Good afternoon, all.
Slight introduction first. I'm not new to shooting, however to casting projectiles and reloading i am very new. And am after a little bit of help. I am a newly-qualified Engineer & Toolmaker, from New Zealand, with dreams of becoming a qualified Gunsmith.
So of course, when it came the days to do a sort of "Final project" to finish my apprenticeship, the solution was simple.
I had an old Martini-Enfield action rusting away i collected from a good mate, with a bit of cleaning it came up very nicely- then the hard bit. Calibre? After some thought, i spotted an old double-rifle book i had.. and came up with .45-70. Some digging later, i found a chap locally manufacturing barrels. Received the barrel blank a week later. Machining, fitting took about a week, bluing was done by hand, the barrel is 28" long 1" diameter heavy bull profile sights are modified Pattern14 Parker-Hale diopter rear with Globe front.
Now to the thick of things.
I have two moulds, Lyman 405gr Flatnose/non gas checked, and Lyman 480gr spire point/non gas checked
The rifling in this particular rifle is 1-18" twist rate, i am trialing loads using 34gr of H4198 powder behind the 480 gr boolit(I'll get used to the terminology!)
So far its performing admirably, however i am still incredibly new to the reloading scene- i understand the engineering behind it but nothing beats experience!
So all i can ask is- any suggestions for where i should go from here to develop the most accurate loadings i can? Powder, load etc.
For reference, the rifle/action has been proofed to upper loads for Marlin lever guns, not quite Ruger #1 loadings however