45-70 Goverment 500 RN

[Eric Johanen]

Interesting work on the bench today. I have loaded the BACO .459/500 grain RN bullet in Winchester fired brass necksized and brass length from 2.095 to 2.100. 70 grains of KIK 2fg with a .060 poly wad and a CCI BR2 primer. Bullet seated exposing the 1'st grease groove. This bullet has a tapered 1'st band and the cartridge at the mouth runs .4775-.4780 and chambers very easily in the Shiloh standard chamber. Today I was working with the SAECO 1881 .458/500 grain RN bullet Bitterroot/BACO ( nice looking bullets). I have a small amount of once fired Federal brass and thought I load them up for practice. Case length is 2.900 to 2.940 and brass is heavier than the Winchester so I dropped 68 grains of KIK 2fg and seated a .060 poly wad with the CCI BR2 primer. The SAECO bullet does not have a tapered 1'st band. Both bullets noses are about the same diameter and slip in to the muzzle with a nice fit, not very much wiggle room. I seated bullets with my Shiloh inline seating set up. Had to seat this bullet to the bottom of the 1'st band no grease exposed due to the non tapered band and the thicker brass. Seated rounds go .4820 at the mouth and both things combined made it hard to chamber unless the bullet was fully seated into the case. Like this it takes just a bit of thumb pressure to fully seat the cartridge. We will see how they shoot next time out. I have used both Winchester and Remington brass with the BACO bullet seated to expose the 1'st grease groove and not had any problems chambering. The Federal brass is thicker but unfortunately just too short for optimal use in my Shiloh. The Federal brass looks nice and is pretty uniform but with the very good results I'm having with Winchester and occasional use of Remington I really do not think it's worth stretching and trying to use it. I'll give it a try and if it does not shoot I'll scrap it with no ill feelings. (It did work well with a .458/405 grain Lyman and A5744 in a original Winchester 1886 lever gun. That had a generous chamber and the cartridges fed easily and shot pretty darn good)