300 grain boolit in Marlin 1895

[FergusonTO35]

Hey guys. I have an early 70's Marlin 1895 with the Micro Groove style barrel (not named as such). I have been shooting it with the Laser Cast 300 grain flat point slug and Varget powder. I'm not looking to hot rod it, just looking for 1600-1700 fps with good accuracy, all you need for whitetails in the thick Kentucky woods. What would be the best powder for this application? Varget is what I use in all my other rifles but it doesn't like all the extra space in the case of the .45-70. I've heard Hodgdon 4895 is an excellent choice for mild loads out of anything. Is this the way to go? Any other powders or pet loads well suited to this application?

[Rick Hodges]

I like H-322 for the 45/70. I use it for 300 gr. J words at 1880fps , Ranch Dog 350 Boolits at 1800fps, MM 385 gr. boolits at 1750fps, and Horn. 350 gr. J-words at 2000 fps.

Mine is the 1895 Guide Gun with "Ballard" rifling. I tried H4198, Varget, 4895 and RL7 but settled on the H322. Burns clean, is accurate and does all I want.

[FergusonTO35]

Sounds good. What charges are you using?

[W.R.Buchanan]

Ferguson: Start at 25 gr of XMP5744. With a 300 GR Boolit. It is a tolerable load that you can shoot without too much cumulative recoil discomfort.

The Marlins are all light guns , My 1895 CB weighs 7lbs2 oz. I started with charges of 25 gr and had 10 each loaded in 2 gr increments to 35 gr.

I could comfortably shoot about 3-4 of the 35 gr ones which are pushing the 300 gr boolit about 1600-1700fps. These would be fine for hunting as you aren't going to shoot more than a few rounds at any given target.

For GP loads the 25 gr charge is fine and I can shoot 40 of them in one morning easily with no ill effects.

Please to understand even the 35 gr charge with a 300gr boolit is a relatively light load for this cartridge. When you start talking 400-450 gr boolits at 2000 fps you are then well into the "**** Kicker" loads these guns are capible of digesting. They are also fully capible of taking any game on earth, and they would easily go clean thru 5 whitetail deer of any size! Quite a bit above what I think you are looking for.

My whole point here is for you to start out low and work up until your individual pain threshold is reached. 5744 powder is one of the best powders to do this with.

The thing about 5744 powder is that it is not position sensitive, so you can have a 25gr charge or a 35 gr charge and it won't make any difference in the ignition. IE you don't need any fillers with it. It also will work just fine with all types and sizes of Boolits or Bullets. Lyman 49 lists it as most accurate powder for a variety of .45-70 boolits.

5744 is by no means the only powder that will give good results in this caliber, however it is arguably the most versitile.

Hope this helps

Randy

[FergusonTO35]

Thanks. 5744 was also recommended to me by another .45-70 fan.

[tacklebury]

I use exclusively Reloader7 now for .45-70 other than BP loads or unique RB loads. I can load it from 32gr. for trap door level to 52 gr. for barn burners with the 300 gr. My goto load is now 48 gr. Reloader7 and a 350 gr. Flatpoint. ;) Use gas check as needed for velocities.

[JFE]

By the way if it is a real early 70's Marlin and its not marked as a Microgroove barrel, it may be one from the first release before Marlin had tooled up to produce Micogroove barrels in this calibre.Those were fitted with conventionally rifled barrels.

Regarding your loads, a lot of powders work well in the 45/70 but i think something faster burning like 4198 or Reloader 7 would be ideal.

[6pt-sika]

Ranch Dog is in the process of bringing out a 460-300GC mold . I've been using one of the test molds in my circa 1972 Marlin 1895 45-70 for about 4 months now !

And like any of his offerings this one does well also !

[FergusonTO35]

Ok, another question. What boolit diameter do Marlin 1895's with micro groove tend to prefer? I'm considering getting a mold for it. Do the Lee offerings usually work well in these guns?

[hornsurgeon]

when getting a mold for a marlin, forget about the major manufacturers. anything from ranchdog will flat out work, no questions asked. and the price is right.

if you want to take it up a notch, look for a copy of the ranch dog bullet with traditional lube grooves. i have a couple from NOE that will produce boolits that will outshoot me.

[FergusonTO35]

Ranch Dog makes good stuff thats for sure, however I don't think he is going to have what I am looking for. I'm actually looking for a 250-275 grain mold for my rifle. Its used for paper punching and deer so big boolits and the accompanying recoil are not needed. Accurate Molds can make what I want but I need to know what diameter usually works best in these rifles. It shoots the Laser Cast 300 grain flat point really well so I guess I could measure one of those. Anyone else here like shooting lightweight boolits out of their big .45?

[TXGunNut]

Ranch Dog makes good stuff thats for sure, however I don't think he is going to have what I am looking for. I'm actually looking for a 250-275 grain mold for my rifle. Its used for paper punching and deer so big boolits and the accompanying recoil are not needed. Accurate Molds can make what I want but I need to know what diameter usually works best in these rifles. It shoots the Laser Cast 300 grain flat point really well so I guess I could measure one of those. Anyone else here like shooting lightweight boolits out of their big .45?

Nope, 330 Gould and 350 RD are as light as I go in my GG.

[W.R.Buchanan]

Ferg: I'd have Accurate make the mould so it drops at .461 and then you can size it to .460 or .459 which ever works best. Sizing a .45 cal boolit .002 is not going to hurt it one bit

If you buy an RCBS 45-300 it will drop at .458-9 which may be too small for your particular bore, mine was and so I bitched and they made me one that drops .461-2 and now everything is cool. However it was a big favor that they did for me and it came as a result of talking at length to the GM. Hopefully they are reconsidering the idea of spec-ing all their moulds dimensions around the shrink rate of Linotype material which nobody uses for this type of boolit.

Point of all this is that you will probably not get what you want out of a generic mould

The mould from Accurate will be a few bucks more (get brass) but will be worth it if you are planning on using it very much.

The Marlin Rifles all have 1/20 twist barrels, I wouldn't go below 300 gr for your boolits. Short fat boolits tend to like slower twist rate barrels as evidenced by the 1/38 twist barrels on .44 magnum rifles.

Loading a 300gr boolit with 25 gr of 5744 is very tolerable to shoot.

As I said above,,, my 1895 Cowboy with a 26" barrel only weighs 7lb 2 oz. I am planning on putting some lead into the stock as I want it up around 9lbs +. I also installed a Pachmayer Decelerator on it which works really well, but even so the gun needs to be heavyer so I can shoot at least 40, 400gr mild loads in it in one sitting.

With a Guide Gun the emphysis is on carry weight, because that is what you are going to be doing with the gun mostly. You can live thru 2-3 shots if you have to.

I doubt many guys would sign up for a 40 round silhouette shoot with 400gr loads and use a Guide Gun. You'd be beat to $hip after 5 shots.

Since my gun is not really a carry type gun I will raise the weight up and knock down the equal and opposite reaction. Your early Marlin should weigh about the same as mine so you might be able to do the same things.

Randy

[6pt-sika]

The Ranch Dog 460-300GC works very nicely and should be available to the general public in the next month or so .

I've taken to running all my bullets thru a custom die I got from Buffalo Arm's that sizes at .461" .

The 300 grain offerings are light enough for me . Loaded with XMP5744 as previousely mentioned will cut back on recoil quite a bit . And then if you wanna boost the speed you can always step up to the plate and use H322 or IMR8208 .

[6pt-sika]

Incidently the Lyman Gould 330 grain PB HP bullet someone mentioned earlier is a ***** cat from the bench with 31.5 grains of SR4759 . And works very nicely one paper and deer .

The first 45-70 lever gun I ever owned was a Marlin 1895CB and I used this load to kill a rather large bodied 6 pointer , it did the job PDQ . Also shot some remarkable groups at 100 yards using a Lyman tang sight a few years back with this load .

[Ken B]

My pet load is 30grs 2400 w/300grain HP Honady. They dont run away when hit!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[FergusonTO35]

Sounds good. More than one person has suggested XMP-5744, I guess I'll give that a try before I do anything else.

[6pt-sika]

Sounds good. More than one person has suggested XMP-5744, I guess I'll give that a try before I do anything else.

XMP5744 has worked well for me as I said earlier . But I've also had decent luck with SR4759 . Some say SR4759 is position sensitive in the case and while it may be I have never seen anything to prove or disprove that statement .