LEE 45-70 405gr hollow base for Shilo Military Rifle

[GMW]

I have been trying out the LEE 405 hollow base bullet over 55 grains of 2F Goex Express. My results at 65 yards wern't too bad at 2". I know I can do much better like I have done with the Saeco 1881 boolit. I used a drop tube and loaded the hollow base slug right on top of the bp. I really thought this load would do much worse because there wasn't enough powder to compress it. I am going to bump up the charge to 60grns and maybe I will have some room for compression. My question is; should I use a over the powder wad? Will that prevent the hollow base from expanding to form a good gas seal? I have a origional trapdoor that I would like to use this load in. I know my Shilo wasn't built to be a tack driver, but I love the look of full stock military rifles and this gun can make decent long range shots. Thanks for your help.

[sharpsguy]

The Shiloh IS a tack driver, if you know how to load for it and how to use the rifle. That bullet is not going to give good accuracy out of the Shiloh, and that Casper Milquetoast powder charge is not doing you any good either. Try a Lyman 457125 Govt. bullet at 520 grains over a compressed charge of that Goex 2f Express, and give the rifle a fighting chance.

[John Boy]

My question is; should I use a over the powder wad? ... Yes, any wad material
Will that prevent the hollow base from expanding to form a good gas seal? ... No

[bigted]

really ... the 55 or 60 grain load is just a spiff on the light side. should be starting at 65 grains min. and going up with 20 rounds each at 1 grain increase. this will start to give good accuracy around 67 or 68 and should go better up around 70 grains.

that Lyman 457125 boolit is a good boolit in about everything I have tried it in. the only one better or as good is the deep groove boolit from buff arms at .459 inch in a 20 to 1 mix of lead/tin and weighing in around 509 grains. this is a bit closer to what the gubberment boolits looked like when loading the 45-70 back in the day.

your Shiloh should be as accurate as you can hold if the sights are fitting you properly. if not I believe that even the full size rifle military Shiloh is drilled and tapped on the wrist for a good wrist mounted sharps style vernier sight which should give you every inch of needed accuracy.

just boot them boolits in the adz and im bettin you will get a bunch better accuracy.

another thing is the over powder wad ... just imagine that there is a huge shove of hot air being blasted behind your boolit with no protection to the soft boolit. now imagine the same blast with a thick disc of hard vegi material in the .030 to .080 inch thickness. this disc or wad will protect the base of the boolit so the sharp edges of your boolit will not get melted and shove spatters of molten lead up past those driving bands and therefore depositing hot lead onto a cold barrel where it immediately hardens and thusly allows a hunk of lead out in front of the boolit as it starts its journey up the barrel. in turn when that boolit gets to this spec of lead it scrapes a bit more lead off the boolit that now has an unstable base due to part of it being melted and shoved past the boolit. the bit that is scraped off when the boolit pass over this small bit on the barrel now becomes a larger glob of lead so that when you shoot another it also sprays up the barrel and deposits more lead particles and digs more off the next boolit and so on and so forth.

that wad protects these boolits fairly well and allows them to maintain the crisp sharp edge so when it journeys up the clean barrel the only thing it fights is air and when its trip to the muzzle is up it gets deposited out the barrel straight and in good shape. then the only thing to address is your lube. make sure it is quality lube that is bp friendly and does its many jobs well.

your hopes with the Springfield doing better then the Shiloh are opposite that what I would expect. as for the base expanding with the wad ... yes it will but not as much with those small loads as it will with a full charge of 2f black. keep trying ... you will get it.

I definitely would not settle with 2 inch groups at 60 yards. that Shiloh should be cutting the same hole at this distance.

[concho]

You Said it all Big Ted .

[John Boy]

...this will start to give good accuracy around 67 or 68 and should go better up around 70 grains. Ted, the 405 doesn't need that much powder. Here's my load for the bullet and it made the trip to the 600yd target with a decent group:

45-70 459-405-HB 410gr 1:30 Starline Br2 Goex Ctg 61gr Fiber Wad 1234fps

[GMW]

Thank you for the informative posts. My rifle will never shoot (drive tacks) like the Shilo Creedmoor or the Shilo Long Range Express. The barrel has a full length stock with barrel bands touching it. All your long range guns are half stocks. My gun shoots a 510gr boolit very well with SPG lube and a .060 OP fiber wad with 66grs of Goex Express and a thin poly wad under the boolit. I want to try these LEE HB boolits for hunting and I was not sure if a fiber wad is needed. Bigted's post cleared that up nicely along with John Boy. My rifle sports a MVA #134 tang sight with the Beech combination front sight. Next time I'll post some pictures. Thanks Again!

[OuchHot!]

I have used felt wads and milk carton disks. I kept seeing some leading at the muzzle. This went away when I put a lump of grease in the hb. I put a disk of wax paper over the powder because it seemed like a good idea at the time.

[Larry Gibson]

GMW

The arsenals went away from using a wad in 45-55 carbine loads because some wads stick in the cavity and caused accuracy problems. Thorough testing showed the wad was not necessary. The M1873 45-70 service loads never used a wad either. The hollow cavity is there to regulate bullet weight while retaining external dimensions. It is not to aid obturation as the skirt is to thick, especially with lighter carbine loads. That's not my opinion but is in the original manuals.

I suggest next time you get BP try some GOEX or other 3f. Start at 55 gr and work up. Just make sure there is some compression of the BP with the seated bullet.

Larry Gibson

[GMW]

GMW


I suggest next time you get BP try some GOEX or other 3f. Start at 55 gr and work up. Just make sure there is some compression of the BP with the seated bullet.

Larry Gibson
Thanks Larry, I have 37 pounds of the holy black so it will be a while before I go out and buy some more. I do value your opinion though.
This sight is the Cat's meow!

[Larry Gibson]

Thanks Larry, I have 37 pounds of the holy black so it will be a while before I go out and buy some more. I do value your opinion though.
This sight is the Cat's meow!

I can definitely understand using what you got! Don't hesitate to work up to 70 gr. You will need a compression die though. If you don't have Spence Wolf's book on replicating 45-70 original loads (your bullet is a replica of the M1873 bullet) consider taking a look at it. You might find it interesting and the loading method useful with that bullet.

Larry Gibson

[GMW]

Yep, I got Spense Wolf's book and a compression die. Will give that book another look.

[bigted]

Ted, the 405 doesn't need that much powder. Here's my load for the bullet and it made the trip to the 600yd target with a decent group:

45-70 459-405-HB 410gr 1:30 Starline Br2 Goex Ctg 61gr Fiber Wad 1234fps

interesting. I have that boolit also [the Lee 405 hollow base] but never got it to do well with anything less then 68 grains ... it didn't do all that hot anyway but I have 18 inch twist barrels except for my hunter Hiwall with very shallow rifling and my Ruger with a 20 inch twist as well.

seems that we all have some different results with the same boolits. that's a hoot and the rifles that are of the same man. are general a bit diff in what they want to function properly and with accuracy.

[CanoeRoller]

The original 400 grain loads were designed to obdurate, as they were cast at about 16-1, they were a bit under the 405 grain we like to quote today. Here are some original 400 grain slugs. If you look closely, you will see that many of them have a small lip of lead that was peeled from the boolit as it was riding down the barrel, sealing the gas behind the round.

These rounds were all recovered from a military rifle range that was active from 1877 until 1891.

Trying to duplicate the original loads is a fun exercise, but it will only tell you what your rifle would accomplish if you could grab a box of military loads from the late 1870's. If you want to see what your rifle is capable of doing, you need to develop loads specific to your rifle.

A shiloh ought to shoot one minute groups once you develop a decent load, though any of them less than 20 years old have a tight twist, so they prefer the longer, heavier rounds used by target shooters.

[bigted]

that is indeed a nice collection of original boolits. thanks for sharing them. these are the 400 grain boolits ... correct?

[CanoeRoller]

Yes, these were the rounds from the earlier 400 grain loads. These were a quick handful of 45 caliber rounds out of the 'bucket.' They range from 397 to about 402 grains. The darker colored rounds are the heavier ones. My guess would be they came from a different supplier or a change was made in the alloy used over the years. As there is no way to know when each round was fired, they are random samples. Still, these and the many other rounds I collected as a kid give me a nice comparison to any moulds I can get my hands on, as well as an idea of what to try accomplish/avoid when I am trying to develop a load.

I also always keep a few of these original rounds in the same container where I store my own boolits. I keep hoping some mojo will transfer over to the new ones.

[Don McDowell]

Thank you for the informative posts. My rifle will never shoot (drive tacks) like the Shilo Creedmoor or the Shilo Long Range Express. The barrel has a full length stock with barrel bands touching it. All your long range guns are half stocks. My gun shoots a 510gr boolit very well with SPG lube and a .060 OP fiber wad with 66grs of Goex Express and a thin poly wad under the boolit. I want to try these LEE HB boolits for hunting and I was not sure if a fiber wad is needed. Bigted's post cleared that up nicely along with John Boy. My rifle sports a MVA #134 tang sight with the Beech combination front sight. Next time I'll post some pictures. Thanks Again!

Interesting statement about the full stock.
But the biggest thing you overlooked your own answer to your own question.
If the 500 gr saeco bullet shoots quite well with a fairly heavy charge of powder, yet the lighter weight bullet doesn't shoot for flip with a lighter powder charge, some might be able to determine, that the 1-18 twist used in that rifle barrel performs best with the heavier bullets, and to get the lighter bullets to shoot in that fast twist they are going to need some speed to help them out.The way to get speed with bp is add more powder. 72 grs with that bullet should be about right.
Also when casting that hb bullet are you inspecting those bases closely to make sure they are evenly filled out around the plug and not leaving thinner parts of the skirt, nor any air pockets at the top of the hollowbase?

[Lead pot]

The problems with a hollow base bullets are bad cast skirts and blown skirts when shot too hard without a good wad stack to help protect the base.
The hollow based bullets shot well in the muskets but with the thin skirts they have to be loaded properly or you will blow the skirts.
I used that Lee HB bullet for a fast follow up shot for deer loaded as a paper cartridge in the muzzleloader.