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Thread: Soft or Hard Alloy for a .45-70

  1. #21
    Boolit Master trapper9260's Avatar
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    I use the 45-70 boolit of Lee 459-405-HB in my 50 cal muzzle loader with a sabot and it takes them down with no problem .Hope this help and I cast them on and soft side.
    Life Member of NRA,NTA,DAV ,ITA. Also member of FTA,CBA

  2. #22
    Boolit Bub
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    I’ve shot two deer with the 45-70. 354 grain wfn water cooled wheel weight through the shoulder on both. One bang flop, the other ran about 40 yards. Very little expansion I suspect. My bullets are extremely hard. A sharp hammer strike barely deforms the bullet.

  3. #23
    Boolit Master
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    It is fun to read the posts, but for quite awhile now there has been nothing gained or new said!

    I just hardness tested my 465gr Wide Flat Nose cast of 50/50 clip on wheel weights/lead, water quenched and the Brinell hardness is right at 22.

    Now to put that in perspective, the chart with my Cabin Tree hardness tester show the following -----------

    WW - 11 to 12 Brinell

    Quenched WW - 23 - 24

    Linotype - 22

    Lyman #2 - 15

    The difference between the linotype at 22 Brinell and my 465gr WFN cast at 22 would be the alloy in use, which likely leaves my bullet less likely to fracture then bullets cast of the linotype but testing at the same hardness. The linotype achieves it's hardness simply by the metals that make up that alloy while the bullet cast of the 50/50 - Wheel Weight/lead alloy reaches the 22 Brinell hardness because of the tempering of a much softer base alloy

    Go back and read post #13, not because it is my post, but because it states the facts as well as I can say them.

    I did a lot of reading before I took the 45/70 trail and my personal results only go to reinforce the information I'd read.

    Oh yes, I after many years of loading and hunting with jacketed bullets of one kind or another, I DID need to approach my first 45/70 critter with a bit of faith that what I had read so much of was in fact true. It was!

    With in reasonable range and with proper shot placement, and using the Wide Flat Nose cast bullets the results are awesome!

    There is far too much time and mental effort spent worrying the alloy hardness question, repeatedly, when the time and effort would be much better spent developing a bullet/load combination for OUR PERSONAL rifles, using a 400gr. +/- cast with a Wide Flat Nose profile!

    By the way, the two deer I spoke of in post #13, taken with a 275/280gr Wide Flat Nose cast, both one shot kills/dropped an dead where they stood, were taken with a water quenched clip on wheel weight alloy that would test out in the 23 - 24 Brinell range.

    Crusty Deary Ol'Coot

  4. #24
    Boolit Buddy
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    You boys need to pay attention to CODOC. He pretty much has it right.

  5. #25
    Boolit Buddy AllanD's Avatar
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    Using a 45-70 on white tails you are going to have to be incredibly lucky to find TWO exceptionally large deer to have a snowflakes chance in hell of ever recovering a bullet inside the deer even pure lead slugs that expand to double their original diameter tend to just wander through deer, trees(plural) and whatnot after going through a
    deer end-to-end.

    I load my marlin 1895 in the fervent hope that I may one day draw an elk tag.

    Does anyone think an RCBS 45-405 cast of 20:1 lead/tin won't do the job? and Not leave a large exit hole?

    I really don't think a 45-70 bullet is all that responsive to alloy short of casting them of pure Linotype.

    I think any 45-70 bullet worth casting will make a finger sized hole going in and a somewhat larger (Walnut sized) hole going out with a whole lot of messed stuff in between the two.

    As for "Deer" why not throw a railroad locomotive at them?

  6. #26
    Boolit Master
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    The important thing in my Marlin is avoiding commercial cast bullets with beveled bases. They never slug up to fit the bore. Leading due to hot gas running up the side of the cast bullet is very evident. Flat base bullets of any reasonable weight at any reasonable velocity are accurate.

  7. #27
    Boolit Master
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    I'm NOT a bevel base fan, but much more important is bullet to bore fit. If properly sized, there is no need for the bullets to, "slug up."

    Crusty Deary Ol'Coot

  8. #28
    Boolit Master

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    Quote Originally Posted by GregLaROCHE View Post
    For hunting with a .45-70, is a soft alloy that opens up better than a hard one that goes right through? Maybe the answer is in what you’re hunting. What about with hollow points? Harder or softer alloy?

    Greg, I'm a fan of a harder composition with as big a meplat as possible, but it would be well worth you time to investigate the soft nose technique so well investigated and documented by one of our passed members, and much missed BruceB:

    http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...ntional-Moulds

    While a bit more work than casting conventional bullets, an afternoon should yield many years of hunting bullets.
    Last edited by Hamish; 04-18-2019 at 12:36 PM.
    More "This is what happened when I,,,,," and less "What would happen if I,,,,"

    Last of the original Group Buy Honcho's.

    "Dueling should have never been made illegal in this country. It settled lots of issues between folks."- Char-Gar

  9. #29
    Boolit Master
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    Living and hunting in a slug only state I am well versed with big holes traversing through both sides of large corn fed whitetails. Until Ohio legalized straight walled cartridges Shotgun slugs and 50 caliber muzzleloader pure lead conical boolits were my projectile of choice. I didn't expect to see the 45/70 I purchased behave any differently, and in experience, it doesn't. Unless a large bone was hit deer always ran nose down until their brain caught up the the fact that their body was dead. The shortest I had one fall was 3 high bounds. Bang, run, drop.
    I keep the slugs and conical boolits found in the body cavities. Some of the Lightfield 12 gauge hybreds have mushroomed at 30 yards, completely destroying the lungs with the slug flattened on the offside hide. One deer ran 60 yards. Others have run even further. These are probably leaving the barrel at no more than 1,400 fps, give or take.

    When purchasing the Marlin CB 45/70 I bought two molds, the Lee 405 FP for plinking and practice and an Accurate 405-460 gas check to push harder. The hard Lee slugs at 1,100 fps will penetrate 9 gallon water jugs, undeformed. Casting with an alloy that is soft enough to deform and only go through 4 water jugs at a MV of 1,620 fps the Accurate boolits, with a wide flat point has more chance to upset when hitting an animal. Man, this new whiz bang rifle has all the fixings of zapping deer into a death fall at the touch of a trigger, right? Not really. They perform just like the 12 gauge slugs and muzzleloader conical boolits. I shoot, deer is mortally wounded, deer runs, deer falls. Big, relatively slow chunks of lead poke holes that let the air out. I have a couple slugs from last November's big bodied buck found in the chest cavity on two longitudinal hits as it was running away at around 125 yards. If the alloy was harder they may have exited, maybe not. The energy was all contained inside the animal but it didn't seem to keep it from running even further, though. Whether a 45 caliber hole or a 50+ caliber hole, at these speeds the shock value isn't consistent to always expect a bang/flop.
    Maybe if I pushed these slugs to 1,800, 1,900 or 2,000 fps the feet would drop out from underneath the target faster, or even instantly. But this Cowboy doesn't have a recoil pad and I can enjoy only so much fun at those levels of punishment. Besides, 1,620 fps is the most accurate loading, too. In reality, though I much prefer the slender rifle to shoot and hunt with, it is not any different of a weapon than what we were constrained to use prior. It isn't the hammer of Thor that some will have you believe, but it is an effective killer of deer and other assorted big critters, absolutely. Hard with a wide flat nose or soft with any type of tip that will smoosh down, if you hit it right the deer will die.

  10. #30
    Boolit Master Ozark mike's Avatar
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    Ww alloy will take any game on earth with a 500+ gr 45-70 with the right placement I can penetrate 3 ft + with Marlin loads on a 3 ft tamarack stump

  11. #31
    Boolit Master

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    For CDOC:

    "Hamish,

    this bullet, the only one I've ever retrieved was found in a big cow elk after a quartering shot that took out the big/heavy upper front leg bone, then through a rib, the lungs, the guts and a full paunch and found just under the skin just ahead of the off side ham.

    Velocity about 1650, weight 465gr after weight 327.9gr.

    Alloy 50/50 clip on Wheel weights/lead, water quenched

    CDOC"

    Click image for larger version. 

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    More "This is what happened when I,,,,," and less "What would happen if I,,,,"

    Last of the original Group Buy Honcho's.

    "Dueling should have never been made illegal in this country. It settled lots of issues between folks."- Char-Gar

  12. #32
    Boolit Master
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    Thanks Hamish!

    What I didn't mention was, the bullet traveled about 30" +/- after taking out that big upper front leg bone! That would also be after the weight loss from 465gr to the 327.9gr.

    Likely the only one of these bullets I'll ever find after shooting a critter.

    In fact, two deer taken in the 2016 season had complete penetration with a .44 - 275/280gr Wide Flat Nose cast of just plain old clip on wheel weights. Both critters dead where they stood!

    CDOC

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Abbreviations used in Reloading

BP Bronze Point IMR Improved Military Rifle PTD Pointed
BR Bench Rest M Magnum RN Round Nose
BT Boat Tail PL Power-Lokt SP Soft Point
C Compressed Charge PR Primer SPCL Soft Point "Core-Lokt"
HP Hollow Point PSPCL Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" C.O.L. Cartridge Overall Length
PSP Pointed Soft Point Spz Spitzer Point SBT Spitzer Boat Tail
LRN Lead Round Nose LWC Lead Wad Cutter LSWC Lead Semi Wad Cutter
GC Gas Check