WC872 and 45/70

[Freightman]

I loaded some 405g LHB boolits with 4g 7.62x54r Albanian powder and 56g WC872, went to the range and at 50yds it shot a 1.15 group dead center X. Moved target to 100 1" and three inches high still center. Surprised me that it was still rising at 100 yds, I figured it would drop "O'well.
This was from my Buffalo Classic, another shooter had a chrno and he said lets see what it is doing so I let him shoot two through the chrno and one was 1347 and the next was 1351 FPS so I was happy this is a good load.

[Buckshot]

..............Burns clean with the 'kicker'?

................Buckshot

[lar45]

I loaded some 45-70s with surplus IMR5010 and shot them over the chrony. I now have several small holes in the display cover from the unburnt granuales. Be carefull shooting over a chronograph. It might be better with the ball powder.

[Linstrum]

Yeah, that IMR5010, also known as Purina Rifle Chow, is awful hard to get going! Look at the bright side, though, if you miss your deer with the .45 boolit, the unburned IMR5010 granules will kill it fer sure!

I was shooting IMR5010 in what it came from in a .50 BMG and I had what I thought was a dud. After waiting a few minutes in case it was a hang-fire, I dropped the bolt down on the big falling block receiver and pulled the brass out. A big bunch of the powder kibbles spilled out so I knew the boolit was somewhere up the 5-foot long barrel, so I poked it out with the cleaning rod. Then I turned my attention to the brass and dumped the rest of the powder out. What I got out besides a bit more loose powder was a long dark colored carrot shaped clump of powder that stunk to the high heavens like the creosote used for preserving railroad ties and power poles. The powder had started to burn but never got up enough pressure to overcome the flame deterrent coating used for moderating its burn rate. That was the only one I had like that out of that 8-pound lot of powder.

[Freightman]

The duplex load cleaned the powder up considerably, you can use almost any fast powder I have even used .5cc 3.5g of AA#7 worked fine.

[Linstrum]

Hi, there Freightman, how ya doin’?

Thanks for passing on what you found out with the clean burning loads you worked out. This is what I did to clean up some slow powders and although I have never worked anything up for .45-70 maybe it can be of some help to you.

I used to use a lot of what I call “boosted” loads for 7.5x54 French, 7.62x54R Russian, .30-06, and .308 Winchester. When I was doing my very first experiments I started out with 2 or 3 grains of Red Dot, Unique, and 700X to boost full cases of WC860 and WC872 and it did nothing that I could tell, leaving the same amount of “mummies” (half-burnt powder grains) in the brass and up the barrel. I had just read an article in American Rifleman about a guy whose pre-1964 Winchester M70 deer rifle had been destroyed by ammo he had loaded with IMR 4064 powder contaminated with Red Dot, so I was not going to mess around with using more than just a few grains of any of the fast burning double-base shotgun or pistol powders along with also being careful to make sure it didn’t get mixed in with the main charge. A few others here who had already done experiments with booster loads told me to instead try using the faster burning single-base rifle powders like IMR 4227 or IMR 3031. I decided to go with that, although the closest powder to those I had was some XMR 2015 and the success I had was so good that XMR 2015 became my powder of choice for boosting the slow .50 BMG and 20mm canon powders. When I ran out of XMR 2015 a few years back I experimented around with other various powders as boosters to find out what range the burning rate was that would work as boosters for WC860 and WC872. I have obtained great results using somewhere around 4 to 5-grains maximum of IMR 4227, IMR 3031, IMR 4895, IMR 4064, and of course the XMR 2015, over the flash hole with a full case of WC872 in 7.5x54 French, 7.62x54R Russian, .30-06, and .308 Winchester. One thing that is important to observe with using boosters is to make sure that the booster load does not get lost in the main charge by sifting in between the grains from rough handling. For the booster powder to boost it can’t be allowed to become diluted by the other powder, which could cause it to lose its effectiveness. The way I take care of that is by simply making all my boosted loads slightly compressed by filling the case all the way to the top of the mouth so when it is pressed in the projectile will compress the powder. I suppose for IMR 5010 that a small disk of toilet tissue over the booster load would help prevent the smaller booster grains from sifting in between the huge IMR 5010 grains, but I have never experimented with doing that. It is simply amazing how small the booster load is that will totally clean up the main charge. I have never needed to use more than about 4-grains of XMR 2015 or IMR 4895 to clean up over 50-grains of WC860 or WC872.

Good luck!

[Freightman]

Thanks for sharing! I have about 40# of 872, 5010 and 860 and see no reason to use it in several apps.