Plinking loads for the Trapdoor

[Nobade]

Today I found myself with some time on my hands so I thought I'd try some light plinking loads in my Trapdoor rifle. I have a box of commercial round nose 45 ACP boolits so I patched some up with 11# green bar paper so they went from .452" to .463". No lube at all. Load was 1.9cc homemade 3f, plus 2.8cc corn meal. Bullets were hand seated in unsized cases and lightly taper crimped. Undoubtedly some experimenting with the ratio of powder and corn meal may improve accuracy, but these were good enough for offhand practice, holding about 3 inches at 50 yards. I fired 15 rounds with no wiping and no dropoff in accuracy. Very light recoil and not terribly loud.
If you just want some fun Trapdoor practice or want to introduce the kids to it without beating them up too bad like full loads do, this is an inexpensive and entertaining way to go about it.

[gc45]

The trapdoor does real well using 400gr bullets and 10 gr of unique. I DO like your load however, very cool that your using black and 45acp bullets with paper! good experiment and results.

[Gobeyond]

I’m thinking of some full power 45-70 for flat shooting. C loads of H4895, Imr 4064 and Varget. I hope me sled works ok. No rainbow with these only 12” to 14” drpps. Uncomfortable maybe but that’s what I’m dreaming up in my spare time. 300 grain bullets 365 PP.

[rancher1913]

try some wooden bollits

[StrawHat]

Round balls, collar buttons and Gould boolits (or similar) are also good choices.

Kevin

[15meter]

Gould boolit and 4 grains of Clays was my favorite plinking load. At 200 yards you aimed ~ 12' above the dinger and pulled the trigger. Right about the time the buddies started razzing you about missing, you were rewarded with a lovely "DONG".

Think the load came from an article on the old CastPics site. Guy had done testing with, if memory serves me, .223, 30-30, 30-06 and the 45-70. He recommended checking the bore after each shot, dangerously close to bullet sticking speeds. I may have a copy of the article, I'll see if I can dig it up. It's not the kind of information that should vanish into the ether.

Our dingers are fairly frequently full sized oxygen cylinders cut into thirds. With cast they ring like bells. Most varmint rounds punch nice round holes through them. 450 Nitro Express and 416 Rigby dents them and rings them nicely.

470 N.E. with cast 480 Ruger boolits rips 2"-4" diameter jagged holes in them.

I'm lucky, there is a hydrostatic testing facility at the south end of the county that sells the failures or the tanks that are too old to test pretty cheap.

As an aside, the bottom 4-5" of one the oygen cylinders makes an indestructible pet food/water bowl. I'm pretty sure it would survive a tank being drive over it.

And an electric heat tape wrapped around the outside with duct tape makes a waterer that won't freeze down to -12 if set on a board and not directly on the ground. -12 is the coldest it's gotten here since I made it.

Kept my mother's barn cat alive and happy for a number of years.

[15meter]

The article was written, I believe by John Goins, AKA "Beagle". I can't find it. Hopefully someone else will chime in.

If you search for him you will come up with some information, not what I had referenced above.

Hopefully we can resurrect this old information. Perhaps even enshrine it in a "Sticky".

[country gent]

What you might try is a thin wad between the powder and cornmeal to help them to not mix or mitigate, and a thin wad under the bullet.
The other is the old lyann collar button was at times loaded down onto the light powder charge sitting fully inside the case, but may be to much jump for the paper patched bullet.

For many years Shiloh had a stake buster mould listed was a 45 cal wad cutter dont remember its weigh, but always wanted to try some as a light short range load in rifles

[fgd135]

I use the plinking loads in JS Wolf's book with good success.

[Nobade]

I use the plinking loads in JS Wolf's book with good success.

Yes, the standard 45-70 gallery loads with a ball and reduced powder charge work very well. I was more interested to see how well the 45 ACP bullets I have a big box of would work and found them to be quite successful. So I posted the results here in black powder paper patched loads in case anybody else felt like trying it.

[No_1]

The article was written, I believe by John Goins, AKA "Beagle". I can't find it. Hopefully someone else will chime in.

If you search for him you will come up with some information, not what I had referenced above.

Hopefully we can resurrect this old information. Perhaps even enshrine it in a "Sticky".

Perhaps this is the article you referenced:

https://castboolits.gunloads.com/sho...s-in-the-45-70

I don’t mind making a sticky if this is the article.

Rob

[Silvercreek Farmer]

Got a velocity on your load, Nobade?

[Nobade]

Got a velocity on your load, Nobade?

No I don't. My last working chronograph quit and I haven't gotten a new one yet. Since that's a powder charge less than a 45 Colt but out of a long barrel I'd guess 1000 fps or so but that's just SWAG.

[15meter]

Perhaps this is the article you referenced:

https://castboolits.gunloads.com/sho...s-in-the-45-70

I don’t mind making a sticky if this is the article.

Rob

Close, but not it. It was an article on, I believe Castpics. 30-30, .223, 30-06 and 45-70. He called them "whisper loads". There were warnings about making sure you didn't get a boolit stuck in the barrel after each shot. The potential was there.

I know I have a hard copy, I'll have to find it and scan it in, then post the scanned data. I think the accuracy goal was minute of woodchuck at 25 yards.

[15meter]

Changed my search parameters to "beagle 30-30 whisper loads" instead of trying for 45-70 and it popped up.

Here's the link in all it's 10 page glory.

Don't have a clue why a similar search string with 45-70 instead of 30-30 worked. Must be that AI stuff.


https://hensleygibbs.com/casting/whisperloads.htm


Hopefully someone can port it to this site. Whisper loads are addicting.

[fgd135]

Here's an interesting article about light .45-70 loads, from Guns magazine:
https://gunsmagazine.com/gear/collar...-70-gentleman/