45-70 Mistake?

[Eric Johanen]

    Out yesterday with my Shiloh Rough Rider and target sights. I made a error in loading these shells...I thought I had neck sized them and they were all ready to powder. Drop tubed 80.0 grains of OE 1.5 fg an seated a .060 poly wad in the case. When seating the first BACO paper patched Money Bullet, they sorta wallowed around the case mouth! Trying to pick the wad out and dump powder would have been a real chore so what to do? I had a bunch of the Accurtate 45-486Xs bullets patched so I compressed the charge to .170 and seated the bullets and applied a slight taper crimp. Thought I'd at least get some trigger time in emptying those 20 rounds. Posted the 600 yard reduced target at 200 and proceeded to proceed. Wiped between shots. Thy chambered very nicely and actually shot pretty well. had a few flyer's due to poor sight alignment and the vertical was giving both me and my shooting partner problems due to changing light conditions. Actually not too bad of a target. I'll try this load again with properly neck sized brass. 1'st shot is the center 10 @9 and the second is the 10 @ 3. 6's at 12 and 6 were just poor sight alignment. I did get some quality trigger time in!

[Nuclearcricket]

Perhaps not the best grouping, HOWEVER, for something you kind of just tossed together in kind of an Ah S*** moment, I dont' think that is bad at all. If nothing else it says to you " Hey I want to shoot and if you find what I like I am gonna show you a lot of love on the target."
Actually all in all its not bad, I have seen days I couldn't do that well at half that distance. Light and wind are things you learn to deal with with practice. Mental and then paper notes as to what went where and why will eventually make a big difference in the long run.
When you get right down to it, the 45-70 is just hard to beat for an all around caliber. It shoots well, don't beat you to death and is not overly grumpy about what all you feed it.
Sam

[Eric Johanen]

Thank's Sam. It scores pretty good on the standard SR 200 yard target!
That 600 reduced is a pretty small target! I'm going to see how that load shoots with properly neck sized brass! It is a pretty good bullet for hunting applications and I'll see how it runs on steel at 200 and 300 yards this season.

[Don McDowell]

Next time that happens, just go ahead and run the case into the size die, it's better than trying to use a taper crimp.

[Eric Johanen]

Good advise Don! I'll remember that trick.

[Don McDowell]

Hope it works as well for you as it has for me.

[bobw]

I quit sizing my shells long ago. Deprime, clean ,dry, reprime, charge, card wad, compression, grease cookie, card wad. run the charged case into a 45 ACP tungsten carbide die 1/4" and seat ppb . Shoot . Max case capacity and fireformed to your chamber shoots well. bobw

[Kurt]

Bob I use a taper crimp die and size the case with out the bullet in it for the tension I want. This way you don't get that bump with the 451 die that looks like it was run into a bushing die.
I went with a .451 sizing die I put a longer taper to eliminate that bump or eccentric case mouth you get sometimes if the case is not started straight into the die.
Kurt

[Don McDowell]

I quit sizing my shells long ago. Deprime, clean ,dry, reprime, charge, card wad, compression, grease cookie, card wad. run the charged case into a 45 ACP tungsten carbide die 1/4" and seat ppb . Shoot . Max case capacity and fireformed to your chamber shoots well. bobw

Bob are you coming to the Midrange match at Worland so we can see how good that works for you?

[bobw]

No Don,I looked at it but it's the same weekend as the SCA show in Denver. As for how it works it must be ok as I've run 8 straight at 385 and 405 at the Q doing it that way.

Kurt as a matter of fact BACO has my order right now for the Lyman 45 cal taper crimpers for the 2.1 and the 2 7/8 " as well as a custom expander from them. bobw