Hunting Load: 45-70 405 gr cast @ 1300 fps --->European smokeless Powder?

[Bouteselle]

Howdy!

HP or solid, I use the most accurate load.
These pigs were shot with rcbs 45-405, 427 grains lubed and gaschecked, 1/30 tin to lead, backed by 3,10 grammes of SP10... works great in the Browning 1886.
Last year I sold my AR, and I still had two cans of SP10 powder. I gave it a try in 45-70 as I found a load in charts.
IMO it's excellent for heavy bullets, I'm not happy with lighters for the moment, but I'm still searching.
So for pigs, it's SP10 or Swiss black powder. I don't use VV, cause I already have cans and cans of powder, for target and hunting, I'm trying to standardise....! PM me for more.

[TCLouis]

IF you have not already bought the mold why don't you consider 300-325 grain boolit lke those from RCBS molds.
Don't need a gas check at the pedestrian 1400 fps velocity.

One of my molds is the Lee 340 grain Boolit and I have had no trouble with it casting or shooting.

[robg]

lee molds are avalible from henry kranks in the uk.i use them often good people to deal with.they stock plenty of powders as well.

[Blackforest]

Hey boolit casters!

There are news!
A german custom mold manufacturer https://www.hensel-giesskokillen.de made us a copy of Tom's "46-405V"
The mold has the size of .462.
With 20/1 alloy cast at 370 to 380°C (700 to 730°F) it gives out bullets of .4595 to .460.
They weight 404 gr and have a 80% meplat.
Not we'll size them to .458 for our .456 Marlin GBL bore.

We plan to use the Accurate 5744 (D060) powder somewhere in the range vom 26 gr to 29 gr to stay under 1300 fps.

The first 30 boolits sized to .458 and lubed with selfmade lube 2 parts beeswax and 1 part vaseline

[koger]

Those are some dang nice looking boolits my friend, I am glad you found a good mold! The pigs better look out now.

[ChristopherO]

Beautiful cast boolits. I'm surprised your groove measurements were .456 for your Marlin, or is that for the lands? My 1895 measures out at .4585 for the groove diameter, which gives best accuracy with .460 cast boolits.

[Blackforest]

Beautiful cast boolits. I'm surprised your groove measurements were .456 for your Marlin, or is that for the lands? My 1895 measures out at .4585 for the groove diameter, which gives best accuracy with .460 cast boolits.

We were surprised, too.
We measured the throat diameter with Cerrosafe after 1 hour and it was .456. At the muzzle side it was .4575 to .4578.
That is quite a tight bore, right?

[robg]

euro powder regs have banned many popular powders IMR included .

[Rick R]

For what it’s worth, I took a Whitetail doe at about 50 yards this year using my Marlin Guide Gun. The load was a 360gr NOE boolit at a bit over 1900fps, she stumbled at the shot, ran about 20 yards up hill and toppled over. No lost meat, no drama. Just like the deer last year, and the year before that, and the year...

I use Varget, 2 grains below the listed max load on Hodgdon’s website for a 350gr jacketed round nose. We’ve shot that load in several Marlins with complete satisfaction. This year a friend offered to replace the Marlin brick with a Pachmayr Decelerator sporting clays recoil pad. That is a great modification for the quick shooting you seem to encounter.

The .45/70 will work well with powders suitable for loading .223 or .308 and you may find better accuracy in the 1,600-1,900fps range.

[Hamish]

We were surprised, too.
We measured the throat diameter with Cerrosafe after 1 hour and it was .456. At the muzzle side it was .4575 to .4578.
That is quite a tight bore, right?

You may wish to think about throating that rifle mein freund.

[Bouteselle]

Gentlemen,
I've a new experience to share.
After killing a few boars with RCBS 45-405 boolits, I wasn't totally satisfied. As I said, here we're hunting in group hunts, and woods are very thick, so I don't know in advance if the boar will be big or small, and in all cases I've a quarter of a second to shoot, far or close range.
So I switched to hollow points, I searched for something better.
I ordered a 460 MP mold, and I got a beautiful bullet, plenty accurate in my 1886 Browning rifle. I cast'em in 1/16 alloy (7/8 BHN), 420 grains, near 1500 fps, and I was very confident with those wide HP cartridges.
Last sunday, it wasn't a boar that jumped out of the bush... it was a chevreuil, which is something much smaller than your deers. I shot it thirty yards away, as it jumped over the path. Shot placement wasn't very good, but It didn't go far.
As we skinned it, we noticed there was only one hole, rather shallow, and I found no bullet, nor lead fragment... the wound is about the size of my fist, and the deer is pretty fragile, but what would have happened if I had shot a big boar??
So I wonder what I'll do:
-I can harden my alloy seriously, for exemple 50/50 lead linotype.
-Or I keep on using this alloy, and I switch for the cup nose pins
-I can also reduce pins diameter, harden a little, and obtain a "heavier Gould style" bullet

I'm less confident with HPs, but I think it's worth trying again, I just need the right combination.

[robg]

love those boolits.

[outdoorfan]

I would definitely use the cup point, and I would definitely harden the bullet so that you can get at least 12 BHN or so. But I think a little bit harder would even be better.

[Blackforest]

Gentlemen,
I've a new experience to share.
[...]

Hey Bouteselle,

many thanks for your information.
These bullets are beautys!
What diameter do they come out of your mold?

The following is only read knowledge, not confirmed in the field:

• Hollowpoints need to be soft, so they mushroom reliable and don't fragment. If you cast hollowpoints out of a harder alloy, they won't act as uniform as very soft boolits would do. On a skinny roe deer with very little body resistance against bullet impact the may even not expand and pass through as a solid. And on the shoulder of a big boar they get very hard resistance at the impact, so the brittle and hard bullet may fragment. The velocity where they act as they supossed to do could be quite narrow... to find this velicity could be quite difficult I believe...
• If you want to get less brutal terminal performance, I would give it a try, stay with your 16/1 alloy but shoot them only at 1300 fps. These beautyful wide hollow points seem to perform very well a lower velocitys.
• If the first try with less speed doesn't lead to success, I would make the hollow point a litte bit narrower. Maybe the size in between "The Gould bullet" and your actual diameter.
• If the smaller hollow point is still too brutal, I would try these bullet without Hollow Point.
• There is a respected forum member "Crusty Deary Ol'Coot", he swears of wide flat nose bullets, without hollow point. His views correspond with all the literature that I collected to this subject. Because of this, I went the way with WFN bullets, in my case an 80% meplat. These days we'll test the loadings and then we'll shoot some game an will see, how the perform. Please give us some weeks, and we can tell you (and share photos) of the terminal performance of our non hollow point WFN bullets. I hope, that the big meplat makes the use of a hollow point unnecessary when the bullet is of the size of .45 cal. I don't know, but we will try.

Blackforest

[Bouteselle]

I eard you all.
So I switched to the cup point and I cast boolits in 1/4 linotype, 3/4 pure lead alloy. I got 10/13 bhn hardness.
After I tryed to harden a little, and I mix 50/50 linotype and pure lead, an all-purpose recipe I found in the Robert Ballowe book. But I obtained a 19 bhn on my hardness tester, and the weight is down from 420 to 390 grains. Not convinced, I think it's too hard… Perhaps I'll go back with 1/4-3/4 mix, I need to think about it.

[Blackforest]

I eard you all.
So I switched to the cup point and I cast boolits in 1/4 linotype, 3/4 pure lead alloy. I got 10/13 bhn hardness.
After I tryed to harden a little, and I mix 50/50 linotype and pure lead, an all-purpose recipe I found in the Robert Ballowe book. But I obtained a 19 bhn on my hardness tester, and the weight is down from 420 to 390 grains. Not convinced, I think it's too hard… Perhaps I'll go back with 1/4-3/4 mix, I need to think about it.

Definitely I would go to the way softer recipe.
Do you have ballistic gel?
I dont, so I shoot into things like water filled milk jugs... That's not perfekt but to see if a bullet fragments or mushrooms it is okay, Ithink.
You may test it and see, if the harder alloy does what it should do...

[taco650]

I eard you all.
So I switched to the cup point and I cast boolits in 1/4 linotype, 3/4 pure lead alloy. I got 10/13 bhn hardness.
After I tryed to harden a little, and I mix 50/50 linotype and pure lead, an all-purpose recipe I found in the Robert Ballowe book. But I obtained a 19 bhn on my hardness tester, and the weight is down from 420 to 390 grains. Not convinced, I think it's too hard… Perhaps I'll go back with 1/4-3/4 mix, I need to think about it.

I suggest using your original alloy mix but dropping the bullet into a bucket of cool water straight from the mold. This will raise the hardness some but not as much as heat treating them in the oven as some do. With the smaller cup point and a BHN of 12-13 you might get better results.

[Mmacro]

Wheel weights, pure lead (50/50) and a little tin to help it flow... The WW’s have a touch of antimony in them and will let you heat treat or water quench them to bump up the hardness a little over pure lead but keep the soft lead performance. The antimony is a crystalline structure and what increases the hardness.
If you go with that mix, or just a lead/tin alloy, you can powder coat your soft bullets and then fire them at speeds that would normally lead the barrel... But you get great mushrooming of hollow points or “riviting” of flat point bullets.

[Blackforest]

Hey there,
during the last year we got some roe deer with our cast load.
Terminal ballistics are quite good. The meplat works really well.
With the chosen powder we had some unburnt powder residues in the barrel. We would like to try to eliminate them by switching to Vihtavuori N110. We've loaded 25, 27, and 29 gr, but haven't shot them already.

By the way, what do you think of the amount of roll crimp I've put on the cartridge?
Is it right?
I followed the cast bullet handbook from lyman: The right amount of crimp is, when you run down the bullet with your fingernail over the case mouth. If it doeas not hang up on the case mouth, the crimp is enough.

[taco650]

Hey there,
during the last year we got some roe deer with our cast load.
Terminal ballistics are quite good. The meplat works really well.
With the chosen powder we had some unburnt powder residues in the barrel. We would like to try to eliminate them by switching to Vihtavuori N110. We've loaded 25, 27, and 29 gr, but haven't shot them already.

By the way, what do you think of the amount of roll crimp I've put on the cartridge?
Is it right?
I followed the cast bullet handbook from lyman: The right amount of crimp is, when you run down the bullet with your fingernail over the case mouth. If it doeas not hang up on the case mouth, the crimp is enough.

Looks good as long as there isn’t a bulge in the brass below the crimp