Ruger no.1 45-70 trouble

[Kristoffer]

Kristoffer--

You could try making soft-pointed boolits using BruceB's Softpoint Casting method. This would give the best of both worlds--expansion in front and a harder drive-band area. I note no targeting difference between softpoints and homogenous castings in my Ruger #1 in 45-70 or the CZ-550 in 9.3 x 62.

The boolit is ALREADY 45 caliber--how much expansion is really needed?

It's not expansion that worries me. I just dont want to take the risk having a brittle bullet that explodes upon impact The tests i have done with a hammer on my WW bullets seems promising as they dont end up into small pieces unlike some WW/linotype bullets i tried the same with. That said i dont know the exact composition of those bullets though.

//Kristoffer

[Frank46]

Take this for what its worth, I seem to remember that ruger's in 45/70 and possibly other calibers have two tight spots. One where the barrel band is and the other is where the front sight. My #1 in 45/70 has both. And needs a bullet larger than .459 as that is what the throat slugs out at. Frank

[Kristoffer]

I ordered a .460 sizeing die from a well known manufactuer and got it a few days ago.

When i looked through it i clearly see that the sizeing part of the die is not centered. My earlier .459 looks much better than this one

This can't be helping accuracy much?

//Kristoffer

[Crusty Deary Ol'Coot]

Bruce, from BABore here on the cast boolits forum can put you in touch with another fellow on the forum that will make you very good sizing dies. Good price, quick, at least on my order, turn around, quality product.

Keep em coming!

Crusty Deary Ol'Coot

[grouch]

The leading could be a number of things. If nothing else works, maybe a light dose of fire lapping. As to the accuracy, most of my rifles including 45 - 70 show a marked preference for 20:1 lead & tin over ww + 2% tin, whether water dropped or not. I doubt if the harder alloy will even show much of a velocity advantage.
Grouch

[Johnw...ski]

Not sure this will solve your problem but I often get slight leading at the muzzle in my rifles if I drive them too hard. In my 45-70 I use IMR 3031 and 4064 all it takes is .5 - 1.0 grs. above my usual load to get that result. The 4064 will start to do it during hot weather with my regular load.

John

[DLCTEX]

I load the RD 460-340 over SR4759 with great results. White Lable's BAC and velocity about 1700.

[Lloyd Smale]

mine isnt a tack driver but it is a decent shooting gun. Its favorite bullets are bruces 420 and 465 lfngc. I cast them out of #2 and size to 460. It will shoot the 465 into about 2 1/2 at a 100 for 5 shots and the 420 into about 2 inch. Most other gas checked bullets ive tried are in the 3 inch range at that distance. It does not care much for plain based bullets and groups will open to 4 or more inches with them. It wont shoot along side my two marlins but its plenty accurate for anything a guy is ever going to hunt with a 4570 even at 3 inch. One other thing ive allways noticed about 4570s is that each one is very powder sensitive. Dont buy just one powder and expect miricles. At least give re7 and 4198 a good try. theres other good ones like 322, 335, 748, 3031, ect. But be willing to experiment.

[EDG]

>>>I remember when slugging the bore (at about .4575) it felt like the barrel was opening up at the middle and then went tighter again at the muzzle. Could it be the barrel causing this? <<<

I have a #1 in 45-70 that shot 3 of 5 rounds on a 24" square target. The other 2 round missed the paper and the resulting 3 shot group was about 18".
I thought about this one a long time and finally checked the bore with some unsized bullets cast at .461.
The rifle had a .001 tight spot at the sling band and a .0015 tight spot at the muzzle due to the front sight band.
I sent it back to Ruger and they put a new barrel on it at no charge to me.
After you get your barrel checked out you may need to send it back, however Ruger will ask you what ammo you are shooting. Make sure you test it with jacketed factory ammo so you can tell them what you used. They will not work on it if you complain about lead bullets and handloads.
If you want to try a load the is easy to get to shoot well try a bullet cast of 20-1 unsized with about 25 grains of SR4759.
Yeah it will be slow but it will be accurate.

[MT Chambers]

For those very heavy loads, I'd try a bullet with more lube capacity and a diff. lube, a thou. or two bigger bullet, or slow it down a bit, but for heavy loads I wouldn't use anything faster then VV130. Your N-200 load sounds very hot and VV120 is very similar.

[5Shot]

Fire lapping is pretty easy really. Cast some soft bullets (I melt fishing sinkers and cast them out of pure lead). You then roll them between 2 flat steel plates covered with 320 grit lapping compound. You then load them over a few grains of a fast shotgun powder. The goal is to get them out of the muzzle and little more.

After 15-20 rounds you reslug the bore and see if the constriction is gone. For your barrel, you want to get rid of the tight spot around the sling swivel band, but the one at the muzzle isn't necessarily bad, and I don't think I would fire lap it any more than necessary.

My first group after fire lapping was a clover leaf, with all three shots touching. My load was 57 grains of H335, CCI 200 Primer and a 434 grain Applegate WFN.

[Frank46]

My #1 in 45/70 has two tight spots, one where the barrel band is and the other is where the front sight is. Have shot some jacketed stuff and it seems not as tight as it used to be. Frank

[9.3X62AL]

I was "blessed" with a pretty good barrel in my #1 x 45-70. It has shot accurately with castings and J-words since Day 1, and now has about 3500 rounds through it. If it had tight or loose spots when new, I couldn't feel them while running a tight patch on a jag down the bore. Leading has not been an issue, with one exception that was my fault--not the rifle's.

I don't try to extract a lot of velocity from this caliber, though this platform enables a shooter to really pour the coal on if he/she so chooses. In a relatively light rifle like my #1, the price paid in recoil for the flattened trajectory gets too expensive too fast for me. Same goes for the Marlin 95 leverguns. The 400 grain-class boolits run to 1500 FPS remain reasonable in recoil, don't go trans-sonic ("Chuck Yeager Effect") within 175-200 yards, and shoot reasonably flat to that range. Just my view of the sitch.

[EDG]

>>> If it had tight or loose spots when new, I couldn't feel them while running a tight patch on a jag down the bore.<<<
I could not feel the tight spots with my rifle. I could feel them with round balls and with cast bullets left unsized.

To check the barrel I started out driving a soft unsized 500 grain bullet into the breech end of the barrel.
This bullet was driven into the rifling about 2 inches and was knocked back out.
The next bullet was driven into the breech continuing on to the tight spot at the sling band. When it passed this point the bullet fell to about 2" from the muzzle where it hung again. Then it was driven on through the muzzle.
Another bullet was driven past the sling band from the breech until it was loose between the sling band and the front sight band. This bullet was driven back past the sling band tight spot toward the breech. It then became loose and dropped out of the barrel.
In this manner I had slug diameter measurements for the breech, the sling band tight spot and the tight spot under the front sight band.