Two years ago I acquired a Marlin Model 1895SS 45-70 from an elderly gentleman in our club. Yeah, it has the stupid cross-bolt safety and micro-groove barrel, but it shoots well with cast and I like the big boolit.
Opening Day was Saturday for us, and I only saw deer very early and very late. Six minutes before the end of legal shooting time, the guy below steps out of the pines. He had to be bedded nearby all day. We have a 3 points on one side rule here. I support the rule, but it does add a moments hesitation while legal status is confirmed before the shot.
I am 20 feet up a tree and the buck is walking through the pines. I confirmed antler config and found shoulder and fired. Here he is as I found him.
I realize you guys from midwest states are chuckling, but that is an average buck for NY.
Hey , you can't eat the horns, right????
So my load in the 45-70 is the Lyman 457122 over SR-4759 ( 28.0 grs ) and a dacron tuft.
On the range it shoots very well. As I recovered the buck I noted there was no exit wound. HHMMMMM. I have been fortunate enough to take deer using cast in 30 cal, 35 cal, and 44 cal and I never recovered a boolit - they were all pass throughs. So this should be interesting.
Here is the entrance wound on the top of the shoulder. I should note that there was no blood trail on this buck. There were leaves kicked up where he ran, and I had noted were he ran after the shot. The good news was he only ran 30 yds, so no blood trail was not an issue.
Underneath the shoulder was lots of blood shot meat and bone fragments. At the base of the neck on the far side I recovered 3 pieces of boolit. These weigh 101 grs together. ( original weight was 339 gr ) The other pieces may have been lost during field dressing.
So the obvious question is what alloy? When I loaded these cartridges 2 weeks ago, I was sure they were 20 - 1 ( lead - tin ). But as I went to check later I can't find the tag I normally leave with each boolit lot. So the alloy is not confirmed to be 20 -1 , but I think it is. Do you guys think that alloy would have come apart like this?
It was a fun hunt and I have meat in the freezer. The 45-70 got it done regardless of what specific alloy was used.