Using 3f for 45-70?

[mkm]

I know 2f is better for 45-70, but i have Goex 3f on hand. Anybody use 3f for a 405 gr bullet? Any starting loads (by weight) would be appreciated. Will be shooting out of a sharps.

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[Outpost75]

Years ago I used to shoot 200 meter "Ram Bash" with a bunch of retired guys who all used black in .45-70 Trapdoors. At the time I had an original 1884 and used 55 grains of Goex 3Fg with a 370-grain .462" diameter Hoch, nose-pour mold, cast 1:40 tin/lead. This was before SPG became available and I used what we called "Confederate Army Lube" that being equal parts by melted volume of Goya manteca (salt-free, filtered and refined hog lard used in Mexican cooking) and pure yellow beeswax. When loading less than a case full of powder in which you can achieve at least 1/8" of compression, you want to use a card wad over the powder, then fill the case with Cream-O-Wheat or Ballistic Products granulated polyethylene filler within 3/8" of the case mouth, so that the inert filler and powder are well compressed as the bullet is seated.

For best accuracy in the Trapdoor or your Sharps, you want to avoid transonic buffeting in which velocity decays below the speed of sound before the heavy bullet gets to the target. If you start out subsonic, you are ahead of the game and have less recoil fatigue after a long match where steak dinner and beer at your expense is the cost of losing...

Our load development objective was 1080 +/- 30 fps from a Trapdoor with 32" barrel, with bullets which "fit" in 1:40 alloy, and from a clean barrel we could expect 5-shot 4 to 5-inch groups at 200 meters on a good day.

It is OK to duplex 5 grains of a "fluffy," uncoated, easily ignited pistol or shotgun powder such as Red Dot, Green Dot or PB and to reduce the BP charge correspondingly by 10%, or 50 grains, then wad to achieve charge compression. This approximates the old "carbine" load and is a reduced charge and therefore would be safe with any SOFT bullet from 350-420 grains. With the duplex load you can run long strings of 40 rounds or more without blow tubing or wiping and maintain good accuracy. MUCH less fatigue than shooting full BP charges with heavy bullets!

From our original trapdoors we looked for 8-10" ten-shot groups at 200 meters firing from a fouled barrel having previously shot 20 or more rounds. Our goal was to hold accuracy better than we could hold standing for 40 rounds. In matches a winning score firing standing on the full-sized sheep target (normally used for modern high power rifles at 500m) at 200 yards with the BP rifles was 35 out of 40 targets.

My best score ever was 38 out of 40, but on that day it was not good enough to win, because the late LTC Ellis Lea (USA, Ret.) former XO of the Army Marksmanship Unit hit 40 straight, and tied with a retired FBI agent and academy instructor who also ran 40 straight, so they both agreed to a shoot-off firing Colt Single-Actions on the sheep also at 200m, with BP ammo, and they each ran 5 for 5 and agreed to split the pot, because it was getting dark!

[MT Chambers]

It's a matter of drop tubing an amount of BP into the case which just reaches the bottom of the bullet being seated. Diff. brands of cases have diff. capacity and diff. bullets have diff. seating depths.

[Don McDowell]

Figure out how much powder it takes to reach the base of a fully seated bullet, put that much in the case, add a .030 fiber wad on top the powder, seat the bullet and adjust your load from there for accuarc, if needed.

[missionary5155]

Greetings
Have shot 3F in just about every BP cartridge rifle or pistol caliber we have. 44 Russian to 50-95 Winchester.
With several combinations 3F was the best way to get the cartridge case to "swell" to the chamber and not have fouling flowing back into the receiver area.
I have also used just cereal box wad under PB 40-1 if that is all you have on hand. You still need to work with powder compression to arrive at the desired accuracy.
Mike in Peru

[mkm]

Thanks for the info. Sounds like I need to get a drop tube. I have some .060 fiber wads that I will use with 3f and see what it takes to fill the case.

[Larry Gibson]

I have always found 3F to be better in accuracy and less fouling that 2F. I use Goex 3F and Cartridge in my 45-70 BP loads for my TDs with Lee 45-405-HBs and Rapine 460500s. My bullets are cast of 16-1 and are sized .4615 and lubed with a beeswax/olive oil lube. If you're using the Lee bullet Start at 55V gr (by Volume) and work up to 70V gr in 5V gr increments. The full 70V gr charge is the best in my TDs with both bullets. I neck size and use a compression die.

Larry Gibson