, which is a perfect aiming point. in my experience, i doubt youll mess up half of a hamburger patty. like several above stated, hv seems to destroy more meat than anything.

[yarro]

It is what my brother hunts everything with. So far it kills, deer, black bear, coyotes, dogs chasing deer, woodchucks, racoons, and rabbit eating in the garden (Not much left of rabbit.) Says it is almost an all around gun, but he still needs the .22LR for rabbits and squirrels since it failed the small game test.

-yarro

[nelsonted1]

Perfect range cow: mouth six feet wide and can graze at 60 miles per hour.

[nelsonted1]

I would skip the deer and hunt coyotes! You may be able to shoot deer in the cow yard like we did in MN. A friend had a farm on the edge of a national park. He'd put excess corn in a round crib made out of snow fence. The deer would stand on top eating corn- they'd also urinate on the corn really turning up the noses on his cows.

[saz]

ABSOLUTELY NOT! Seriously though, I grew up slug hunting in the midwest with foster slugs in smoothbore slug barrels and they hit with authority, and dont ruin a lot of meat. A 1 1/8- 1 1/4 oz slug moving about 1500fps is devistating on deer. Figure how heavy that 1 1/4 oz slug is and it will open your eyes.


HINT- 546.875 grs.........

[BrianB]

"I'm also informed by my relative back there up the road a piece that 60 yards is a long shot and the Deer never come out of the trees. True?"

Absolutely false. Every deer I've ever killed was on the ground.

[AZ-Stew]

I'll be EXTREMELY surprised if you ever post here that your .45-70 killed those whitetails too dead.

As noted before, I also have a .45-70 in a T/C Contender, and my son has a .45-70 Ruger #3 that we'll be happy to use to help you clean up your whitetail problem. Please PM me and we'll work out the details. The .45-70 just seems to be the right cartridge for plains work.

Regards,

Stew

[XWrench3]

NO! the 45/70 is not to much gun for whitetails. i shot one this past fall, one shot, one kill. it dropped right where i shot it. did i NEED the 45/70 to kill this deer? no, not really. a 30-30 would have done just fine. but, i didn't want to chase a deer either.

[TCLouis]

I still think everyone is waiting on a "Where is this place" answer.
What kind of country, how big is this farm/ranch.
What kind of country, any wooded creek bottoms?

Too many unknowns to give a decent answer, BUT . . . .

With practice even BP level 45-70 loads will reach out and stop a deer.

[Southron Sanders]

I guess that using that SMALL BORE 45-70 might work. Here in Georgia we use .58 caliber Minie Balls (500 grains) on Whitetails. The Whitetails go down like they were hit by a freight train travelling at 90 MPH. Daid is daid!

By the way, the Army Ordnance Department developed the 45-70 as a "horse killer." This was for injun fighting purposes. If a round will kill a horse, it will probably work on a Whitetail-even though it is a "Small Bore."