Help for the new guy with a 45/70

[78CJ]

My friend and I are working on shooting cast in our new Marlins. His is an 1895CB and mine is a 1895 with the 22" barrel.

We started out using ww dropped in a 5 gallon pail from a Lee 405 grain FB and lubed with Liquid Alox. We have tried a few different powders including H4895, AA 2015, IMR 4064 and all seem to present us with lead streaking. I noticed that Lee sells tumble lube molds with the small grooves verses the three large lube grooves on the mold we have. Is it that we should be using some other lube than liquid Alox? We really want to shoot lead as I can get the ww for free in an unlimited quantity. I am not crazy about a lubrisizer either as it just creates one more step. So here is what I have and what I want to do and I hope ya'll can help.

405 Grain Lee mold ( I understand that Lee is not the best but it is what I have)
Wheel Weight lead coming out my rear
Lee bottom pour production pot
Lee Liquid Alox
H4895
H322
H335
AA 2015
IMR 4064

I want a load I can shoot that will be 13-1500FPS and not lead. I want to keep the casting and lubing and loading simple for now due to financial restrictions, I am open to alternate lube suggestions if they are at all possible without sizing. I do plan on getting the Lyman manual soon.


I also would like suggestions on getting the buttload of lead out of my new gun before I start again.

I understand this is a lot to ask but I looked through the last 30 pages of this forum and did not find the answers specific to my problem. I realize that this is my first post but I am a learner and not a know it all.

Thank you for your help

Ryan

[Maven]

Ryan, Part of the leading problem may be the Lee 405gr. FP itself, specifically its shallow lube grooves and possibly the diameter of the CB's it drops: Two coats of Liquid Alox should do the trick + the CB's should be at least .458" in dia., but .459" is better. I can't speak about the other powders, but you can reach the velocity you want with 30-35gr. AA 2015.

As for removing the Pb from your bbl., look for "Chore Boy" copper scouring pads (copper only, no soap and not stainless steel) in your supermarket. Make sure the rifle is empty, then remove the lever, bolt and extractor. Cut open one of the Chore Boy pads and cut off a large enough piece to wrap around your bore brush (You want a tight fit here.) and proceed to scrub the Pb out of the bbl. Btw, you can start with dry Chore Boy and can wet it with a non-copper removing bore solvent, WD-40 or even Kroil later. This is an inexpensive, but highly effective means of removing Pb fouling from rifle and pistol bbls.

[Larry Gibson]

78CJ/Ryan

You fail to mention the powder charges you are using with the listed powders. My guess is they are all to hot for a plain base bullet, especially the 405 HB. Before we get into that we must get the lead out.

Go to a local surplus store or gunshow and get a couple .50 cal bore cleaning brushes. Stop by the local GM dealer and get a 15 oz can of Top Engine Cleaner (You'll pay $5 or less for it vs $20+ for the same amount of Butch’s Bore Cleaner. They are the exact same thing BTW). Liberally (is it ok to use the "L" word on this forum:') swab the bore with with the cleaner and let soak for 30-60 minutes. Run the bore brush back and forth (all the way through in both directions) 10-20 times. Swab out the residue and inspect. If leading is bad repeat the process several times. If a small amount of leading persists it can be removed by shooting a couple jacketed loads. Use mild loads. This is a LAST measure only!!!! Scrub what leading you can out first, most will come out with the above method.

All of the powders you list are medium burning powders and will work well in your rifles with Gas Checked bullets at the top end loads. Of those powders I have found 4895 shoots well in my H&R Trapdoor with the Lee 405 HB. Try 34 to 38 gr in one gr increments with a 1 ½ gr dacron filler between powder and bullet. Expect some unburned powder. Velocity will be 1300-1400 fps. What ever you get in that range is going to be as good as it gets with your components.

Regular cast bullets will work fine with Lee’s Liquid Alox. At some point you are going to want improved accuracy and performance with cast bullets from your Marlin rifles. For your rifles I would suggest Lyman’s 457643. It is a 400 gr plain base bullet designed for your rifles. The RCBS flat nose gas checked 405 gr bullet is also very good if you want to work with GCs.

Welcome to the wonderful world of cast bullets.

Larry Gibson

[78CJ]

Thanks for the tips this is what I was hoping for.

As for the charges we stayed pretty mild and used published data. The only exception was using 50grains of the aa 2015 as the Lee manual states for a 405 lead bullet but this proved to be waaaaay too hot for non GC bullets. I took the rounds apart and we reloaded them with 4895 at 43 grains and this reduced the leading but we still got some.

I also realize that firelapping will help but we are too excited to just shoot to wait.

I also realize that it is a good idea to try slugging the bore but when I tried this with my 1894 in .44 mag so I can get a sizer made for crimping GC's onto ww bullets from Ranch Dogs two cavity custom mold it did not seem to work. But that should probably go in a separate post.

Ryan

[SharpsShooter]

My early 60's 1895 likes the 405gr cast boolit with 43gr of IMR 4064. Velocity is 1400fps and recoil is not unpleasant. With a receiver sight at 100yds, 2" groups are common. YMMV.

[44man]

Other then having the right boolit size, a good lube and a lot of the other things needed, WW metal seems to lead more then any other mix. (Almost like the WW makers don't want us to shoot them.) I have added tin and antimony to harden them and it cured the leading. Sometimes adding some pure lead will also do it. You have to play with the stuff.
OH yeah, take the steel clips off before loading them.

[BABore]

After you clean your bore with the good advise posted above, you really need to slug your bore. Actually you need to do it a couple of times to see what's going on. Use egg sinkers with the hole through the center. Lube up the sinker and barrel with WD40 or similar and use a big hammer to drive them through the bore with a aluminum rod. I usually start them into the muzzle with a plastic mallet. You want to do one slug all the way through from muzzle to breech. Do a second slug just until it's flush with the muzzle, then tap it back out from the breech end. Measure the slugs with a decent 0.0001 resoultion micrometer, not a caliper.

Marlins are notorious for having bore constrictions under all of the dovetail cuts and roll markings. You may very well see the slug that went completely through the bore at something like 0.4575" with the slug just flush with the muzzle measuring 0.458. Some have found as much as 0.002" of constriction in Marlins. Shooting cast in a gun like this is usually futile, especially with PB bullets. At this point you have a couple of choices, either shoot the snot out of it with about a 1,000 jacketed bullets, or fire lap it.

I used a lapping kit from Beartooth Bullets (highly recommended) for my 450 Marlin. I had 0.001" of constriction in my bore. Plain base bullets leaded terribily no matter what I tried. I ended up firing 35 lapping loads at 500-600 fps. No more leading and group size also improved. So far I've done this on two rifles with great success

All of this may not be for you, but I would still slug the bore as described above. You really don't know what size bullets it might like without a lot of testing. Most seem to shoot bullets 0.001 to 0.002 over bore size. Unless your extremely lucky you'll probably find your mold won't drop bullets big enough.

[9.3X62AL]

Welcome to the Board, sir!

I use the Lee 405 boolit a LOT in my Ruger #1, and if cast with moderate heat (650* or so) it will get to .459" using "enriched WW" (10% foundry type added). The Buckshot Hardness Tester shows this alloy to be at the Taracorp hardness level.

I finally chrono'd some of the Lee 405 loads I've been using in the rifle yesterday--1250 FPS, prompted by 5.0 grains of IMR-4198 underneath 46.0 grains of WC-860. These are accurate loads with velocity that borders on "useful for hunting".

I don't tumble-lube, so I can't assist with info on that subject.

[78CJ]

Maybe my bullets are too hard even air cooled? I have access to some lead pipe here at work that I have been meaning to take home. Should I add some of this?

[lovedogs]

BABore has done his homework. You might want to go to the Beartooth Bullets web site and read the writings of Marshall Stanton there. He's got a lot of useful info on the Marlin bbls. and shooting cast lead bullets. I'm sure it'll be of help to you.

[45 2.1]

Cut your WW alloy by 1/2 with the soft stuff, cast them and air cool them. Lube them up good and try 23 gr. of SR4759.

[Buckshot]

..............Where does the leading take place? What size do your boolits drop at?

"My friend and I are working on shooting cast in our new Marlins. His is an 1895CB and mine is a 1895 with the 22" barrel."

I take it yours is Micro-Gruv?

.................Buckshot

[78CJ]

The leading looks to be rather evenly distributed in the grooves but we never did look real close since at the time we did not realize that it may help diagnose the problem.

No Microgroove here, my 1895 is brand new and Marlin is making them with Ballard rifling now.

As a side note I tried casting some more bullets last night but it is starting to appear that we may have damaged the Lee single cavity mold we were using. The Lee instructions direct you to place some lube (not liquid Alox) on the sprue plate, sprue plate bushing, and alinging pins. Well since this was the first time we have ever cast anything we did as we were told and now we have a mold covered in a burnt brown film that wont come off. Not to mention it looked to me last night that we had some lube run into the cavity last time. Now when I am trying to cast I can not get good sharp edges on the lube bands on only one side. You guessed it, the side with the hard to even notice lube in the grooves. I tried cleaning it out with some brake cleaner and a toothbrush but it just looks like a stain. Now no matter what I tried I could not get a good fill.
I wish at this time the RCBS and Lyman molds were not so much more than Lee, I also wish Lee would have been a little more clear on their instruction. I have a two cavity mold designed by Ranch Dog and once I realized that you did not really need to lube these areas I tried that mold and it casts great bullets.

Live and learn.

Ryan

[BABore]

Try some Comet cleanser. Look up the Lee-Menting post in the Maintainence forum. Spinning a bullet coated with Commet should cleanup the cavity.

[Blackwater]

78 CJ, I can't expand on the load data you've been given, other than to note that in my experience, either of the 4198's and H-322 burns cleaner, generally, than the oft recommended 3031. 3031 works fine. Just a mite more residue in the bore.

And BTW, welcome to .45/70's. My favorite quote about that caliber comes from a friend of mine, who said "You can load it with jacketed bullets, cast bullets, ash trays or feather pillows, and it'll STILL kill whatever needs killin'." I think you'll find his comments affirmed. It also gets little credit for being what's often referred to as an "intrinsically accurate caliber," too.

You can load round balls for plinking or for squirrels and rabbits, or load it anywhere from .45 LC levels to near .458 Win. Mag. levels if the action will take them. It's a grand and much under appreciated caliber, and a ring tailed tooter any way you want to measure it. Ya' done GOOD. REAL good!

[Roudy]

I was haveing a problem with leading in my Handi-Rifle and Sharps replica until I started using a card wad between the powder and the Lee 405 gr plain based bullet. I tried several different lubes to no avail until I put the wad in place. Some folks disagree, but I think that a bit of lead was melting off during ignition, but I'm really not sure about that. I am sure that the barrel leading stopped.

You can buy card wads, buy a tool to make card wads, or make them yourself using a 45 ACP case and a drill press. Decap the case and drill out the primer hole so that a nail can fit in to push the cut wads out. Chuck the case in a drill press, use a file to sharpen the rim, turn on the drill and cut wads from tablet backing or fiber milk cartons. Steel 45 ACP cases work better than brass because they hold the edge longer.

For $20 you can buy a thousand wads so if your short on time this may be better, I'm just cheap.

[drinks]

I use 220gr, 320gr, 405gr and 500gr but all gas check and have no leading even at 2000fps, with both LLA and LBT soft blue.
I do have the Lee 459-405 HB, drops at 4605" with wws and has shot 1" or less at 50 yds for several of us at velocities of 1100 to 1400fps if a mix of wws and lead , half and half, with a BHN of 10-11 and no one has had leading.
I use very small quantities of nickel bases anti sieze from the autoparts to lube the "V"'s, the bearings/ grooves and the mold handle pivots, After smoothing the underside of the sprue plate, I spray it with graphite spray or rub firmly with a soft pencil.

[Buckshot]

.................There are 3 kinds of leading:

One is lead vaporized by gas cutting of the boolit. Usually indicative of a poor boolit/barrel fit so there is no 100% seal. Usually you can see it as a gray wash in the barrel grooves. Land tops might be clear of it. Lube failure may also display similar results, but by miking the slug and slugging the barrel should point to one or the other.

Another is mechancial: As it suggests, it works just like a file does. Lead is stripped off the slug by over running rough surfaces. May only be in patches of the barrel. Too soft an alloy driven too hard may strip in the rifling to a degree. Poor accuracy, lead in the first few inches of the barrel and a gray wash at the muzzle, (which points to subsequent gas cutting) can be present.

Galling: Causes leading similar to mechanical and is normally indicative of poor lubing. Lack of, quantity or quality.

Naturally you can have combinations of the 3. Tearing away of lead can open passages for gas cutting. Gas cutting may blow away lube to allow galling. However leading doesn't appear for no reason. Something or things that is/are not right causes it, and rooting out the cause and rectifying it will eliminate it.

One of the best ways to figure out what is happening is to recover fired slugs from a medium which causes the least amount of damage possible. Just like a muzzle loader reading his patches, there is a world of information available by inspection of fired boolits.

For plinking loads and for competition loads where many rounds have to be fired and continual consitant accuracy is required, no leading can be tolerated.

For hunting loads (where I consider 3 shot groups sufficient) mild leading at maximum effort could be allowed so far as you can get those 3 rounds off into a good consistant group. Continued firing would cause eventual degredation.

................Buckshot

[78CJ]

I think that my first step is going to be to send the mold to Lee and let them sort out the foreign material in the cavity. I read the Lee-Menting post and while it was very informative I just don't think I need to spend my time doing this since it was their clear as mud instructions as to how and where to lube the mold that got me here in the first place. If they do not want to work with me on this then I will buy an RCBS or comprable and never look back. I at least still have the .432 two cavity mold that did not get the same treatment as the 45 cal mold and looks real good and throws good bullets. I just need to get a sizer to put on some gas checks. Maybe I will order one this morning.

Ryan

[slughammer]

You need to lube the mold or you will ruin it by galling. If you got some in the cavity clean it out and try again. Customer service aside, no matter what they do you'll still be out your postage money. Fix it yourself, some lessons learned come with a "material cost". If you screw up a Lee mold it's no biggie; the lesson you learn is more valuable.