1895CB and black powder

[k8bor]

The gods were smiling on me last year when I bought a raffle ticket from a buddy at Deer camp in Nov. 2006.

To make a long story short, I won a Marlin 1895CB in .45-70. I love the caliber and have nicknamed my new friend "Lucy".

I want to shoot bpcr with Lucy and to that end, just ordered the Lee 405Gr. hollowbase mold and a box of fiber wads.

Anybody had any experience with this combo in the 1895, and if so, what casting alloy, grs. of ffg, etc? I have a good supply of fff and ff Goex to work with. What about crimping to load multiple rounds, or just single shot? etc. etc. etc.
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z41/k8bor/newrifle1.jpg
Lucy is so pretty, BP just seems natural.

de k8bor

dave

[jjamna]

Dave I have never shot black powder but I plan on it myself. I just got a 1895 CB myself for Christmas. I to got the 405 gr hollow base bullets and they shot pretty good (with smokeless). Then they told me about Ranch Dog's molds. To make the story short the Ranch Dog 350 grains shoot twice as good as the 405 grain hollow bases. They are different guns but same make and model. With blackpowder the hollow bases may seal better I don't know but I don't think you will have any problems with the ranch dogs. Thats my 1 cent worth, I can't give you 2 cents worth because I have never shot BP.
Good luck

[2row]

I shoot a bit of the black also have a 1895 cb 45-70 I shoot a 350gr cg with a fiber wad an compress my powder about 1/4in in the case. My CB will not shoot a plan base bullet very well 4or6in at 100 yd the cg shoot 1 to1-1/2".

[k8bor]

2row
what bullet do you use, and what kind of lube do you use on the boolit?
k8bor

[montana_charlie]

k8bor,
What is the rate of twist in your rifling? It seems (to me) that must be known before making a rough guess about a good bullet weight for a new gun.
CM

[k8bor]

1:20 standard marlin for that caliber

[montana_charlie]

Well, I'm going to call that a fairly 'slow' twist, so my guess is the 405 grain bullet might be close to the heaviest you would want. With very little knowledge about the subject, it's my impression that ammunition for the lever guns usually used lighter bullets.

The mould you chose casts a bullet that has been real popular for Trapdoor rifles.
CM

[dubber123]

If you are not opposed to shooting single loaded rounds, I tried the Lyman 535 grain Postell, bore rider boolit in my 1895 CB. I did not try it with black, but 28 grs, of H-4198 shot a .415" 50 yard group, my best yet with this rifle. I have no idea if the twist would stabilize it at very long range, but the 50 yard accuracy surely wasn't lacking.

[k8bor]

Thanks dubber123, I may give that a try.

de k8bor

dave

[northmn]

I had a 45-70 CB and sold it to a needy bear hunter as it kicked more than I liked, but that is a personal thing. I used BP in mine and liked the 320 grain Gould bullet (Lyman 457122) . What you use depends on what you hunt with BP to some extent. The Gould bullet is a HP that is death on deer and bear. I have been using up a lot of the "substitutes" ie 777 and pyrodex in my BPC and had excellent results in the Marlin with triple 7. Black works well, but if you are new you really should read up on Black powder cartridges. For a start lube with a BP lube like Lyman Gold or SPG. Use of a wad depends on the amount of shooting you do, but compression needs to be done before the bullet is seated. A good BP load for the Gould is 70 Grs 2f compressed so that the bullet can be seated to the crimp groove and crimped. WW cases seem to have the most capacity. My Marlin really was not overly fussy. The Lee 405 HB will work OK but is best for oversize bores. Probably will have to cut charges of 2f down to about 60 grains for that bullet. The other Lee bullets really do not have good lube grooves for BP and can be undersize. Also their noses did not feed well (there are always exceptions and someone will say they are great) I really recommend the Lyman molds. Good shooting have fun.

Northmn

[k8bor]

Thanks Northmn,

It does look like a really good bullet, may very well try one.

[NickSS]

I'll put in my two cents worth. First my 1895CB fouled real bad the first time I shot it with black powder. Did not notice any problems with smokeless I shot before that. So I fire lapped the barrel with 20 rounds that were rolled in fine valve lapping compound. Now it does not fould badly at all. I size my boolits to .459" and lube them with my own home grown lube. I have shot several different boolits in the rifle but you are limited to a max of 405 gr ones if you want to use the magazine. If you single load you can go up to as heavy a slug that you want. The problem or I should say the limitation of the 405 and lighter slugs is that they become less accurate the further out you go as they drift moore in wind and slow down faster too. A 405 gr starts running out of gas at about 400 yards and the lighter boolits closer yet. 200 yards is about max for target work with a 300 gr boolit. That said start by loading up several different loads using your selected boolit and wad. The first load should have enough powder to seat the boolit and wad with the boolit firmly on the powder but no compression. The next should add enough powder to have about 1/16" compression and the next 1/8" etc untill you have 50 rounds loaded in groups of 10. Then go to the range and shoot them. Use a blow tube or wipe the bore between shots. Fire the first 10 and see what you get. clean the bore and do the same with the next 10. Some where in the test you will find your groups getting tighter then maybe opening again. Pick the best groups load for your starting load. If you want even better accuracy once you found you starting load go up and down on gr at a time till you find an optimum load. Write it down and stick to it until you change something in it then you may have to do some checking. The last thing is that with the standard sights you will be lucky to get on targets at 200 yards. If you add a tang sight like the Marbels one I put on my rifle you may get on at up to 300 yards with a lower front sight. If you want to shoot further you need a ladder type tang sight with at least a 4 inch long staff. That will get you out to 600 yards or even 800 yards.

[dubber123]

If you get a short enough nose, you can shoot a bit heavier from the magazine. Ranch Dog sells an inexpensive Lee that weighs almost 450 grains out of WW's and feeds great in my Marlin. I have a pair of group buy moulds coming from Boomer that are supposed to be 420 grains and will feed in a Marlin. You will not shoot 500 grainers other than single shot. Ejecting a live round can be interesting if they get too long also.

[k8bor]

Thank you very much guys. I'm planning on not shooting over 150 yards with this as I'm installing a williams peep, and want to use the rifle for mainly 100-125 yd. targets and hunting. I'm not one bit worried about that 405 grain lee not killing anything from deer to pigs to moose in that range. All this helps a lot.

One more question. I can by pure tin bars here through our suppliers at work. Can I just use pure tin to mix with pure lead for alloy mixes? Everyone seems to say use bars of 50/50 solder for the mix, but if I can buy pure tin, why not? I'm thinking it might be hard to get the tin to mix?

And NickSS, have you had much experience with the crimping vs. non crimping thing with the lees?

I should be casting some this weekend, it was below zero all last weekend, and I can be tough when I need to be, but out in the garage in that weather was a little too much for me.

de k8bor

dave

[Boz330]

Dave, the pure tin isn't a problem it is just that 50/50 and 40/60 are the easiest to get ahold of. Just flux the mixture and the mixing should be no problem. 20-1 lead is a great mixture for hunting boolits, holds together real well and mushrooms good as well. I recovered a 38-55 from a deer this year that had 96% retained weight and 62 cal in diameter.

Bob

[k8bor]

I'm also going to try some bullets first in ww and also in pure lead. The mould doesn't look like it's going to be that hard to fill out ie: it doesn't have any real sharp corners or anything.

I've got spg and will pan lube them. Looking forward to this!!

de k8bor

dave

[jjamna]

Well I shot some Blackpowder in my cowboy. Well almost- American Pioneer. Other than Kicking the pee-waddings out of me they shoot pretty dagone good. I just did the 70 grains dropped thru 20 inch drop tube with lubed wad then the 405 hollow base Lee boolit.

They wern't as good as my best smokeless but not far behind. I never measured them but a five shot group was not over three inches at 100 yards.

I know some of you don't like the substitute powders but in the Marlin I think it was best. Not much fouling and real easy to clean.

[yarro]

When I loaded BP for 45-70, I got best results using a powder compression die and a good crimp. It took some fiddling around to get the amount of powder right so that the bullets seated far enough into the case before stopping on the powder charge. Mine was a Winchester and did fine with hard flat based bullets. My buddies pre 1900 Winchester required soft hollow based bullets to shoot well.

-Yarro

[KCSO]

You might want to forgo the wads with the hollow base bullet as I did recover one bullet with a wad still stuck in the hollow. As to twist the short leade and OAL will dictate the bullet more than anything. With modern cases and modern B/P you will have a hard time breaking 1200 with any bullet heavier than 405 and FFg.