.45-70 and H4831 with cast bullets

[lotech]

In his Pet Loads book, Ken Waters mentioned using H4831 in the .45-70. I'm going to look up the article as I haven't read it in a long time, but I recall he (surprisingly) got good accuracy with one or more bullets and H4831. Does anyone here have experience with H4831 and cast bullets in the .45-70?

[MarkP]

Not 45-70 but 458 Win Mag and cast. Decent accuracy but lots of unburned powder.

[SoonerEd]

H4831 is pretty slow. It's what I use in my 7mm Rem Mag. I use a lot of medium burn rate powders for j words at full power with 300-420 grains bullets. Powders like H4198, RL7, etc.

[Chill Wills]

In his Pet Loads book, Ken Waters mentioned using H4831 in the .45-70. I'm going to look up the article as I haven't read it in a long time, but I recall he (surprisingly) got good accuracy with one or more bullets and H4831. Does anyone here have experience with H4831 and cast bullets in the .45-70?
Yes. I do. 51.5grs of IMR 4831, not H3831 behind the Lyman 457 193 bullet. By the way, because I have a lot of it. This Lyman mold casts 415grs in my 4-cavity mold and produces head and shoulders the best accuracy in my JAP Winchester 1886 on 150 meter Turkeys and 200 meter Rams. I use this load in the Lever Rifle silhouette matches. Tested off the bench, this combo makes very tight groups. Note!!! It won't be as accurate, at least in my rifle without the use of Magnum primers.
I suspect that the same would hold true using H4831.

[lotech]

I just re-read the portion of Ken Waters article dealing with H4831 in the .45-70. Accuracy was very good, but lots of unburned powder and residue. I have a good bit of H4831, but I'll not use it for .45-70 loads. There are much better powders for the cartridge.

[Chill Wills]

Sounds good. Carry on.

[Harter66]

For others that stumble on this .
He also reported better accuracy with 4831 than 4350 .
He treated both more or less like BP with powder fill in the case around .05 greater than seating depth , basically eliminating air space and powder movement.

[Sgt H]

Never used 4831 in the 45-70, but burned a lot of it in other calibers, 243, 270, 280, 30-06, 7mm mag. When I first started reloading you could buy surplus 4831 for about $1.00 per pound. I suspect this may be the reason for the experiments with loading it in the 45-70, cheap! I reckon it does demonstrate how versatile the 45-70 is, can produce useful ammo with virtually any powder.

[GregLaROCHE]

I don’t know today’s powders in the US. I think I used 3031 for 45/70. Over here the recommended powders always left unburied powder. When I changed to a faster powder, I got a complete burn.

[SoonerEd]

I don’t know today’s powders in the US. I think I used 3031 for 45/70. Over here the recommended powders always left unburied powder. When I changed to a faster powder, I got a complete burn.

3031 is a medium burn speed and I've found it works well with lighter bullets...like 300 grainers.

[JRD]

I read the same article many years ago and have indeed used Ken Waters' data. I was actually using Accurate Magnum Rifle Powder, which was termed as a 3100 data powder. My dad bought an 8 pound jug because it was on sale cheap back when I was a kid.
Here is my recollection:
Basically figure out how much powder you need to fill all the space in the case with your bullet seated to the right depth. The powder is so slow that you can't over charge a 45-70.
I loaded mostly 405 grain and 500 bullets. They left lots of partially burned powder grains in the bore and the cases were very sooty because they didn't expand to seal the chamber walls. Pressure was certainly low and I recall chronographing some back over 20 years ago that I think were around 1100 fps.
Tried using some 300 grain bullets and they had very poor combustion. Very weak. There wasn't enough bullet mass to hold back the powder to get it burning.
You need to occasionally blow out the fouling or those partially burned grains will fall back into the action and start to bind things up. I was shooting a rolling block which was easy to clean. Working the loads in a lever gun would probably dump those grains into the action and make things crunchy if not bound up.

If you've got a bunch of 3100 and want to burn it up with heavy bullet plinking loads, this will work. There are lots of other cleaner burning options though.

Ken Waters' "Pet Loads" book and all the supplements to it is a classic. One of my mentors gave me a copy of that book many years ago. I used to pour over that book and study all those articles- even for cartridges I'd never seen. Ken Waters was an old time gun writer and I wondered what happened to him after I stopped seeing his articles. He lived until fairly recently. https://hoytfuneralhome.com/tribute/details/517/Kenneth-Waters/obituary.html

[lotech]

I read the same article many years ago and have indeed used Ken Waters' data. I was actually using Accurate Magnum Rifle Powder, which was termed as a 3100 data powder. My dad bought an 8 pound jug because it was on sale cheap back when I was a kid.
Here is my recollection:
Basically figure out how much powder you need to fill all the space in the case with your bullet seated to the right depth. The powder is so slow that you can't over charge a 45-70.
I loaded mostly 405 grain and 500 bullets. They left lots of partially burned powder grains in the bore and the cases were very sooty because they didn't expand to seal the chamber walls. Pressure was certainly low and I recall chronographing some back over 20 years ago that I think were around 1100 fps.
Tried using some 300 grain bullets and they had very poor combustion. Very weak. There wasn't enough bullet mass to hold back the powder to get it burning.
You need to occasionally blow out the fouling or those partially burned grains will fall back into the action and start to bind things up. I was shooting a rolling block which was easy to clean. Working the loads in a lever gun would probably dump those grains into the action and make things crunchy if not bound up.

If you've got a bunch of 3100 and want to burn it up with heavy bullet plinking loads, this will work. There are lots of other cleaner burning options though.

Ken Waters' "Pet Loads" book and all the supplements to it is a classic. One of my mentors gave me a copy of that book many years ago. I used to pour over that book and study all those articles- even for cartridges I'd never seen. Ken Waters was an old time gun writer and I wondered what happened to him after I stopped seeing his articles. He lived until fairly recently. https://hoytfuneralhome.com/tribute/details/517/Kenneth-Waters/obituary.html

Perhaps the best of the handloading writers. He was still experimenting and writing for HANDLOADER well into old age.

[nanuk]

I read the same article many years ago and have indeed used Ken Waters' data. I was actually using Accurate Magnum Rifle Powder, which was termed as a 3100 data powder. ...
Here is my recollection:
Basically figure out how much powder you need to fill all the space in the case with your bullet seated to the right depth. The powder is so slow that you can't over charge a 45-70.
... They left lots of partially burned powder grains in the bore and the cases were very sooty because they didn't expand to seal the chamber walls. Pressure was certainly low and I recall chronographing some back over 20 years ago that I think were around 1100 fps.
Tried using some 300 grain bullets and they had very poor combustion. Very weak. There wasn't enough bullet mass to hold back the powder to get it burning.
You need to occasionally blow out the fouling or those partially burned grains will fall back into the action and start to bind things up. I was shooting a rolling block which was easy to clean. Working the loads in a lever gun would probably dump those grains into the action and make things crunchy if not bound up.

If you've got a bunch of 3100 and want to burn it up with heavy bullet plinking loads, this will work. There are lots of other cleaner burning options though.



I think that powder would be a prime candidate for using a kicker between it and the primer

[cpaspr]

Necro thread resurrection. Sorry.

I have over 5# of H4831 I got from my dad, and other than .45-70, nothing I shoot seems to have any use for it. Can anyone provide me with Ken's info using H4831 in the .45-70.

Thanks

[RickinTN]

They already did. All the case will hold and slightly compress the powder when seating the bullet. Any chance you could trade someone your powder for something that might be more suitable for the 45-70?
Good Luck,
Rick

[bobthenailer]

At one time i had a Browning BPCR i used a Saeco #020 540 gr cast bullet with 50 gr of H4831 this was the best load/ powder after trying at least 5 other powders that are recomended for the 45/70 ! with a scope mine would do 2.5". at 200 yards With my twist rate the 540 is not fully stablized at 100 yards

[cpaspr]

They already did. All the case will hold and slightly compress the powder when seating the bullet. Any chance you could trade someone your powder for something that might be more suitable for the 45-70?
Good Luck,
Rick

Ah, had to re-read to find it. Post #7. What is the ".05" mentioned? Percent, inches? Not meaning to be overly anal, but it does kinda matter.

Doubtful anyone would want to trade anything for this particular H4831. One of the cans is marked that he got it in 1968. They're all old cans, so the others may be older. And if the H4831 will work in the .45-70 with respectable accuracy, I'll use it when the one pound of 5744 I have is gone. I have other guns and other powders, I was just looking for a use for all this powder from Dad.

[Chill Wills]

Ah, had to re-read to find it. Post #7. What is the ".05" mentioned? Percent, inches? Not meaning to be overly anal, but it does kinda matter.

He meant that the base of the bullet compresses the powder 0.05".

So if you want to load it the same way, find the location of the base of the seated bullet and fill the case with powder plus 0.05" and make that weighed amount of powder the standard for your load.

*****************************************

I use a similar load, and yes, there are unburned powder grains in the barrel which I have never found to effect the very good accuracy of the basic load. This is a published load in the IMR loading handout. Yes, the powder in question is not IMR but H-4831. My load, 51.5grains is at the starting load level, needs a Mag primer to become accurate and uses a lot of powder that could be used for something else. I have a lot of this powder and because of its accuracy, I use the load in Silhouette competition. For me, it is a good reason to use up this old lot of powder.
See post #4 for my info.