.45-70 Shot?

[Scrounger]

This has probably been discussed before, but does anyone have a good recipe for a shot load in a .45-70 case? I imagine you could get close to an ounce of #8s in there over maybe 5 grains of Red Dot with a wad between powder and shot and another wad or gas check crimped over the top... I suppose the rifling would really mess up the pattern but at close range it shouldn't matter. Give me your thoughts or experiences.

[twoworms]

I have used (0.7cc dipper) 6.4 grains of Unique then a gas check .71oz of 7 1/2 lead shot and a 2ed gas check in my 500 S&W hand gun. Its real nasty at 10 feet and would kill any tin can you hit. I can see something like that working in a 45-70 rifle, you will just have to come up with how much shot to use.

Good luck,

Tim

[oksmle]

Scrounger .... I can't locate the info for the shot cartridges I concocted for my Mod. 1873 Springfield carbine. But the mechanics were very similar to what twoworms described in his post. The difference was in the quantity of stuff used.... My favorite is a "three ball load" . I load three .44 cal. balls separated by "squished down" lube rings, over 3 "meat packing" wads, over one hard card wad, over 11.0 grs of Unique. The whole mess is seated with a hard crimp just above the waist of the top ball making sure there is no air space in the cartridge. Because of the soft hammer fall in my Springfield I used large pistol primers. I'm sitting here looking at three targets I fired on 6/24/92. The first is at 25 yards & the balls printed in a really neat triangle, four inches above point of aim, about an inch apart. The second is at 50 yards & is about two inches above point of aim & the three holes are in a diagonal line about four inches long running from NW to SE. Then the third target is at 75 yards. The three balls printed about an inch below point of aim in an upside down triangle & measures about 3 1/2" between the farthest two. I have a note on one target that says the recoil is very mild & maybe I should try up to 12.5 grs of Unique. I don't remember actually trying a different load though. And I have no record of it if I did. This is very impressive on water filled plastic milk jugs at 50 yards to the attending crowd.

oksmle

[Larry Gibson]

This my "forager" load for my TD carbine 45-70;

R-P case (others work just as well) fire formed, WLR primer, case mouth slightly belled, 10 gr of Unique with a 1/2 gr wad of dacron over powder (this takes up all the air space and prevents powder mitigation up around the federal wad), Federal 410SC one piece wad pushed into case with dowel firmly down on top of dacron, fill heaping full with #8 1/2 or 9 shot, thumb press a .006 wad or wad cut from primer box (a .45 GC works well too but is kind of spendy these days), adjust seating stem of seater die to push wad down past case mouth as a roll crimp is applied by the seating die to the case mouth. If the stem won't reach that far down just set a .44 cal bullet on top of the wad and then adjust the seating stem to push the bullet which then pushes the wad down to roll crimp the case mouth over the wad. I then liberally (gawd I hate using that word!) cover the wad with some cheap nail polish to seal it (not sure this is really necessary). Velocity for this load out of my H&R LBH trapdoor carbine is 1160 fps and it will ground sluice grouse/quail out to 25 yards or so without problem. Handles ole "jake no shoulders" with aplomb also.

Larry Gibson