45-70 with other pistol powder beside Unique?

[karlrudin]

I have been reading a lot of posts about Unique is the universal powder for cast. I just acquired a 45-70 govt for my christmas present to me and was wondering if there are other pistol powders I could use. There is no Unique to be found near me. But I do have HS-6 which is close but slower and AA#7 which is slower yet. The next powder I have that comes close to a fast powder for reduces loads is H110 or IMR4227. I would prefer to use the pistol powders because the only thing I'm hunting are X-rings on paper. Please help if yall have some input. My bullets mold weight is 405 grains. Rifle is H&R Handirifle only weighing 7lbs. But I only weigh 135 with a bad spine.

[williamwaco]

Any of those powders will work fine BUT you will need to adjust your charges.

Grab a copy of the lyman cast bullet handbook if you don't already have one.

My first choice for s substitute for Unique would be Herco if you can find it. Also a little slower.

[Adam Helmer]

karlrudin,

In my M1884 Trapdoor Rifle, I load a cast 405 grain boolit and use IMR4198. My load is right out of the Lyman Cast Bullet Handbook.

Adam Helmer

[Rick R]

I've used 2400 to good effect and you'll find it listed in Lyman's manual.

[curator]

Karlrudin;

Check out the handi-forums: http://www.go2gbo.com/forums// These guys can probably give you some good tips on taming the .45-70 Handi-rifle. From them I learned that I could easily add weight to the butt stock to help reduce recoil. H110 does not lend itself to reduced loads in big cases like ,45-to, but IMR4227 does.

[Bohica793]

This site has a lot of low level loads for various calibers using pistol powder. http://www.gmdr.com/lever/lowveldata.htm

I have also used Trail Boss in my 45-70 (13gr under a NOE 460-405) which is a very mild load.

[Tackleberry41]

Most of them would work, just might not be able to find any data to go off of. I use solo1000 alot as I ended up with 8lbs of it, take me a long time to run thru it in pistols. Works fine in my 30-30 and 45-70. I just used Unique data as a starting point.

[karlrudin]

I went over the the link Bohica793 suggested and they gave me tons of loads to work with using pistol powders. Since the H&R is only 7 lbs and I'm used to shooting a 13 lb rifle, I had to tame the loads down AND add weight to the rifle. Ended up filling the rear stock with steel bb's(2.5 lbs of them) and attaching a Caldwell bi-pod I had sitting around. That should tone it down quite a bit. Thanks a lot for all the input guys. I just got done molding 100 405 gr. bullets this morning. I will be seeing how things feel and fly next weekend, if weather permits.

[Wayne Smith]

For that purpose I would suggest that you look at investing in a Collar Button mold as well. This was used for indoor range gallery shooting.

[sghart3578]

If you have Bullseye you can use 11 gr under a Lee 405 gr bullet. That gives me just over 1100 fps, is very accurate and recoil is mild.

[Scharfschuetze]

Another good option that is similar to Bullseye is Tight Group powder. Here is my data for Tight Group under a 405 grain boolit from a 24" barrel:

10.5 Grains Tight Group = Average 1078 fps, Extreme Spread 11.4, Sd 4.7

Accuracy in all my 45/70 rifles is on average about 2 1/2 MOA for 10 shot groups. The load holds well way out yonder and small rocks in cliff faces are in serious danger way out past 400 yards using an aperture rear sight and a blade/post front sight.

By the way, a 405 grain boolit at about 1,100 fps mimics the US Army cavalry load (45/55/405) that was used from 1873 till the end of the Trapdoor days circa 1900 or so.

[454PB]

I know I sound like a broken record, but.......

BlueDot.

[Efin]

I found lite loads in 700x, AA2, as noted above Blue Dot, RedDot, H2400, Bullseye, GreenDot, HS6, HS7, I4227, H4227, Solo1000, Solo1250, TiteWad, TiteGroup, Unique, and several of the VV's, W231 can't find, but works well.

[Scharfschuetze]

If anyone needs to find info on small charges of pistol powders in various cartridges, here is the link you need:

http://www.gmdr.com/lever/lowveldata.htm

While I just recently came across this site, its data closely approximates my own testing with several powders. Here is an example using Tight Group powder.

[2AMMD]

45-70 Was black a powder cartridge load when it was developed. It has killed every animal in North America and is used with BP in long range competition. No offense to others, but I think it should be shot with BP (OR substitue if necessary)
Just my 2
2AMMD

[karlrudin]

First off y'all, thanks for all the input. I initially bought 2 boxes of Remington Coreloks to get my brass started. $100 latter, I brought them home and broke them down. At that point I hadn't got my Lee mold yet and decided to reload them with 12 grains of Trailboss and 12 grains of HS-6. Both of these loads turned out well. Recoil was almost non-existent and accuracy was fair at 50 yards with buckhorn sights. I will be loading up some of my cast bullets as soon as they cure this week. I wasn't sure if I should be water dropping WW's for these loads. But whats done is done. And the first 100 are ready to go. I was worrying about the recoil on this weapon. Glad I was wrong. Thanks again y'all. This is a fun gun with fun loads.

[rsrocket1]

45-70 Was black a powder cartridge load when it was developed. It has killed every animal in North America and is used with BP in long range competition. No offense to others, but I think it should be shot with BP (OR substitue if necessary)
Just my 2
2AMMD

Yes you can use BP or a substitute, but you'd need to fill up the case with the equivalent of 70 grains (volume) of the stuff. At current prices, that's close to 6 times the cost of 10-12 grains of pistol powder even at $30/pound. Plus you have a bunch of fouling to clean off or face the rust monster. BH209 would be a good BP substitute, it cleans with Hoppe's No.9 and does not need cleaning between shots but at $33/10 ounces, it's pretty expensive.

Fast(er) powders that are currently somewhat available are 800-X (meters poorly but works well), 700-X as well as the powders Efin listed.

Save the BP and subs for the front stuffers. Use smokeless in the cartridges, it's much more efficient.

[Walstr]

Bohica793; Tell me a little more re: NOE 460-405 mold results. WW only? Actual measured cast diameter? Using a chrono? What's your max FPS before leading starts?

I talked to NOE re: this mold re: its short nose. My chamber [Marlin 1985GS] looks like it will tolerate a 2.545" COAL using a 2.095" case & boolit with a .450" nose. I'm hesitating going with the NOE mentioned above, 'cause their spec shows it has a .395" nose, and I thought that much of a "boolit jump" would be excessive?!?

Pls. add your experience to my conundrum. Also, would you consider my purchasing or bartering for a dozen of your cast boolits? Thanks much. Best regards,

Wally

[Geezer in NH]

Printed loading manual need IMHO.

Try the Lyman and read it.

[karlrudin]

Printed loading manual need IMHO.

Try the Lyman and read it.

I've got 3 Lyman's, 2 Speers, 1 Lee, 1 Seirra and 2 Hornady manuals. None of which have pistol powders that I have asked about in their load data. But thanks for the direction.