Remington commercial barrel slugs tight?

[MikeS]

Hi All.

Well, I finally got around to slugging the barrel on my 45-70 rolling block. It's a put together rifle with a spanish rolling block action and an early Remington & Sons commercial barrel (as opposed to being a military barrel), and I was kind of surprised that it slugged kind of tight at .456 I've loaded a few different boolits (457125, 457124, 457122, 457193, and the Lee 405gr HB boolit) all of them unsized, as cast. Most of the Lyman boolits came out to about .457 - .458 and the Lee boolit was around .460 in diameter. I cast the boolits out of range scrap that was between BHN 10 - 12, will I have any problem with the boolits being considerably larger in diameter than the rifle's bore? I had really expected that when I slugged it I would find out that it was on the large side, so I'm really kind of happy that it's on the tight side, but now wondering if I should shoot the ammo I've loaded, or if I should pull the boolits, and size them to either .457 or .458? (really the only one I'm worried about is the Lee boolit as it was considerably larger in diameter than the Lyman boolits were. Is .456 a believable size for a turn of the century or earlier barrel? I mean should I re-slug it, or is that diameter within the 'norm' for a 45-70 barrel? My instincts tell me that I should be ok with what I've got, and the loads I've already loaded, but I figured to err on the side of safety I would ask here, as most of you here have way more experience with BPCR than I do. Thanks!

[bigted]

mike...run another couple slugs into your barrel...1 from the breech and up the barrel around 6 to 8 inchs then pound it back outta the breech end for a meassurement there...follow this with a slug into the muzzle and down the same 6 to 8 inchs and pound it back out the muzzle end.

compare these two slugs and determine if the breech end is larger then the muzzle end. ussually the muzzle will be loser becouse of the previous cleaning chores in a hurry with steel rods. maybe the oposite is true but the .456 seems tight to me...is this an even number of grooves or odd...the odd numbers are difficult to get a good meassure on.

[MikeS]

It's an odd number, 5 to be exact. When I realized that I couldn't just measure it directly, I set my micrometer on .457 and locked it there, and then was able to spin the slug between it without it touching. I then went to .4565 and was still able to spin the slug between the faces, but set at .456 it didn't want to spin easily. That slug was from about 8" down from the muzzle. I'll do another one from the breach end as well, and see what that gets me. Or I might just do a chamber cast, and let it go up a few inches into the barrel, so I can see what's going on with the chamber, throat, etc.

[montana_charlie]

I would stay with as-cast diameter if that will chamber easily.
CM

[MikeS]

All the ammo I loaded fits in the chamber as a relatively good fit. What I mean by that is I don't have to use any more effort to chamber a round than is needed to just slide it in, with no extra effort needed to get them to sit fully in the chamber (once I close the breach block slightly to get the extractor to get out of the way). So far in all the loads I've loaded I've included a felt wad that's been soaked in lube so it should add some lube behind the boolits in case the boolits aren't carrying enough lube in their grooves. Due to the way I'm pan lubing the boolits I wasn't able to get the last lube groove filled on the 457125, I'm using the pan from the old Lee lube & size kits, and it's just not tall enough to get lube to the last groove. I'm going to try and get to the range tomorrow, if I feel the same as I do today (just my luck, on the day I'm feeling well enough to go shooting the range is closed!)

I've seen writings where the author mentions loading for a match either the day before the match, or on the morning of the match, so it made me wonder, is there a shelf life of loaded BP ammo? Some of the ammo I have was loaded before I even had the rifle, and it's been a few months that I have it now, so will it be any problem shooting that stuff? I can't imagine it would make a difference, but again, what I know about BPCR would fit in a thimble, and you could still use the thimble! :)

[BPT]

I am new to the boards here, but have been loading ammo with felix for arround 10 years. I am still a novice at best with most things, but felix keeps telling me to be sure not to have lube on the bottom of the boolits when seating them. The lube will cause the smokeless powder to degrade, and I am pretty sure it will do the same with BP. The boolits you have loaded will probably still shoot, but you might see lower accuracy from them duo to inconsistent pressure. If you do shoot them, watch for a boolit not clearing the rifle. It won't have much recoil. If this happens, check to be sure the boolit cleared the rifle. If you get a boolit stuck, don't shoot till it is cleared or the gun will blow up.
Trey

[Texantothecore]

My slugging on an H&R Buff Classic is showing .4565 so you are probably good to go.

[TXGunNut]

Get to feeling better and shoot them. Won't hurt to be a couple thousandth's too big.

[John Boy]

Four bore/groove diameters on mine:
CPA Stevens 44 1/2 - Badger 45-70 449 4584
H&R Buffalo Classic 45-70 452 455
1873 Springfield Trapdoor 45-70 450 454
Pedersoli Sharps 45-70 450 455
Uberti 1885 45-70 449 455

[MikeS]

I finally made it to the range, and my rolling block shot great, I shot roughly 50 rounds thru it and while I wasn't trying for accuracy yet it did seem to shoot ok, and with no leading of the bore at all! The 500gr loads (actually closer to 515gr) kicked more than the lighter 405gr loads, but it certainly wasn't anything I would say was too harsh, in fact I think it was less recoil than my 12ga Mossberg shotgun has. I had also loaded some 457124's with 60gr of FFg, and also added 5gr of SR4759 to some of them to see what difference it would make, and it did seem to make the recoil feel different, but the big difference was in the fouling, the loads with the added 4759 left hardly any fouling in the bore at all!

Now that I know my rifle shoots well, and doesn't have much recoil to speak of, I'm going to try a variety of different loads to see how they go. I have a bunch of 255gr HB boolits I cast from a mould that's a copy of the Webley boolit (a group buy from Mihec), and as cast they're about .457 so I loaded some of them, using 2 different loads, one was 70gr of FFg and the other is 45gr FFFg with a filler (PSB mixed with moly powder) to take up the extra space in the case. I loaded the light ones to try and shoot at my club's range, they allow black powder muzzle loaders, but limit the powder to around 40 or so grains, I'm going to see if I can get the OK to shoot my reduced loads there.