Guide Gun 500gr

[161]

Will the 1 in 20 twist in a 45-70 Guide Gun stabilize a 500 gr boolit??

[rmcc]

Yes. Very accurate. BUT BRUTAL to shoot. I have been loading for my hunting buddy since he bought the rifle the first year they came out. He shot factory 405 JSP at first. When we had enough brass we started experimenting. His rifle prefers Hornady 350RN over 56.0gr H322. This is astiff load but very accurate for him. He bought a box of 500 grain cast at a gun show and had me load a box of 20. He benched them at 50 and 100 yds, they shot very well, until he started flinching... I tried a couple and I can tell you I would rather shoot 12 ga slugs than that load!!!
He uses the rifle on elk in the black timber in SW Colorado and for hogs in Texas. His back up rifle is a 30/06 with 220 RN bullets. He is thinking of another 45/70 as a back up.

Good lock with your loads!!

Rich

[bigted]

the only boolits ive tried in a lever were and are rcbs 45-500 boolits. designed for the bulk of the body to stay inside the case and provide the 2.550 oal that is needed for working flawlessly thru the marlin.

as for the load...i load 32 gr of rl-7 and enough cornmeal to reach the bottom of the boolit.

you can load these raskles heavy enough to leave a snot ring under your nose as well. go out and receive unto yourself a little paperback book called...

" THE COMPLETE RELOADING MANUAL FOR 45-70" . this 'book' contains unabridged info from a few bullet makers and mould makers like rcbs.

have fun with the heavy's in a lits lever.......i sure do!

[161]

I just bought the GG and had some Lee 459-500-R3 loaded with 12 gr. of Unique. They're to long and pointed so I fed them one at a time. I shot 5 at a man sized target @ 100 yrds. only three hit paper. Those three were complete keyholes. They were 50/50 lead WW water dropped with two coats of LLA. Were they moving to slow to stabilize?? Same powder charge with a Suters Choice 405 shot a 2.25 inch 5 shot group at 100.
161

[Dutch4122]

If they were shot as cast your boolits may have been undersized. Depending on how little tin was in the mix they may have dropped from the mold as small as .457" diameter.

50% wheelweight / 50% pure lead many times will drop .001" less diameter than straight wheelweights.

I have a Lee C457-500-RF that barely drops at .459" with wheelweights plus 2% tin added. The bore riding nose slipped all the way in to the 1st drive band at the muzzle; and it gave shotgun sized patterns at 75 yards out of my H&R Ultra Rifle in .450 Marlin.

Many Guide Gun owners are reporting their best accuracy with boolits sized to .460" or .461" at all velocities.

One last thing, with a load like 12 grains of Unique I'd try the same alloy, but let them air cool. Water dropped works best when it's time to go with faster & higher pressure loads.

Hope this helps, :D

[ksJoe]

pardon the thread-jacking... [smilie=s::hijack:


" THE COMPLETE RELOADING MANUAL FOR 45-70" . this 'book' contains unabridged info from a few bullet makers and mould makers like rcbs.

Is this what you're referring to?

http://www.dillonprecision.com/content/p/9/pid/23943/catid/11/The_Complete_Reloading_Manual_for_a__45_70

If not, could you give an author or ISBN number?

Thanks!

[Doc Highwall]

The RCBS 45-500 is the bullet that you want. If you load it to 1300-1400 fps max it will not be too bad.

[Matthew 25]

My No 1 loved 500g bullets, eventually that's all I shot from it. I went to 405s once I got an 1895. Do you think there is a real performance advantage with a 500g bullet?

[stubshaft]

Nope!

[bigted]

pardon the thread-jacking... [smilie=s::hijack:



Is this what you're referring to?

http://www.dillonprecision.com/content/p/9/pid/23943/catid/11/The_Complete_Reloading_Manual_for_a__45_70

If not, could you give an author or ISBN number?

Thanks!


YES this is the book i refered to. it also will have most of the lyman boolits that will work thru the action of the marlin as well.

for normal shooting/hunting the 400 ish grain boolits should work just fine...however up here in the frozen north where the fanged beasts kinda develope a bad attitude and the other little hunted aminals tend to be on the larger size ...then is when the 500+grainers should come into their own.

i like the wide meplate of the rcbs and also like the 30 grains or 4198 sparked with a cci 200 large rifle primer under it as well...makes a nice power load without going over the top for me. this is 2 grains lower then max for this boolit powder combo but the snot stays inside my nose when i squeeze more then 5 or 6 of these loads. this load inside my SBL stainless marlin with the 1x to 4x Leopold scope will be my hunting pard this year i think

just finished having a ruger 77 built into a fairly lite 458WM and think this may be my scoped 45-90 ive been dreaming about for a while but that will have to go in another spot here.

good luck with your casting and marlin...they are a perfect fit if you cast for the barrel. also may i herold a thought about lead...try "muddycreeksam" as his lead is very reasonable and comes to you clean and in ingot form...ready for immediate casting... it also is almost perfect as is for boolits in my opinion so far.

[GabbyM]

My No 1 loved 500g bullets, eventually that's all I shot from it. I went to 405s once I got an 1895. Do you think there is a real performance advantage with a 500g bullet?

If you are shooting black powder there is but with smokeless you can shoot the 405's faster to make up for it plus get a little flatter short range trajectory.

BA Bore has several very nice 458 bullet molds here. http://www.brp.castpics.net/R2.html

I’ve got the 462-420-GC from a Lee group buy mould. I’ll grantee you 420 grains is enough bullet in a Marlin. The US Navy was who came up with the 500 grain 45-70 BP load. They used them in the deck mounted Gatlin guns. Can’t recall the exact test results but they’d penetrate multiple railroad ties at two miles or so. AKA hulls of enemy wooden war ships. The 420 grain hard bullets will shoot through pine trees to about four feet diameter when shot at 1,800 fps. They are a lot of gun. For deer and hogs I’d probably chose a 350 grain bullet but that’s just me.

[dualsport]

4 ft. diameter pine trees? Ah, that's nothin'. My H&R 45-70 will put a Lee 500 grainer through a Redwood and the truck parked in it. It stopped on the far side under the bark.

[JJC]

I knew there was a good reason to have a 500 gr mold. At 1640 fps accuracy is good at 50 yards, all holes almost touching. Have not shot them further yet.

[grubbylabs]

I can't wait to get my 45-70. I thought about the guide gun but I think I am going for the longer 22" barrel. I cant wait.:Fire::bigsmyl2:

[bigted]

4 ft. diameter pine trees? Ah, that's nothin'. My H&R 45-70 will put a Lee 500 grainer through a Redwood and the truck parked in it. It stopped on the far side under the bark.

ha.......i once shot an elk so far away with my 45-70 that i had to pack a lunch for the pickup ride over to where it piled up against the red fir stump of the tree that WAS standing behind it when i fingered off the shot!!!

[TXGunNut]

No thanks, can knock myself silly enough with 405's. [smilie=w:

[dualsport]

No thanks, can knock myself silly enough with 405's. [smilie=w:

Truer words was never spoke. The only reason I ordered the Lee 500 is it's cheap and they claim .459. My 405 gr. Lee is lucky to make .458 and I could use .460. Sooner or later I'll have to get a custom I guess. The famous Gould boolit at .460 oughta do the trick. I'm going to add lead weights to my H&R 45-70 for bench work.

[ksJoe]

dualsport, have you tried to enlarge your mold? I have a 1911 with an oversized bore, and its had horrible leading problems. This morning enlarged my mold a bit with some fine grinding compound. The bullets drop better than new now too.

[dualsport]

Not yet, it's on my 'to do' list. If it works I'll have a bunch of molds that may be good for something.

[ksJoe]

I did a lot of reading on how to do it, but there were a few things that I either forgot I read, or I thought of them myself as I worked.

Here's some of the tricks I used.

I screwed a piece of wood to my drill press, and drilled a hole in it that would snugly hold the nose of the bullet. This gives you a bullet holder that is perfectly aligned to the drill bit. Then you can put a small bit in the press, and drill a hole right in the center of the base of the bullet. Drill a hole in the base of some bullets that is the groove diameter of a sheetrock screw or a small bolt. Then you can screw it into the base off the bullet.

If you put too much grinding compound on it, you won't be able to close the mold all the way, and it will grind it out of round. To avoid this, I used a hacksaw and made three cuts ~1/16" deep lengthwise in a bullet. Then put valve grinding compound just in the cut. This allows there to be plenty of grinding compound, but you can still close the mold completely.

I was working on a tumble lube mold, and I was afraid of rounding off the the faint rings. Also the back ring was the first to get up to the desired diameter. So, for the last bit of enlarging, I modified the bullet. While I was drilling the hole in the base of the bullet, I let it spin in the block of wood. I very gently used a hacksaw blade to cut the grooves deeper in the bullet, and remove the top ring. When I was done, I cut nose off the bullet. This gave me a bullet to enlarge only the parts I wanted to.

I used fine valve grinding compound from an auto parts store, and for the final pass car polishing compound (not rubbing compound or buffing compound).

I'd really like a light weight plinking bullet. With how well this went, I think I'm going to buy a Lee 6 cavity 200g mold in .452, and enlarge it to .457-.458. (my barrel is .456 and shoots .457 well)

[W.R.Buchanan]

Dual Sport: Is your 405 gr mould from RCBS? IE .45-405 RNG?
I have been working with them to get them to rethink the sizes of their moulds for .45-70 size boolits.

I sent in a .45-300 mould that would just barely drop 4585. I needed .460 too. I finally got the attention of the GM, and told him the idea of setting mould dimensions using the shrink rate of Linotype was wrong, and that everyone uses wheel weights for boolits like that.

I then proceeded to discuss their mould making process in detail with him for 45 minutes.

We hit it off very well.

My replacement .45-300 FNGC mould just arrived last week, along with some samples they cast with it that were still made form Linotype and were BHN28-29! Those samples were .463-4. I asked for .461-2 with wheel weights. Which this new mould should deliver. They were also absolutely perfect boolits jsut a little big for my application..

I see no problem with sizing a .45 cal boolit .002, but I haven't confirmed that yet.

I would suggest that you send your mould (if it is RCBS) back to them and request changes made to it... If they send it back with no changes or some BS letter explianing how it is right. Just get ahold of me (PM) and I will give you the GM's personal phone line in.

I guarantee he will fix it.

For them it is nothing more than making a Cherry that is .002 bigger than what they previously were making . They do them in house and they do lots of them as a mould cherry only makes 40-45 moulds. In other words it is no big deal for them to make a slightly bigger cherry to accomidate almost everyone who would buy one of these and wouldn't use linotype for a boolit like this.

He fully understands this concept now and is reviewing all of the sizing for mould cherries in the complete line.

About the only place I can see a need or use for linotype is in rifle cartridges like .30-06 etc and maybe auto pistol rounds like 9mm and .40s&w, and even then Water Quench WW are nearly as hard as linotype anyway so Wheel weights need to be the correct base material for all of them. Linotype is going to produce bigger bullets so to error on the side of caution WW is the right choice.

Lyman uses Wheel Weights as their benchmark, and I know some of you are going to say "no they use Lyman 1/20", but the shrink rate of that material is almost identical to wheel weights. So.....? Plus the Lyman guy told me they use wheel weights so they don't have to mix up 1/20.

With a little persistance you will get what you paid for, and the current management at RCBS is maore than willing to accomidate. as they have a vested interest in making people WANT to buy their products.

The only way people will buy their products is if they are right.

However, at the end of the day, they are just a big machine shop and "Ship Happens" so sometimes outside influence must happen to redirect. If nobody complains then everyone thinks everything is allright.

I hope this helps people who own the RCBS .45-300 RNGC and .45-405 RNGC moulds. They are by far the most popular .45-70 moulds out there.

Randy

[6pt-sika]

I have a circa 1972 Marlin 1895 that was in the group without Micro Groove rifling . To be honest I don't know the twist but I think it's safe to assume it isn't any faster then the twist in the 1895G's .

My rifle has been shooting the BallistiCast 462-550GC bullet very nicely pushed with a good charge of H322 . By good I mean 3 shot groups at 100 yards using a Weaver K2.5 that are about 1 1/2" .

I will say to really get my best groups I used an extra stock that I had lying around that was same as the one on the gun and had a nice THICK KickEez pad added . The original stock with the semi curved hard rubber buttplate was hard on the shoulder when I was shooting the Ranch Dog 460-425GC . But after swapping the stocks to the one with the big thick recoil pad the RD 460-425GC , the BRP 462-465GC and the BallistiCast 462-550GC were very pleasent from the bench to say the least !

[dualsport]

My 405 gr mold is a Lee, from waay back. I will probably try the RCBS 300 gr., after experimenting with the new Lee 500 I got I'll need a change. I've been thru Ojai, didn't get the impression it was a shooter's paradise. Where do Ojains go shoot? Is there a public range? I may cruise thru there this year on my old Gold Wing. I can pack H&R break action rifles on it. I'm all for anything that helps RCBS succeed, they employ Californians.

[W.R.Buchanan]

dualsport. "Ojaitians" shoot at the Ojai Valley Gun Club located in Rose Valley @13 miles north of the Hwy 33/ 150 Junction by Vons market in Ojai CA.

http://www.dock.net/ovgc/

Lots of hippies left over from the 60's here, along with some just plain good ole liberal pukes and tree huggers, however there is also a silent conservative majority that actually runs things, so it's an OK place. In this case Old Money is a good thing.

WE shoot just about everything but the defensvive pistol regimines. INcluding short and long range silhoutte, trap, skeet, natl match, bench rest for 600 yd rifles, military and rimfire. and the list goes on.

Go to the website posted above for the complete story.

Wait a while for the RCBS mould until the changes are made.

Do stop by next time you're through town.

Randy

[dualsport]

Well I've hijacked this thread, my apologies to the OP. BUT, I looked at the website, what a great club you have, and range. To be clear I did not mean anything derogatory about Ojai not looking like a shooter's paradise. It doesn't sound like any offense was taken, just making sure. I passed thru on a trip back home from Santa Barbara, decided to try a new back way. Glad I did. I'm always looking for an excuse to load up my old Gold Wing with guns and take off. If I hook up the trailer I can really pack some artillery. I'll look over the club calendar and try to make a match down there. I'll tell my wife I'm going to LA to visit daughter.

[W.R.Buchanan]

Dualsport: no offense taken. Denying the existance of local liberal fools is foolish in itself. We all must tell the truth about our lives. Mine just happens to take place in amongst a bunch of idiots. Makes common sense really stand out!

Our club however brings in shooters from all over Ventura and SantaBarbara counties. The SB club which I also shoot at but do not belong. Has IDPA , but no long range shooting, So I shoot pistols there and they shoot long range Sil and National Match here. So it all works out.

Our club has over 900 paying members.

Apoligies to OP as well. but maybe he is looking for a good place to shoot too?

Randy

[dualsport]

I casted up some of the Lee 500 gr. numbers, took a while to get it right but then it rolled right along. Unfortunately they are .458, not the .459 advertised but that could be my fault. Anyway, the experiment will be to load them over .50 BMG powder and a large rifle magnum primer. Also good old BP for comparison. The H&R is at least very easy to clean so makes a good candidate for BP or duplex loads. If they work out I may use them in a cb only silhouette match my club holds. Oughta knock something down.

[pls1911]

Do I have 500 grain molds?
Yes.
Why?
Who the H**L knows!!
The 350 or 400s will whup snot out of the giver and receiver anywhere in this hemisphere.
I'm just macho enough to giggle at folks who won't appreciate the derranged shoulder of this old toot, and this danged nervous tick... this danged nervous tick... I picked up after I shot a few full house 500s out of Ruger. Accurate? Maybe... I'll have to tell you after the stars quit circling my head...

[45-70 Ranger]

I have a 2009 GG that will not stablize with anything longer than a 350 gr. bullet. 385 and 405 gr will keyhole and shoot poorly. Using a 340 it will punch x's all day, if I do my part (which doesn't happen often enough :) ) but again every rifle has it's quirks. Mine, it likes short bullets. I'm quite sure that your milage will vary as they say....

But big heavy bullets that do fly straight are a real killer on the receiving end, or is that the other way around ;) have frun and be safe!

Wade