what's yer favorite powder

[white eagle]

in the venerable 45-70 ? [smilie=s:
I just got one (45-70) and have only tried a couple different powders
tried Varget w/a 325 gr Accurate Molds boolit
and my favorite so far is IMR 3031 w/440 gr. Hoch bullet :cbpour:

[crabo]

40 of 3031 with a 460420 going 1500 fps You can shoot a bunch of them without too much pain.

I forgot to add that I also use a tuff of dacron. It makes a difference.

[downwind]

BLACK

:cbpour:

DOWNWIND

[Gunlaker]

Goex FFg :-)

[NickSS]

Black Powder followed by 5744, 4831,3031 and 4895. I would say that 80% are BP loads and most of the rest are 5744.

[725]

crabo just listed my exact favorite load. It's a pure joy to shoot and it's magic against big wildlife. I also load 30 of 4198 w/ a touch of dacron for my friend. It, too, has always been a one shot stopper.

[Lloyd Smale]

I use mostly 4895 and re7.

[btroj]

I shoot far more loads with 24 gr of 2400 and a 460420 plain base. Gives about 1350 and good accuracy. Very easy on my shoulder. That will be my deer load this year too.

[superior]

The 45-70 isn't very fussy about powder. My Guide gun responds favorably to H4198 extreme, although I use just about every powder I own in it. Bullseye and Hs-6 for roundballs, to Unique and 2400 for deer and hog whithout alot of recoil. 38 grains of 4198 behind a plain base 405 is the load both my wife and I like to split boulders with.

[Jon K]

Swiss 1 1/2 FG :awesome:

Jon

[Larry Gibson]

In my TDs and Siamese Mauser with cast bullets;

Smokeless; Bullseye for my 275 gr bullet loads, 2400 and 4759 for my 300 gr GC'd loads and 4895 for the 385 -510 gr loads PB'd or GC'd.

BP; COEX Cartridge for my target TD.

Jacketed bullets; 4759 for the 300 and 400 gr J bullets. RL7 with 400 gr Barnes SPs in the Siamese for 2300 fps.

Larry Gibson

[lbaize3]

5744 and AA2495. Will use 4893 or 3031 if the other two are not available.

[RidgerunnerAk]

IMR 3031. Have used it for over 30yrs. Only other powder I use for .45-70 is H322, which makes a good water buffalo load that is NOT kind to the gun.

[tacklebury]

Reloader7 - bar none for me... ;) From trap-door to barn burner in one bottle and inexpensively. ;) Use it for my .45 Colt Carbine loads too. ;)

[6pt-sika]

I use H322 with the Ranch Dog 460-350GC , Ranch Dog 460-425GC , BRP 462-465GC and the BallistiCast 462-550GC .

Used to use XMP5744 with the two Ranch Dog bullets .

[Four Fingers of Death]

ffg and my favourite filler is,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, also ffg!

[G__Fred]

Working with pistol ammo (9mm, 38/357 & 45 ACP), Bullseye is my choice.
However, I found a SCRAMMING deal on AA #7.
Testing on the stated calibers is now underway.

[OnHoPr]

Acc 4064 for 30-30,IMR4350 not to bad either. 800x, 4756, and herco for slugs

[Four Fingers of Death]

I did say black but I am also partial to ADI 2209 in my 3006. That was a powder that goes back with me for a long way. It is equivalent to the 4350 powders and is sold as Hodgson's 4350 in the States I think. 748 in my 222 and 223s was always good as well.

[45-70 Ranger]

If limited to only ONE powder, then I'll have to go with Unique. Very cost effective. Makes tackdriver mild loads. Can, go up a bit to make a decent hunting load but the range is limited. However, Rx7 has been a great powder for me over 45+ years in the 45-70.

In my short barreled Marlin GG Unique burns clean and leaves little residue. Rx7 will leave some powder zombies indicating an incomplete burn. But for standard power, it is the powder I'll use for reaching out and hitting hard to knock critters off their feet.

And of course, there is ffg, the powder of all those that came before us! The blast, the smoke, the stink.....oh yeah, I do love the good old stuff!
Ok, you got me, I simply can't use just one powder... :)

Wade

[Nrut]

Unique and 2400 and I don't have to use Dacron...:smile:

[josper]

My favorite powder is a toss up between IMR 4198 and RX-7 others that have worked well are 2400 and IMR 4895,and H4895. There are so many others that work well the list goes on and on.

[wolters4]

I like IMR4198

[Matthew 25]

Reloader & and 3031 for hunting. I like Unique for plinkers, but I hardly ever plink.

[marvelshooter]

Bullseye with Unique running a distant second. I am mostly a pistol shooter and Bullseye goes in everything. Unique for some 9mm and mid-range .357 and also it's what I have used so far in a .38-55 I am starting to play with

[Loudenboomer]

Except for pistol cals. IMR3031 will do it all for all most anything with a lever but I like Win 748 threw the Dillon.

[44 flattop]

42grs 3031 and a 420 cast at 1510fps shoots plumb through an elk. The only hunting load I have used.

11-15grs of Unique with just about any bullet is nothing short of fantastic.

44

[Rafe Covington]

Accurate Arms 5744.

Rafe

[pls1911]

.38, .357, .44, .45Colt, .45 ACP, 30-30, .308, .270, .416 Remington, .45-70, 12 and 20 gauge shotguns:

Nothing in my safe requires anything other than
1. Unique
2. 2400
3. Reloader 7 (or H322)

For J-Word bullets, possibly stretch to add
4. 3031
5. 4064

[gunsbrad]

I shoot almost a case of 3f swiss through my high wall each year, but my levergun gets Reloader 7.

Brad Hurt

[Chill Wills]

The Holy Black

[Swampman]

IMR-4198 is my favorite since the 1970s.

[1Shirt]

2400 for me with dac fill (which is a safety factor as well as an accuracy factor) because you have to look in the case to place fill. Some place between 20-26 grains with most 350-400 grain blts. will probably be at least close to as accurate load as you will find. Less powder also means less cost. Would not be without 2400 and Reloader 7 for cast rifle shooting.
1Shirt!:coffeecom

[white eagle]

H-4895,Varget,2015,Imr 3031 are a few of mine as of the moment
haven't tried black powder........YET !

[jh45gun]

I too use 2400

[GMW]

My Trap Door 1884 and Shilo Sharps both live on a diet of Goex Express 2F. My Guide Gun likes a J-word 300gr bullet over 60grs of 3031.......you must hang on!

Did I mention that my guide gun eats scopes.

[Hednign]

Swiss 1 1/2 (no4). Followed by Wano 2F Sporting.

[midnight]

My advice to a guy who just bought a 41 Mag years ago was to get a big jug of Unique and a big jug of 2400. It's the same advice today. Rifles are a different story. 4350,4895.4064,3031,4198, 4831, RL7, RL22, RL15, Varget, etc, ect, ect. You can't get too many. Nobody has yet mentioned THE LOAD, 13gr Red Dot.

Bob

[vinniedude]

Hello friends. I'm a longtime fan of this site but only a recent signee. I echo the posts here that Unique works for justabout everything / I've been using it for 30yrs from .38 Special thru .30-06 with homecast boolits. Bought a chronograph 10yrs ago which added to the fun and tweaking of home-engineered loads, yet when supplies of Unique dried-up several years ago I bought some Nobel Sport Vectan #A0 to experiment with and found it wholly acceptable as a replacement for Unique. Nobel Sport's published data for A0 in metallic cartridges is sparse and spotty, but they have a chart that says A0 is applicable to any metallic ctg load with cast boolits and what data they publish for specific cartridges is very similar to published Unique data if you compare them side-to-side, so I took that as a baseline of some safe starting values to see how loads would clock on the chronograph. This is the province of "proceed with caution" but it became evident that A0 is slightly less powerful than Unique (less velocity per equal charge weight) and similar to Herco too (a cousin formulation) so I worked from there and generated several dandy loads that were obviously safe replacements for Unique for plinking and target shooting. We all enjoy working up "pet loads" and I'm happy to report that A0 is good stuff totally applicable to cast boolit shooting and it exhibits very low velocity deviation and clean burn. My only quandary now is should I return to using Unique ? Nah. The suits and beancounters at Alliant forgot about us reloaders when they were servicing Gov contracts and it forced me and other reloaders to seek alternative powders. Thereafter I found A0 is a keeper, and a very good one at that. I welcome trading info and experiences / put a shoutout here. Happy reloading ! - Vinnie

[Drm50]

Rifles IMR-4198, Pistols Unique, myself Tang

[BigAl52]

My advice to a guy who just bought a 41 Mag years ago was to get a big jug of Unique and a big jug of 2400. It's the same advice today. Rifles are a different story. 4350,4895.4064,3031,4198, 4831, RL7, RL22, RL15, Varget, etc, ect, ect. You can't get too many. Nobody has yet mentioned THE LOAD, 13gr Red Dot.

Bob

13gr of RED Dot under what bullet?

[bigted]

My absolute favorite load for 45-70 is a load that for eons has done it all without hurting the rifle nor the shooter. This load has brought smiles to many faces down thru the years and will continue to do so. I stumbled on this load personally by accident reading thru some very old literature and when i tried it i became very impressed.

55 grains 2Fg Ol E GOEX under a 405 grain Lee hollow base sparked with CCI large rifle primers in Winchester brass. Add 3 grains IMR 4227 under the main powder charge and walla you have a clean burning load that will be great in any rifle any time against any critter when HUNTED and getting close enough.

Try it, i bet you too will fall in love with this load

[cwlongshot]

I cannot tell you just one... as the grand ol' 45-70 wears a couple hats for me...

For the Light plinkers or Trap Door loads I like 5744 powder.
For medium to heavy stompers 4198 does this for me.

RL7 is as good for me as 4198, but 4198 doesn't cut it for the 375 Winchester. SO, RL7 goes to the 375 and 4198 to the 45/70.[smilie=1:

CW

[Jedman]

I have over a half of dozen 45-70's mostly single shots and 1 levergun. I have shot a lot of different bullets in them down to 50 cal. lead round balls I push thru a die and size down to .460 .
One powder I have used for super light loads is AA Nitro 100, I have a big jug of it from 25 years ago when I shot a lot of clay targets. N 100 is as fast as bullseye but lights easily and 5-6 grains behind a lightweight lead bollit or ball shoots great.
I have also used red dot , green dot , 700 X, and many other shotgun powders and most of them work just as well for plinking.
Hunting loads start with powders like 2400, SR 4759, R 7, 4198 and like burn rates.
Like said many times you can load a 45-70 up to the point it's recoil is painfull but I am over that and have other calibers to use if I need that much velocity.
If I could only have one powder to load for the 45-70 plus many other big bores I have I would chose one of the
4198 powders, it's not fussy and I still find it easy and a little cheaper than the " newer" powders that are harder to find.

Jedman

[indian joe]

in the venerable 45-70 ? [smilie=s:
I just got one (45-70) and have only tried a couple different powders
tried varget w/a 325 gr accurate molds boolit
and my favorite so far is imr 3031 w/440 gr. Hoch bullet :cbpour:



b l a c k !!!!!!

[greenjoytj]

I was surprised that no one mentioned or voted for Hornady LEVERevolution powder.
Maybe it’s still too new, therefore it hasn’t yet developed a fan base. Yes I noticed the 7+ year gap in this thread between posts 38 and 39.

[maglvr]

45-70 is the first round I ever loaded, and the very reason I started reloading in the first place. I simply refused to pay $32 for a box of ammo that year.
My LGS had a old C-H press for $10 and dies for $15 and the fever has spread beyond belief since that day, to include 38spl, 357(my FAVORITE caliber) 44spl, 44mag, 30-30, 401 Herters power mag, and 45COLT.
In the 45-70 I have never seen the need to look beyond UNIQUE as the propellant of choice, it just seems to do all that I require of the round, and with unsurpassed reliability and accuracy.
MagLvr