As I was looking through the gun library at Cabela's this spring I cam across a Pedersoli "Quigley" for a pretty good price. It didn't look like it had ever been shot, had the Creedmore sight and was priced right. Only problem was the caliber, 45-120. I hadn't read anything good about the 3 1/4" cartridge unless using a lot of powder and getting a busted shoulder are good things. Still, I couldn't pass up on the deal and figured I would take on the challenge of the longest .45.
I have played with two powders, three different boolits, two different boolit diameters, differing powder compression and overall lengths. Here are the results of my latest load, 3 shots in 2 1/2". This is shot at 200 yards, sitting with cross sticks. No cleaning between shots.
The load is Norma brass capped with a Winchester WLRM primer (couldn't find anything else after buying the rifle), 120.0 grains (by weight) of GOEX cartridge topped with a 0.060" veggie wad and all topped with a SAECO #745 525 gr. Semi Point boolit sized 0.459" and lubed with SPG. Muzzle velocity with this combo is 1407 FPS. It does make for quite a shove on the shoulder, but I don't think it is any worse than my M70 Featherweight with near max .308 Win loads (both rifles have steel butt plates).