What are your favorite loads for the Marlin 1895G 45/70?

[runningbear44]

Hunting & otherwise?

[Michael J. Spangler]

Lee 405 grains of lead over 12 grains of unique or a similar pistol powder.
Hits hard enough to kill. Shoots like a rainbow. Fun to toss them at the 200 yard gong.

Same bullet with 32 grains of H4198. Around 1500 fps and recoils less than the 40 grains of varget it takes to get to the same speeds.

[Keyston44]

Lee 405-457-F over 14gr of Unique and Ranch Dog 425460 on top of 46gr of H322. Both with Starline brass and CCI standard primers.

Key

[runningbear44]

Do either of you use the XS Ghost Ring sight? I'm thinking about getting one. I've got a stigma in my eyes and when my glasses fog in cold weather things are fuzzy without them.

[tinhorn97062]

44gr IMR 3031, Lee 457-340 (weighs 353gr with my blend), R-P brass, CCI primer

36gr H4198, " ", " ", " "

[MostlyLeverGuns]

300 grain Barnes Original Flatnose, 58 gr 2015, Fed 215M primer, W-W case - flat shooting (for a .45-70) 9000 feet altitude. A moose, multiple elk, a few deer - usually complete penetration. Have not needed a blood trail - usually fall where shot, or just a within a few steps. It does kick though!

[osteodoc08]

NOE 460-350 with 55gr Varget. Accurate 460400L and 50gr Varget

Stiff load of RL7 works well too

plinkers are fun with the NOE collar button and IMR4227

[Michael J. Spangler]

I just picked up a skinner for mine. I really like it. Right now I'm shooting with the stock aperture but I've shouldered the gun with the aperture removed to use the body as a ghost ring and it's very fast to get on target. Should still be great for close woods hunting shots.
It's a very nice sight

[TXGunNut]

RD 460-350 and a moderate-to-warmish charge of Rx7 is my hunting load for my "Thumper" Guide Gun. It's not much fun for casual shooting but I have other rifles for that.

[Lead Fred]

No squib loads for me,

430gr Ranch Dog **** booit
42gr Reloader 7
CCI BR2 primer
.030 veggie wad, a tuff of dacron
1750fps, it will kill anything that walks on the planet
(waiting for ET to show up)

Tho I have several 45/70s, this load works in all of them

[osteodoc08]

TGN is the one that got me started with RL7. Definitely a great powder for this purpose and if you haven't tried it, you owe it to yourself to try.

Lead Fred's load sounds like it thumps on both ends!

[stubert]

49 grains 3031, starline cases, NOE 460-350 gc. 50/50 moly/beeswax lube.

[Blackwater]

I honestly haven't found any bad loads for the .45/70, though I'm sure some must exist. It's a really user friendly caliber to load for in my experience. My last load was 57 gr. H-322 under a 300 gr. JHP, Hornadys, I believe. This load does very near MOA in my gun, and it plenty for what I use it for. You can go higher according to Hodgdon's manual, but I was happy and just never tried any more. Wasn't much point at the time. FWIW?

[Keyston44]

Do either of you use the XS Ghost Ring sight? I'm thinking about getting one. I've got a stigma in my eyes and when my glasses fog in cold weather things are fuzzy without them.

I have Skinner sights on all my lever guns.

Key

[Scharfschuetze]

While I've got some hot loads developed for my Marlin 1895, my most used load duplicates the old US Cavalry load (45/405/55) of a 405 grain boolit at 1,100 fps.

I use 11 grains of Tight Group powder with RP cases, RP primers and either the Lee 405 grain or the Lyman 457193 boolit of similar weight.

I've seen 12 grains listed as maximum, but 11 grains meets my requirements for a comfortable and accurate load. Be advised though, this is a fast burning powder so a double charge is probably going to go kaboom in many 45/70s, so exercise caution and check each charge before seating a boolit.

If you have a good target style sight like a Lyman 66 or Redfield aperture sight with MOA scales, you can shoot this load easily out to 400 yards with good accuracy for the whole day and then return to your 50 or 100 yard zero faster than it takes to talk about it.

I just loaded a couple of hundred of these rounds for an upcoming family shoot-a-thon on the high desert of Western Colorado next week.

[TXGunNut]

Bottom line, rb44, there are probably dozens if not hundreds of good loads for the Marlin in 45-70. It's a very forgiving and flexible cartridge and the Marlin 1895 is nearly always a great-shooting rifle. Haven't heard of one of the pre-Remlin guns that didn't outshoot most bolt guns-and the later Remlins are apparently just as good.
If you're going to try Lead Fred's loads please make sure you have a long eye relief scope or better yet, no scope at all. When I approach that level the eyepiece of my EER Leupold adjusts my bifocals and my thumb knuckle tries to rearrange my nose, lol. I'll keep that recipe around just in case we ever get a huntable population of T-Rex in Texas. It's amazing the power levels that can be reached with this rifle and cartridge.

[runningbear44]

I'm plan to buy a die set to reload for this rifle. Which die set do you recommend?

[Motor]

This one rifle that I haven't started casting for yet so right now my favorite load is a 300gr JHP pushed by IMR-4198. It's devastating on whitetail.

The rifle is a ported one and has Williams peep sight with fiber optic front.

My eyes are no longer open sight capable either and this set up still works fine.

Motor

[Scharfschuetze]

Which die set do you recommend?

I use several different dies depending on what I'm doing. The Marlin 1895 and original Trapdoors take different techniques. For the Marlin though, I primarily size with a Lyman 310 neck sizing die (Tong Tool die) in an adapter for a Rock Chucker press. At the pressure levels that I load to, I rarely need to full length size my cases. I then use RCBS dies for expanding and seating, but any quality die should do. Marlin (or any lever gun) ammo should have a good roll crimp for its ammo, the more so as pressures and velocity increase, so make sure your dies will deliver a good crimp.

Keep in mind that most die sets for the 45/70 are set up for .458 jacketed bullets. They might work as bought depending on your bore and how hard your cast boolits are, but I generally use a slightly larger expanding plug so as not to shrink down my .460 diameter cast boolits.

[MtGun44]

My most accurate hunting load is 58 gr of W748 under a 405 Jbullet or
405 RCBS GC cast. This is a low pressure load due to the slow powder,
velocity is about 1750 from my GG. You can go faster, but the recoil
ceases being fun.

This will shoot about 1-2" at 100 yds for 5 shots.

[Rifle 57]

With cast bullets and smokeless I use XMP-5744

[runningbear44]

I don't have the equipment to cast buets. Who has the best cast bullets for the $$?

[Rifle 57]

I don't have the equipment to cast buets. Who has the best cast bullets for the $$?

Check out MapleWood Bullets- Ph- 802-258-4607
Ed makes great bullets at a fair price.He list them on Gun Broker but you can buy direct from him.
Loren

[Motor]

My most accurate hunting load is 58 gr of W748 under a 405 Jbullet or
405 RCBS GC cast. This is a low pressure load due to the slow powder,
velocity is about 1750 from my GG. You can go faster, but the recoil
ceases being fun.

This will shoot about 1-2" at 100 yds for 5 shots.

The 300gr JHP are not fun even with the ported gun. I don't even want to think about 405gr. :)

The ports were another reason I've hesitated casting for this rifle. One look into the muzzle brake on my 500 Smith&Wesson kept me from casting for the ported guide gun. But since I started to powder coat all of that is changing. I'm still thinking about going with something in the 300's though. I want to make a nice mild load for fun target shooting or steel plate ringing.

Motor