45/70 Success

[osteodoc08]

I have to confess. I’ve struggled reloading 45/70 for years. I had so much difficulty getting the loaded rounds to chamber in my 1886 and occasionally my Marlins. I’ve tried painting them with markers to find the issue, ran a strong light over them to look for ripples in the wall, etc. Well, I ran through 50 flawless rounds out of my 1886 today. I’ll tell you my secret.....I ditched the Hornady Expander Die and used my late fathers RCBS expander die. The RCBS will expand the entire neck and not just flare the brass like the Hornady die did. The RCBS sizer die also didn’t size down the brass as much as the Hornady brass did. I was able to seat the bullet with finger pressure most of the way and use the Hornady seating die to finish it off. Run it through the Redding crimp die as I always do and perfect function! I hope this helps anyone else who has silently struggled with the 45/70. As an aside, I also played with a Lyman M die and had similar success as with the RCBS expander die.

[redhawk0]

I've had good luck loading my 45-70 with a second hand Lyman All American die set (blue box). I size and flare and seat with the Lyman dies, but use a Lee Factory Crimp die for the final crimping. No cycling issues with my lever action.

redhawk

[pjames32]

I use the RCBS cowboy die set with good results.

[flashhole]

Glad you fixed your problem.

You should expand your "lessons learned" to include ... A L L ... the Hornady dies and purge them from your bench.

I've not had good luck with Hornady dies and have experienced horrible customer service.

My 45-70 die mix has been optimized to produce great ammo and there is not a Hornady die in the mix.

Let's see some targets.

[EDG]

I have multiple 45-70 die sets. Some were bought used at bargain prices just because I was curious. Others I got when buying out 45-70 shooters who gave up reloading.
I have 3 RCBS FL dies, 1 Redding FL die set, 1 Redding neck die set and 1 Lee FL set.
All the expanders of Redding and RCBS dies are excellent.
The Lee expander is a stubby heavily tapered thing that is suspect so I have never bothered to use it. I do have the after market expanders in 3 sizes from Track of the Wolf and they work the best of all. Those 3 are used in the LEE expander die body.
Since you are using your dad's old die I will tell you about my 3 RCBS dies. My first FL die was manufactured in 1972. The straight section is long enough to size to the bottom of a deep seated 500 grain bullet. It sized about .008 too much and about 1 inch down.
After reloading a few cases about 30 times 4 case bodies cracked or burned through.
Later RCBS dies only size down about .7 ". Lees are about the same.
Redding dies only size about .6 of the neck.
All the dies size the brass .005 too .008 too much.