Hornady 45/70 Brass ???

[Drm50]

I'm no expert on factory ammo, a lot of my guns have never ate anything but home
made. I have loaded 45/70 for many years, mostly cast for vintage guns. I ended up
with a couple boxes of 1st fire Hornady brass from their flex tip line. I am aware it is
a little shorter than spec. A buddy of mine says you can only reload them with these
bullets. I say he is full of it. I say they short stroked them for OAL of their bullets, and
that is only reason. Therefore I see no reason you can't reload them with any bullet
you want. This would not work out if you were loading a Hornady flex tip in a standard case, AOL might be excessive for lever actions. Am I right on this or is there
something I missed?

[map55b]

I don't think the case will know what kind of a bullet is seated in it.

[Tackleberry41]

Theres nothing special about the brass, being shorter might make crimping a challenge.

[Flinchrock]

I don't think the case will know what kind of a bullet is seated in it.

Exactly, just work up your load as you would any other, might even help a little if using longer/heavier bullets.

[Caster1977]

The FTX brass is .060 shorter than normal brass for the .45-70. This was done so the FTX would cycle without problems. As for reloading it with a different bullet, you just need to be aware that chamber pressures will jump up when seated as normal. Say, a 405 seated and crimped with the usual charge might be pushing or exceeding tolerances due to the reduced case capacity. I bought 200 rounds of brass from Starline, 100 nickel plate, 100 brass. I load the nickel plate with just about anything, but trimmed the brass, all, .060 and used them exclusively for the 325 grain XTP bullet. The different types of brass keep me from over/under charging when it comes time to reload.


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[Norske]

Yup, my 5oth anniversary Lyman manual cautions against loading the shorter cases with the same powder charges as normal 45-70 cases.

[dh2]

I set my COL the same as normal brass and crimp in to the cast boolit . I cast for the 45/70 pretty soft so crimping in to the boolit is not an issue. I do the load work up in this brass any issue should show up.

[Caster1977]

Doing it that way sounds like it might leave the same powder/air gap space as for a full length cartridge case. It's a shame you have to crimp into the bullet itself rather than the crimp groove, but such is life, right?


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[Freightman]

I have used it for my Shiloh just load to regular COL and don't need a crimp on a S-S also use it in my 1867 RB but it is a S-S also so crimp is no problem. Just keep it separate from regular.

[Reverend Al]

I have some of these short Hornady .45-70 cases tucked aside for a future project. I need to get around to using my Kal Max case stretcher to extrude them back out to regular length ... or maybe just keep going and stretch them right out to .45-90 length so that I can re-form them into .40-82 WCF's for my 1885 High Wall Winchester ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGzQsrPT4Qs

(I bought my Kal Max case stretcher with extra dies so that I can stretch .30-30's out to .38-55 / .32-40, .303's out to .35 WCF, and .45-70's out to .45-90.)

[Gunslinger1911]

Same issues with Hornady 444 Marlin brass with the "pointy" J-word. A bit shorter than normal.
Actually had to grind off the bottom of a buddy's crimp die so he could load.

I ended up with a couple boxes of fired Hornady 45/70 "short" some how - I suppose I'll come up with some project to utilize them. Haha.

Come to think of it, my 500g boolit for the 45/70 has too long a nose to function in my Marlin Cowboy - maybe short brass is the trick.

[TCLouis]

I got a bunch of once fired in the shortened Hornady Style.
I load it with same loads as I had the longer brass and use it for one particular 45-70.
How can I do that, you ask?
Because I never change the OAL of the cartridge . . . Yes more of the boolit sticks out and the case capacity does not change.

[JimP.]

I haven't bought any of the Hornady 325 gr FTX rounds, but I have been given some of the shorter brass. Since I only load trapdoor pressure loads in my 45-70's, I'll use the shorter brass with my cast bullets loading to the normal overall length without crimping. I'm not loading any fast high pressure loads for my rifles. I have a 450 Marlin for those kind of loads. JimP.

[aspangler]

Just load them to the COAL of the "other" brass and all will be good. Just don't shove the bullet or boolit down to the crimp groove unless you are loading the Flex Tips. 2.550" and good to go.