45 colt.

[starmac]

Undoubtedly this has come up before, but has anyone used the 300 gr lee in a marlin.

[dangerranger]

Yes it works well on pigs! loaded right its like a 45-70 lite! Its pretty accurate I sized mine at 454 and 452. the 452 was much easier to load, and shot slightly more accurate. Plain base lead bullets shot better sized 454. maybe its the GC. DR

[starmac]

I take it your marlin cycled them alright?

[dangerranger]

Yes as long as you watch your over all length. The first batch I made I left long enough to bind up any revolver as I did not want one to find its way into one of my old colt revolvers. They worked great the the H&R carbine but were a little sticky in the marlin. The next batch and all since then I died the brass blue and seated them corectly, and have had no feeding problems. I used a blue lay out die to mark them as not to be used in a revolver. They might be OK in a Freedom arms, Ruger, or other modern revolver but it would be a handfull! Like I say these were loaded to the lower end of 45-70 data. DR

[starmac]

That is what I wanted to hear, I am not needing to load it hot, just where it shoots where I am looking, and the only revolver it has a chance of going in is a ruger old vaquero, so should be no problem. I am actually thinking about trying black powder in the rifle rounds, just for the heck of it.

[DougGuy]

I think WR Buchanan has a Marlin in .45 Colt and he uses the 300gr Lee boolit. To get it to feed those WFN boolits without issues, the back of the barrel needed a chamfer. He posted a pic of the chamfer, looked like it was pretty easy to do.

[starmac]

I have read where some guys have done this with pistol caliber rifles, and will see how it goes. I am just gearing up to start casting and have bought the lee mold for the pistol, which is actually my SIL's. I wanted the heavy boolit for bear protection. The rifle is just for play, I don't see myself ever using it for any hunting application, so any boolit that it shoots well will do. I would like to be able to do it all with one mold if I can though. If it winds up shooting the 300 gr well, I wouldn't mind having it chamferred to accomplish this.