45/70 Accuracy Issues

[huntingsgr8]

A friend of mine has a a nice Marlin 1895 CB with a 26" barrel, he loads for it using Varget, 4198, and home cast 405-459-hb bullets from a Lee mold, lubing with Alox. His lead is very, very, very, hard, I suspect pure Linotype, it will not lead his bore even in the absence of lube. I've slugged the barrel, the bullets are coming out the right size, bullets recovered from a snow bank show no signs of skirt blowout. 55grs of Varget behind one of those bullets, and it will only do about 8" at 50 yards. I fired that group, then with a 50gr load of 4198 and 405gr Speers instead of cast, I printed one of about 1.5". So, in my mind there's something up with the bullet. Is it possible for a bullet to be too hard to shoot well? I'm out of ideas, I shoot cast in most of my handguns, cast bullets aren't unfamiliar territory to me, but this has me baffled. Could it be that the bullet just doesn't want to perform at this high of a velocity? Weight variation of a random 10 showed 3gr of extreme spread, all average around 396-397gr.

[waksupi]

Make them softer, and lube them.

[huntingsgr8]

I will experiment with softer ones, they are being tumbled in Alox as it is.

[Grmps]

55grs of Varget is a bit hot try backing that off . Lyman calls for 42.0 to 46.5 grns varget for that boolit weight

Just curious, does he want to get a big bang and kick or be accurate

I agree with waksupi the boolit is too hard, try 12 - 15 bhn

[Hickok]

I would back the velocity down and start from there loading up until the boolits start to scatter. Start at about 1200 fps and work up. The Lee hollow base boolit is not meant for high velocity. Like Wasupi said, soften up the alloy.

I have an 1895 Marlin 45/70 and it is amazingly accurate with cast boolits.

[waco]

My Marlin shoots best with a .460" boolit. A softer alloy will help too.

[country gent]

With the mentioned load the skirt may not be blowing off but worse it may be deforming flaring and destroying accuracy. I would also recommend casting them softer ( My 45-70 bullets are cast from 20-1) Lighten the load down to trap door levels mid or just below and work up to point of accuracy for the rifle bullet combo. Another thing you might try is to finger lube a few with spg instead of the alox tumble coat. Use your finger to pack the grooves with SPG and then cut excess off with a fired case mouth. You might give some solid based bullets a try also.

[44Blam]

I cast with range scrap about 6:1 linotype and I get nice hard boolits. If it's ww lead, I'll make it more like 7 or 8:1.
I resize them to .460 and I shoot two designs. Both are NOE molds with the flat/cup/hollow point and one is 350 grn and the other is 405 grn. They are also both gas check designs. I shoot them pretty stout - the 405 grn boolit I load around 52 grn of varget and the 350 grn is about 56 grn. This is under the max by a few grains but are right under my threshold for recoil. I just powdercoat and gas check them. I get reasonable accuracy and I don't have any leading.
I chrono'd 5 of the 405s the other day and they were doing between 1803 and 1831 fps.

[Walks]

I use the LYMAN #457193 - 405gr FBFP over 44grs of IMR3031. Cast of #2, I've used this load in my 1895CB and older 1895 for a Looooong time. Given good accuracy of 2" at 100yds, 3 shots with Peep Sight.
Doesn't seem to matter if Micro-groove or Ballard rifling.

Forgot to tell Ya the bullets drop at .460 and I size .459 for both have .458 bores.

[huntingsgr8]

I forgot to mention that as cast the bullets are .460-461, the bore slugs at .460.

[kungfustyle]

May want to go .462. You could powder coat to get another .o1. You didn't mention if they were gc'ed. Soften the lead up to about 12 to 15 gc and size to .462 and re-work up the load. If its a pb boolit keep it at 15 or so and stay under 1400 fps or so. You may want to try a different lube too, never had great results with just alox. I had a 45/70 that wanted to be driven faster than a pb'ed boolit wanted to go. Good luck to you.

[Wayne Smith]

It's a HB boolit, I doubt anyone added a gas check. My question is: Why that boolit? It's designed for BP and oversized trapdoor barrels, not high pressure Marlin loads. There are dozens of designs more appropriate to what your friend is doing.

[Bird]

Use starting trapdoor loads and work up.

[huntingsgr8]

It was just the mold he bought when he got the gun. The only 45/70 mold Amazon didn't want 60$ for. I have considered powder coating, as that's what I do with my 357 and 44

[Petander]

That was my first 45-70 mold some 20 years ago. Shot thousands of those,that was my main subsonic bullet.

My understanding is the hb design is for trapdoor / bp loads with softer alloy to obturate. I never tried to push mine hard, neither tried it with a hard alloy. There are many,many 45-70 molds for modern loads available.

[Larry Gibson]

As mentioned you are pushing that cast bullet way to hard (fast). Drop back to listed TD loads for use with that bullet. Otherwise if that level of velocity is wanted then a GC'd 400 +/- FN bullet would be the right answer.

The "HB" on the lee 405 bullet is not really a HB as is in a Minie' bullet. The Lee bullet is a replica of the 1873 bullet and the "HB" is actual called a "dish". It is there to regulate the weight of the bullet given consistent external dimensions. It is not there to expand into the grooves ala a Minie' bullet.

[MostlyLeverGuns]

No offense but Amazon has 2 Lee molds, a 340gr($27) or 405gr($22) for the 45-70 well under $60, just looked. If you run a hollowbase, you need softer lead, more lube and less velocity, like everyone has advised. A faster powder might help with obturation, but I think your bullet design is part of the problem.

[huntingsgr8]

They do now, they did not when the gun was purchased a year ago, keep in mind that being on the north side of the border things are a bit more expensive. The 340 is 34.55$, the 405 is 46.62$, the 450 is 37.52$. I believe he paid 32 or 34 dollars for the mold he has, he's still a full time student so he's on a budget, and more so after spending 1300$ on a brand new 1895 CB w/26"bbl. The next time he gets some time to himself, he'll come by with his gun and his gear and we'll experiment with the suggestions of reducing velocity, changing the alloy, and improving lubrication.

[a danl]

when was your gun made? was it made by marlin or later by remington? the problem of no accuracy ,, the first thing to do is examine the rifling on a recovered bullet to see if there is gas cutting , if there is then you almost have to start over with a different bullet mold. i believe the one you're using was meant to be used with softer lead and at trapdoor speeds around 1300 fps. if your gun has "jm" stamped it was made by marlin and that would be better.

[huntingsgr8]

It was made by Remington.