First blood for my H010, Mine!

[snell]

No, not a scope bite (although a couple came close) but as I picked up the rifle from the bench I reached for the pistol grip, slid my hand forward and managed to stick the web of my hand on that very sharp bolt! Careful guys. On to the range report.
Gorgeous day in South Jersey so I went out and tried out a different load for the 400 gr Speers. This time it was 52.0 gr of IMR 3031 and Win LR primers. Two ten shot strings over the chrony says average of 1743 fps 5 foot from the muzzle. High was 1762 and low was 1705 , not a bad spread. The group was so-so. The scope kisses had me flinching ( I have to move that scope forward!) so I threw 2 shots badly and one just out of the group. Still discounting them a 2" group at 100 yards show promise. I cant wait for my Penn 350 hard cast to arrive. They should kick less shouldn't they ?

Art

[Squatch]

Just like when we were kids. Now you and that Henry are Blood brothers!

[Sir Henry]

That is one reason I like rimfires. I use a thumb/nose weld and it helps me get the same visual placement.

[BigAl52]

Im not sure what your intentions are but shooting that kind of load in the 45-70 is going to talk to you no matter what bullet your using. Sure a 350 will be less than a 400 but not that much. If your just plinking with it or shooting targets why not use some reduced powder loads like the ones for the old trapdoors so your not beating yourself up. I have four 45-70's in various brands and I love shooting all of them but Im using 405 leads with reduced powder charges to play with. Al

[Steve51]

I am not in to beating myself up - so I have settled on an upper end trap-door load with a 405 grain hard cast lead bullet. I like the Skinner peep sight. If I can consistently hit an 8" steel plate at 50yds and 100yds (which I can with this load) this fulfills my purposes.

[snell]

I plan on hunting with the rifle this fall and while it certainly will kill cleanly with trapdoor loads, range estimation then becomes very critical. Pushing the rounds a bit faster allows a longer distance without trying to figure out a hold over. I expect to keep the shots within 150 yards and moving the bullet between 1700--1900 fps should allow me to hold center mass from muzzle to target. If I find that the recoil prevents accurate shooting I'll just have to reduce the loads and reduce my range expectations as well. I'll keep the board advised.

[North Country Gal]

Best of luck, snell. By all means, try different loads. That's part of what the 45-70 is all about. I'm with Al, though. Anytime I get up to 1600 fps or more with even 300 grain plus bullets, shooting the 45-70 becomes less than fun for me.

[snell]

Well we are moving in the right direction. Still using the Speer 400 gr flat nose I dropped the powder charge to 50 gr of IMR 3031 and headed out. Recoil has dropped from awful to just fierce. If I can get it to "just heavy" I'll be singing. Accuracy is fine as long as I don't yank one, which I seem to do at least once each string. I'll post pictures of my 9 shot string (I saved one for the 200 yd gong ) as soon as I figure out how. It measured 1 3/4" long and 1 2/3" high Average velocity was 1656. The search will continue.

[JEBar]

while I load 300, 400, 405, 430, and 500 gr bullets for our 45-70, for deer hunting my plan is to use Nosler's 300 gr ballistic silver tip bullets .... pushed by 51.5 gr of IMR 4198 our chrony consistently shows 2225 +/- .... they have a pretty flat trajectory out to 100 yards .... I haven't had an opportunity to fire them at 200 yards but according to the tables, if zeroed at 200 yards it would be about 5" high at 100 yards

[BigAl52]

Jim
Id like to see some of your groups with that 300gr Nosler. I see some of those on sale at Shooters Pro Shop I was thinking about maybe ordering some. Al

[JEBar]

Jim
Id like to see some of your groups with that 300gr Nosler. I see some of those on sale at Shooters Pro Shop I was thinking about maybe ordering some. Al

the only one I have right now is shown below .... the two bullet holes on the left were loaded with 49.5 gr of IMR 4198 .... the three on the right were loaded with 47.5 gr .... distance 35 yards .... they were fired when I was messing with our Chrony so I wasn't fully concentrating on grouping .... I hope to load some more tomorrow or the next day but I'm due for knee replacement surgery a week from tomorrow .... my next week looks like it will be pretty busy and I have no clue how long it will take after the operation so I have no clue when I'll get back out there