Terrible groups from my Marlin 1895GS, using IMR4198...

[NSB]

Lever guns are notorious for being difficult to shoot off bags. Even minute changes to your cheek weld will move the POI all over the place. I can make my guns shoot great groups and simply by moving my face on the stock I can get "flyers". The height of the bench, pressure on stock, position of bags under gun, etc all have an effect on grouping with "bridge" guns (guns with two piece stocks). They simply aren't as forgiving as one piece stocks. I'm not sure as many shooters are fully aware of this as they think. A lot of trial and error at the bench will teach you a lot about how critical these effects are.

[Maven]

This was fired from a Marlin #336 .45-70, microgroove rifling with front & rear rests, NSB (got similar results from a #336 MG .30-30 with rests too).

[Gtek]

I have been fiddling with these Marlins for let's say a while and have more than I probably should. With that said, First thing I have used for many moons as far as accuracy testing and on bench. Stand up and hold the rifle as if shooting, where your forward hand hold is will be duplicated on front rest with back of hand on rest. Sit as close to 90 degrees as possible duplicating the standing position. This also allows the torso to roll up and out absorbing the big pill and big load rounds also and somewhat mirrors the standing shot. Second thing, all this talk about powder, boolit, etc., has the bore been checked for constrictions? I have found more than enough to check everyone I come in contact with. The culprit is usually found around the roll stamping and the rear dovetail cut for rear sight. There may have been a contest at Marlin who could do the most in one shift! I am by no means a Boolit Meister but I do understand what a flat sided unbalanced non sealing slug can do. Just for make you feel betters, find somebody that owns a pin gauge set and find the one that just slips in muzzle, take wooden dowel and push through to chamber. If it stops, mark dowel, remove and now you know where first one is. Some I have found slip right through, others have taken many tedious hours to carefully remove. Not saying that's it, but I would confirm all I could before condemning a powder/boolit.

[Walstr]

I have been fiddling with these Marlins for let's say a while and have more than I probably should. With that said, First thing I have used for many moons as far as accuracy testing and on bench. Stand up and hold the rifle as if shooting, where your forward hand hold is will be duplicated on front rest with back of hand on rest. Sit as close to 90 degrees as possible duplicating the standing position. This also allows the torso to roll up and out absorbing the big pill and big load rounds also and somewhat mirrors the standing shot. Second thing, all this talk about powder, boolit, etc., has the bore been checked for constrictions? I have found more than enough to check everyone I come in contact with. The culprit is usually found around the roll stamping and the rear dovetail cut for rear sight. There may have been a contest at Marlin who could do the most in one shift! I am by no means a Boolit Meister but I do understand what a flat sided unbalanced non sealing slug can do. Just for make you feel betters, find somebody that owns a pin gauge set and find the one that just slips in muzzle, take wooden dowel and push through to chamber. If it stops, mark dowel, remove and now you know where first one is. Some I have found slip right through, others have taken many tedious hours to carefully remove. Not saying that's it, but I would confirm all I could before condemning a powder/boolit.

Thanks. I do have an industrial tool vendor in town. I'll see what they have in the way of drill rod, say 7/16" (.4375"), upon which I could wrap increasing layers of tape, to find the constriction! Awesome idear.

Great site--great people!

[Walstr]

I no longer have a Marlin .45-70, but had a Micro-Groove one purchased new about thirty years ago. It shot well with WW alloy bullets (Lyman 420 grain FN and comparable RCBS version) sized as large as possible, about .460" and 31 grs. IMR4198, standard CCI LR primer, no filler. Generally, I've found if you need a filler, you need a more suitable powder.

Cool. What accuracy do you recall?

[Walstr]

Lever guns are notorious for being difficult to shoot off bags. Even minute changes to your cheek weld will move the POI all over the place. I can make my guns shoot great groups and simply by moving my face on the stock I can get "flyers". The height of the bench, pressure on stock, position of bags under gun, etc all have an effect on grouping with "bridge" guns (guns with two piece stocks). They simply aren't as forgiving as one piece stocks. I'm not sure as many shooters are fully aware of this as they think. A lot of trial and error at the bench will teach you a lot about how critical these effects are.

Obviously had no idea they were so "delicate". Based upon a recent PM to this blog, I was advised to try resting/holding the forearm close to the receiver, to avoid affecting bbl deflection/bias. The devil is in da details & I ain't found him yet, but I'm a gunna!

[Walstr]

This was fired from a Marlin #336 .45-70, microgroove rifling with front & rear rests, NSB (got similar results from a #336 MG .30-30 with rests too).

That's not nice to skip the mention of powder. Stop teasing....

[Gtek]

You are dealing with thousandths, tape maybe if it were REALLY bad. Pull lever, pull bolt, get a .375" wooden dowel and go find a pin gauge set for real deal. Also if you find access to gauge set of .250"-.500" you can back up on pins till one slides through and that will tell you how much it is if indeed found. Maybe find something, maybe not, but in this game sometimes .002" can change the world.

[Maven]

Walstr, The loading data is on the target, but not entirely on the cropped photo: I used 17gr. WC 820/AA #9

[Walstr]

Some have asked to see my "muzzle lube star" . Here's 2 pics from 60rnds range time 2 days ago; Xlox Tumble Lube.

[Walstr]

A PM yesterday suggested the prospect of my Clip On Wheel Weights + 2% tin being too soft. I found the Greenhill Barrel Twist formula & the calculation shows I should have a 1:31 barrel! So if my alloy is too soft, and the Marlin 1:20 twist is too fast, then I might be stripping the boolit right thru the bore & launching an unguided slug!!! Whew. Too much to comprehend tonight. Happy New Year.

[44man]

A PM yesterday suggested the prospect of my Clip On Wheel Weights + 2% tin being too soft. I found the Greenhill Barrel Twist formula & the calculation shows I should have a 1:31 barrel! So if my alloy is too soft, and the Marlin 1:20 twist is too fast, then I might be stripping the boolit right thru the bore & launching an unguided slug!!! Whew. Too much to comprehend tonight. Happy New Year.

NO, use Greenhill to start campfires. It is of no use. You will always show way too slow.

[Walstr]

RE: Clarification to my Response #51...

I misunderstood the 20:1, 40:1 ratios, etc. I realize (now) it means "Pure Lead: Tin" ratio. My bad. Sorry. In practice, I've been using "1/50 Tin: CWW", or 2% Tin added. I also "Quench" because it's a convenient way to "drop" the fresh new boolits into a gentle receptacle.

Based upon much reading in these related forums, I became convinced that a properly sized, hard lead boolit was "preferred" for high(er) velocity use. Still learning what "high velocity" really means in my case here, but it didn't scare me away from quenching in my casting process.

And I've leaned to use CWW to represent "Clip on Wheel Weights", which some abbreviate as COWW.

I was gunna hit the range today with 11 bags of 4rnds each, for another round of testing, with mag tube & forearm removed. Alas, it was -1 so I'll wait 'till tomorrow when it hits dbl digits. When I record any relevant data, it should be most useful for next deer hunting season. Thanks to all concerned.

[W.R.Buchanan]

You really need one of my Hand Presses so that you can load your ammo at the range. That way you don't have to pull down rounds that don't work out, You just take a bunch of pre-sized and primed cases with you and different powders and boolits if you want, and load as you go. That way you aren't chasing bad loads that obviously aren't working, and can try other things that might work better without having to go home to reload.

I know you have a ton of that powder, but why don't you try some others to see if you can get the gun to shoot. If you can then at least you know it's not you or the gun. 5744 or 3031 is a good place to start

The Minutia of Boolit Casting and Reloading really don't come into play until you are fine tuning a load. You should be able to get in the ball park with a load easily with simple stuff, long before the minutia becomes necessary to tweak it .

I use nothing but strait COWW's on everything except long skinny boolits which I add tin to, so they will fill out. The big fat ones fill out just fine and I don't age anything more than a few days and that's only because I didn't get around to dealing with the new boolits until then. IE Aging is not a big deal for me. (Well it is but that's my body not my Boolits!) What I'm telling you is that you should be able to cast boolits from wheel weights and lube with any normal lube, and size them and add gas checks and be done with it,,, and still get acceptable results.

There are people here who get "exceptional results" by combining all the minutia,,, but even their worst loads would be more than acceptable to most of us.

For my .45-70 boolits which are RCBS 45.300 FNGC which drop at 461-2 they get lubed with NRA Alox/Beeswax (because it's in the sizer) and a gas check installed when sized to .460. and end up being 340 gr.

Then they get loaded over 33.0 gr of 5744 and roll crimped in the groove for about 1550 fps.

The rifle is an 1895 CB which I have completely reworked inside and out, however none of this in any way affects the barrel.

This gun shoots Sub 2" at 100 yards consistently with this load.

I was told once that the fore end needs to float a little on these guns so that the mag tube doesn't affect the barrel, and mine is intentionally a little loose, but I don't know for sure if that makes any real difference.

Next: shooting at pie plates with crosshairs drawn on them not conducive of accurate sight indexing. You need to draw a 2" diamond for 50 yards and a 4" one for 100. That way you can accurately center the diamond on top of your front sight the same way every time. This alone will tighten your groups a lot and it works equally well with a scope.

That gun can't be that much fun to shoot with heavy boolits. It weighs about 6 lbs? So getting the ship beat out of you while trying to bench rest the gun might influence the size of your groups as well, and way more than the fine points of boolit casting. Maybe a "Lead Sled" would help you out.

This shouldn't be that hard. Try a different powder first and the shooting tips I gave above because I think that's where your problems lie. Not with the boolits themselves. I think they look very good.

Randy

[Walstr]

Thanks W.R.Buchanan. Really appreciate your feedback. It's Sunday now, but here's my results from a short range visit yesterday. I hope I can add the target pics.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2017-1-7, Marlin 1895GS, 45-70 Load Development

For this test I:
--made sure all loaded rnds had no imperfections, especially the bases
--all lube grooves were filled evenly
--all ‘noses’ were wiped clean
--removed Forearm stock & loosened magtube mounting screw ¼ turn (used Purple Locktite) to assure a slight gap (paper) to barrel; hopefully avoiding any undue influence. Work remains on the Forearm wood gap.
--no “zero’g”, just used scope as it was left last time; probably bump zero up a few inches for next time
-- White paper @ 100yds, bench rested my left hand as barrel support, rearward near receiver
--single shot ‘slow fire’, the one rnd of each load per target, then repeated 3 times; although it was 14 deg, the barrel barely got warm. Final evaluation: 3 shots with cold rifle, cold cartridges.

Bullet: My custom Mountain Mold .45-70-405, hardcast COWW+2%Sn, water quenched & aged several weeks, Xlox lubed & sized to .461”, firmly crimped in crimp groove.

Loads: 30gr -35gr IMR4198, not filled, W-W brass, Federal Magnum Large Rifle Primers.

Conclusion: I like the way 35gr is looking; curious about muzzle FPS. That’s a 3” group! Best yet. Even with a hvy jacket & gloves, my pulse was easily seen on the scope. I’m puzzled how “high” 33gr landed. The 34gr attempt went all wrong, so not included. Will try to head out again tomorrow (won’t miss Wildcard Division Playoff: Packers vs Jets @ 1540) and try 33gr-40gr.

Hmmm, still can't upload any pics...maybe my allotment is full, but I can't see where I can delete any previous pics. NOTE: I used Paint to 'correct' the year from
"6" to "7", and mayhaps that's why it's not loading? Here's the un-crop'd originals.

[Bird]

It appears your second batch of filler less loads were not as accurate as your first batch of filler less loads. Looking at your posting dates it seems your groups are getting worse the colder it gets. Don't laugh, but are your jackets or clothing getting thicker the colder it gets.
You mention a thick jacket and gloves. You are likely getting large groups, because your rifle is recoiling differently with each shot. I tried shooting wearing a jacket, and everything went to pot.
Ditch the jacket for a thin sweater, as I guess a t-shirt is not suitable attire for this time of year in Wisconsin. Load the magazine full, and pull the butt stock hard into your shoulder like you mean it. You will get a better and a more repeatable feel. Stay with the 35 grain load, my load is just 1/2 grain less. Don't rest your torso against the bench, and it will lessen the effect of heartbeat through the scope.
Give it a try...nothing to lose. Unless you get frostbite

[44man]

Test primers, no need for magnum primers.

[lotech]

Walstr- As I recall, groups were around 2"-3" at 100 yards, using a Williams aperture sight. I never scoped the gun.

[Char-Gar]

Walstr.... I have been loading the 45-70 since 1961 in many and various firearms. It is a very accurate round and quite easy to find accurate cast bullet loads. Currently I have a Ruger #3 and a Marlin 1895 in that round and both give sterling cast bullet accuracy. By sterling, I mean 1 to 2 MOA.

Shooting a levergun off the bench, do not load rounds in the magazine, but singly in the chamber for best accuracy. Hold the rifle firm against your shoulder with the forend also held firmly in you other hand resting on the bag.

That said, I don't load ammo like you do. Here is what I do and you can take it from there.

1. I use gas checked bullets that weight from 350 to 500 grains.

2. I use alloy no harder than No. 2 and certainly do not water drop bullets. ACWW are plenty hard enough.

3. I keep velocities to no higher than 1,600 fps. Such loads will shoot through end to end on any animal found in North America. Any extra velocity goes into recoil, blast and damage to the ground the other side of the animal.

4. I use traditional lubes, feeling that the various tumble lubes don't stand up to my use in that rifle, at that velocity.

5. I use 2400 (23 - 25 grains) powder for most of my loads and 3031 or 4895 if I want to go top end, which I seldom do. I have also found 28-30 grains of 4795 to give first rate accuracy.

6. I use no fillers with any of the powders.

All of this is quite different from what you do, so I can't comment or anything you do, because I have never done it that way. I have killed quite a few deer over the years with the 45-70 and it does the job very well.

Best of luck....

[44man]

The 45-70 is a wonderful caliber and like the .45 Colt will live forever to take out aliens.
The lever gun can be touchy but I have owned many that give a varmint bolt gun a run for the money. Only bad one I met was the .44 mag. They did use Greenhill for the twist.