Just a quick ?

[GunnyJohn]

A new friend had a Sharps in 45-70 sometime back. After he traded it off, he ended up with a bunch of black powder loads with a 500 grain VERY pointed boolit. Any way I was going to pull them apart for him salvage the powder, and reload them with boolits that will work in his Marlin. Here's the dilema. the holy black is comressed and appears to be hard as a rock. I have zero experience with BP cartridge loads. So what should I do? The charge is 65 grns FFFg. Can I load a 457193 @ about 422 grains and let him shoot it? I don't have any load data available. Thanks in advance.

[fouronesix]

Modern Marlin 95 I assume??

If the powder is blackpowder, probably FF or FFF, then you can't get enough in the case with any cycle-able/chamber-able cast bullet to overpressure the gun. How well it shoots is another matter.

[country gent]

You can seat a lighter boolit down snug on the powder charge. May still not be right to clear the throat though. Or the powder can be worked out with a small screw driver. A flat blade that just fits in the case turned and pressed in will loosen the powder up. Look under good light as there may be a card/felt wad that was between powder and bullet that also needs removed.

[Don McDowell]

Yes you could use a different bullet, you could also shoot those single loaded thru the Marlin.