Asking sage advice from the hardern, grizzled, and cantankerous owners of experience. Those who have either owned or used various calibers of rifles in numerous configurations too.
A little background information on my humble experiences with rifles. My current rifle calibers I use are .22 LR, 357 Mag, 7.62x39mm, 30-30 and 45-70 Gov. Unfortunately, I don’t get enough trigger time with them due to work, living behind the PRK wall (having to drive out the the desert), living without close access to a rifle range. So, I probably use them four to five times a year, sadly.
When I go camping with buddies out to the California desert, shooting steel, bowling pins and paper targets has been my primary focus. One hundred yards is about the average distance we shoot. Also, I have a love hate relationship for iron sights. I really like using them since they create a challenge for me but my ageing eyes are slowly making it difficult with engaging targets from distance.
Have you ever wanted a firearm because it looked interesting, historical, futuristic? Made with steel and wood or aircraft alloy and nylon polymer? Maybe seen several movies or videos with a firearm that made you lust for?
For me, it’s a lever action .45-70 Gov but with a short 18.5 inch octagon barrel. I’ve always like older rifles made with wood and steel, especially if they looked like from the cowboy era. My Marlin 1895 CBA is a thing of beauty to me. However, never firing such a large bore caliber (except 12ga with magnum loads) rifle before; the recoil was very stout with HSM Cowboy Action ammo. With no recoil pad or extra shoulder padding, after twelve rounds I was done with shooting it. So, I ordered some reloading dies, Trailboss powder, and recoil pad for the next outing.
Now, I have some Trail Boss loads and recoil pad on the rifle. Set out a paper target to fifty yards to find my point of impact vs point of aim. Sending three loads down range, I was surprised to see how much my 355 gr lead boolits dropped. About five inches! So, I had to move the rear buckhorn sight up about three notches to get it close.
After shooting about thirty rounds and my buddies shooting just a few inbetween, I was done for the day. Admittedly, I’m not huge into bullseye target shooting. Therefore, I love shooting steel or golf balls than boring paper which gives no immediate feedback. What surprised me was that shooting the Marlin 1895 CBA became fatiguing rather quickly compare to my other smaller calibers. I naively believed that I could shoot considerably more rounds through it since I was using lighter Trail Boss loads. Maybe if I had bought the heavy Marlin 18945 CB with 24” barrel would help tame more of the recoil.
For now, I’ll work on some more loads and see what kind of distance and recoil I can manage. However, I think I made a possible mistake buying this beautiful rifle for general target use. So, has anyone else bought a big bore but regretted its usefulness for your intention? Any target shooters?
Thanks for reading my long post.