45-70 hunting ammo

What are you fellas that hunt with a 45-70 shooting out there?

My brother and I have been shooting his 45-70 a little. So far just factory loads. We have shot some federal blue box 300 grain soft ponts, some rem 405 grain softpoints, and some hornady lever revolution 325 grain I believe. The 405 grains shoot so low there isn't enough adj in the iron sights to sight in at 50 yards so no on game with them. Havent tried the hornadys on game, but don't like them and probably wont shoot any more past what we have. The federals shoot good, but we have shot two hogs with them and neither has exited. We hunt heavy brush country and reliable exit wounds are a must for me. I hope not to have to follow it, but if I do I wasn't a good trail.

Thinking about getting some 350 grain lazercasts from cabelas or some 405's from Remington and loading them a little hotter to see if they will shoot flatter. Any thoughts on this?

Also it is the 16 or 18 inch carbine model if it makes a difference.

Buffalo Bore. Those are fun.

I wouldn't expect a lot of exits from a round like that. Not on bigger pigs, anyway. If that is your goal, however, try some monolithics like Barnes or Cuttting Edge.

Im using 400gr Speer Hot Core with reloader 7(think im at about 48-49gr) about 1850fps and should have any trouble going through a hog


edited: this is a marlin/ruger only load

that 400grn load at about 1850fps sounds neat. is that a semi-jacketed bullet?

I like the idea of a bigger bullet. its a big bore so I like 400grn or close bullet. I know a full pass-thru will not always happen. especially shoulder punching a 200lbs hog like my brother did this weekend. I mean it anchored the pig...it just didn't exit...that's a lot of meat and bone for a bullet to be passing thru though.

I think with the shorter barrel on the rifle I lose some trajectory because the bullet isn't in the barrel long enough. I plan to shoot it iron sight though, and because of that I probably will not shoot past 50-75yds ever or seldom. right now those blue-box federals are about an inch high at 50yds and the hornady's are about 2in high at the same distance. the hornady shoot accurately, but sorta punishing to shoot and I can imagine they will really rip an animal up.

I've seen a little bit out there about a 300grn nosler partition that can be loaded. I'm a huge fan of partitions. its a lighter bullet than I'd originally wanted. but it might would shoot pretty well. anyone have any experience with those?

Yeah the 400gr hot core is a JSP my other load is a 325 Hornady FTX going about 2000fps but a cant remember the powder charge with RL-7

Contact Ashley Emerson at Garrett Cartridges and he will fix you up.

The 400 grain Speer Hot-Core was J. D. Jones' preferred soft point for normal sized game, as I recall.

your polymer point bullet there looks like a near replica of the hornady lever recolution...they are are 325grn bullet like that muzzling at 2175 I think. I still like that speer bullet...that might be the ticket for me.

for comparison...what is the recoil like on your speer load vs that other polymer point load at 2000fps?

any noticeable difference?

I find the hornady lever-revolution loads to be sorta punishing to shoot. the other 300grn load from federal has some kick to it, but its not too big a deal.

could that 400grn speer load be stepped back down a little to say 1650-1750fps? what would that do to performance? or have you tinkered with it any?

JD Jones used them out of the Contender, primarily, and his writings indicated that he was very satisfied with the performance. My guess is that they do quite well at moderate velocities, but I'm only repeating what I've read; I've never used them myself.

I actually shoot them in 2 different guns, because I didnt want to trim my brass to the hornady leverevoltion length, So I shoot the FTX in my Ruger #1 Carbine(pretty light gun) and the Hot-Core in my 1895g. The Recoil is pretty stiff on both of them but its really only bad when your sighting in at the bench, when your shooting in the field standing it just feels like a 12ga buckshot if I even notice it. Any of those loads can be backed down a bit, and in my guns I could still load hotter but it grouped pretty well so thats where I stopped.

What gun are you shooting it in? What powders do you have? Im sure there are plenty of people on here with more 45-70 knowledge than me but if you figure out what you want to load I can find you some data from my loaddata.com membership. Also look here its a pretty good reference but alot of these are close to max loads so always back off reloaders nest 45-70

I always shot the 405 Remington bullets and hard cast bullets.

Get some of the Laser Cast 405's and load them up to 1500fps, nice light recoil and will go through the hogs. You can definitely go faster with the Laser Cast if you want to. Shouldn't need to go faster than 1800fps, any faster and it's only a matter of who will say "Uncle" first you or your rifle.

Looking at some of these from midway. The reviews seem to rate them very well. Not sure what weight yet, maybe try some of each.

Those are pretty hard bullets. I seriously doubt that you'll get any expansion. If that's what you want, then go for it.

Some expansion would be nice. Never messed with any of them before. On the other hand starting out with an almost 1/2 inch diameter bullet does negate the need for as much expansion.

Keeping and open mind till I see what all is out there. Also considering the Oregon trail lazer cast, any experience with them?

Finding that most of the jacketed bullets over 300 grain are out of stock and only made in limited/seasonal runs.

we've shot game with .54cal muzzleloaders also. those bullets do not expand. but they themselves are large enough that they don't really need to expand much to be effective. those were 400+grn lead cast bullets too.

I'm curious....the rifle we're talking about loading here is a marlin 1895 cowboy, 18in barrel.
I realize now that I wish the barrel was longer. that the gun would get better trajectory and lesser velocity if it was. I like the gun, and as long as I can keep my shots tight at say 0-75yds...that's probably all I will ever ask of it. I get that now with the 300grn federal blue box loadings. and the hornadey lever revolution loadings.

question though...how responsive is that guns point of aim going to be to minor shifts in bullet weight/velocity?

for instance, the gun now is zeroed at about 1.5-2in high at 50yds with the federals. federals are a 300grn rated at 1850fps.

if I shoot the rem 405's...rated at 1150fps....that bullet hits dirt before it reaches the target at 50yds.

if I shoot the hornady....a bullet 25grn lighter and moving 325fps faster rated at 2175...that bullet cuts paper roughly the same as the federal. just with a lot more recoil.

so I'm thinking there is a tolerance in there. where the slow bullets simply won't perform. and to some extent shooting bullets faster will top out and not perform better.

if I took the 405grn hard cast....and stepped it down to say 1750fps or 1650fps...I wonder if it would still be fast enough to keep me on target without having the squeeze the last notch or two out of my sight elevation.

someone out there is bound to have experimented with this already. if not, I guess we'll do it and report back.

take that back...the hornady bullet is a 325 grn...so I guess its 25grn heavier than the federal..not lighter.

I'm pretty sure the federal was a 300grn.

I'd go with that .405 grain cast bullet. It'll go end to end on any hog. You're already launching a near half inch of bullet.. how much expansion do you need?