Advice requested on a particulaar bullet for 45/70.

Firstly, I hope this is in the right section. Secondly, I have been searching on this and other forums, but I would like to get this right, which is why I am asking here.

I have an Accurate Mould for a 405 grain bullet with huge metplat. Two chambers, one for a gas check bullet, one without. The lead I am using is pretty much obliged to be plain lead. I'm casting and then dropping the bullets into cold water. The bullets are to be used for informal target use with nitro powders but may be used later for deer if I can comfortably meet our legal requirements here. They are primarily for use with a Marlin 1895 with microgroove rifling in a 22" barrel that slugs out to .460". I have managed to open up a Lee sizing die to produce .461" (more by luck than judgement). The bullets will be (are) Aloxed.

My question is, what maximum velocity should I aim for to avoid leading the barrel, but to get the best accuracy and muzzle energy? Powder recommendations are not particularly useful as I am limited in the choice of powders that are popular in the USA. I can get a good estimate on velocity by using Quickload and verify with a chronograph.

TIA.

First of all, plain lead is not going to harden with water dropping.

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Originally Posted by upnorthwis

First of all, plain lead is not going to harden with water dropping.

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Such is my understanding. I mentioned that only for the sake of completeness. For a variety of reasons I'm pretty much stuck with plain lead.

If you're just paper punching and wanting to deer hunt occasionally, I'd keep the MV in the 1200-1300 fps range. Most test barrels for load data in the books are from a 24" barrel. The 45-70 will loose 25fps per inch shorter than that....so if you have an 18" barrel, like I do with my Henry, then you need to use load data that is in the 1350-1450 fps range. Pure lead may cause some barrel leading issues. Its really soft and gas cutting on very soft lead might be a problem. I'd try the GC boolit cavity only for pure lead....but not saying you won't get some leading...because likely you'll get a lot of leading with the microgroove near the throat especially.

And you definitely don't need to waste time water dropping. It won't do any good unless there is tin/antimony in it. If I were you, I'd start looking for pewter in your area. (I hear there is Pewter in the UK :) ) Pewter is 95% tin and will definitely benefit you if you can get 2-3% mixed into your alloy.

redhawk

Try out paper patching to avoid leading. Works for me.

Or powder coating ???

My thoughts were also running in the direction of all these answers. 1) Find some pewter to add to your lead, and/or typecast alloy (which has antimony). 2) Powder coat your boolits. 3) Paper Patch your boolits.
Any of these should be viable options. Paper patching may be the most difficult to get going with but from my understanding, a very satisfying endeavor once mastered.

Paper patching is a pain in the ****! But it does perform!!! You need tin in your lead to make it a 20 to 1 or 30 to 1, you can even go less tin. Your shoulder is going to take a beating shooting velocities like 1800 fps and higher and you don't have to have that much, unless you plan on taking it Africa for big dangerous game. Funny I come in to read you post as I was just out shooting my 1886 Winchester Browning lever action carbine at a little over 300 yards. My barrel has a .458 groove, but I size the bullets to the fattest that will chamber and that's .463 for me. My alloy is one of the above I mention and my velocity is around 1450 fps. When I first got into the 45-70 I thought I need a gas check bullet and lots of velocity. I found out different.

I used Lee molds and they would not cast a bullet large enough for my Marlin 1895. I ended up powder coating them to get them fat enough for the bore. You will be facing two problems : lead hardness and bore fitment. Still I believe you can get to 1200 FPS and maybe 1400 FPS. With a 400 grain bullet that is all the recoil you will want to shoot with that rifle.

Why not go to a plumbing supply shop and get a roll of lead free solder ,the green roll, 1 kg costs about £15 and add a bit to your lead ?

Find a second hand store and buy a pewter plate, a mug, a picture frame, and melt them into your muffin tin. About 2 ounce portions are nice to work with. Compute the weight of your pure lead melt and then add the pewter biscuits as needed. This will open up a whole new world for your "usability.

To answer your questions on pure lead the is my opinion: IF you are using alox, I would consider about 1200 fps to be the top. Because you have upsized the mold for then known preference of the marlin microgroove, you might try a few at 1400, and then check for leading.

For water dropping, you can also add a good handful or two of MAGNMUM shot to your lead melt. This adds antimony and arsenic to your mix. These do work with water hardening.

All this is Just My Opinion based on my experience with my 45-70's. The 405's will penetrate through and through on a deer at 1200 fps. If you can hit your aiming point, the 405 will do it's job.

rch

Many thanks to all who have replied, you have all been a great help and I am now much better informed. As far as recoil is concerned I seem to be one of those lucky individuals who are largely untroubled by it. The heaviest load I shoot is a Hornady 350 grain jacketed flat point in front of around 50 grains of Reloder 7. Pretty frisky in the 22" barrelled short magazine Marlin 1895 but not greatly troubling. I'm working up something stout for the Pedersoli Sharps silhouette. I've done a few with full case black powder that caused no great problem behind Postell bullets. It's the Marlin Microgroove that's the issue.

Edit to add:: I'm not making claims here to be some sort of uber hard man. I have noticed that some people are more affected by recoil than others and build seems to have little to do with it.