.45-70 Government

Fish and Hunt Texas ^ | Dec 2004 | Clay Oldham

[45Auto]

Some cartridges just seem to live forever. Thankfully the 45-70 Government is one of them. It began life in the days of black powder and has evolved over time into the cartridge we know today. After owning and shooting several guns chambered for it it’s easy for me to see why. It’s accurate, easy to reload for, and hits like a freight train. From the muzzle to 150-200 yard range this old cartridge is hard to beat.

To really see the true performance of this round you do need to hand load for it though. Factory ammunition lacks the true performance the 45-70 is capable of producing. It seems almost any load will shoot accurately in a rifle or handgun. If you are willing to endure a little punishment, the old 45-70 Govt. will show you the love. Recoil can be heavy but it’s well worth it. Since the 45-70 is a low pressure round the strait walled cases will last for a very long time. The large rim makes it a natural for single shot rifles and handguns.

A heavy roll crimp is a must to keep bullets in place under the heavy recoil of a repeating firearm. I recommend separating bullet seating and crimping into two steps to insure the crimp is solid. Be sure to follow the loading data recommended for the firearm you are using. Most manuals have several levels for the 45-70. Light loads for the old or antique guns, a little heavier level for modern guns such as the Marlin 1895 lever actions, and heavy loads for guns like the Ruger No. 1’s and the Browning 1885. Care should be taken to insure the proper data is being used for your gun.

The results of improperly hand loading the 45-70 can deadly. Be careful! The best powders I’ve found so far are Reloader 7 and IMR 3031. As far as bullets, I’ve tried from 300-grain up to a hard-cast 510-grain flat nose. Firing the 510-grain bullets from a 14” Thompson/Center Contender is an experience not soon for gotten. The 300-grain hollow points are common among deer hunters and offer higher velocities than heaver bullets. I’ve used them in the past with good luck in T/C Contenders. They are accurate and hit hard.

For deer the 300-grainers are probably the best choice. I used Sierra’s 300-grain hollow point with IMR 3031, in both the 16” and Super 14” Contender barrels I’ve owned. Accuracy from a scoped T/C Contender is phenomenal. Last fall I started using a 350-grain Hornady flat-point in my Marlin 1895 “Guide Gun” with Reloader 7 and now prefer it to the lighter bullet. This load kicks like a mad mule but hits just as hard. I truly believe it will take any game in Texas, or the world for that matter with authority, excluding truly dangerous game. At the time I’m writing this I’ve not tried the 400-grain or heaver bullets in my rifle but plan to try them soon and will update this article once I have a good load. A hunter looking for this type of cartridge but who prefers to shoot factory ammunition, the 450 Marlin is the one. It was developed as a joint effort between Marlin and Hornady to duplicate the performance of heavy loads in the 45-70.

[xcamel]

Just when I thought nobody cared...

I own and shoot 2 - 40/65's 2-45/70's and a hand made C. Sharps 45/90 long ranger.

/grins :-)

[Wisconsin]

I have both a 1886 Winchester in .45-70 and a trap door Springfield. When I hunted, the Springfield was my favorite deer gun , unless I had to walk a long distance in which case I would go for a lighter BLR. I am so slow I never got off more than one aimed shot anyway so there was little point to a repeater.

It is a great cartridge, and still a good one for <100 yds (or farther if you don't mind picking a cloud to aim at).

[NoControllingLegalAuthority]

I loaded black powder in .45-70 cartridges for use in my Pedersoli Sharps replica buffalo rifle. The recoil, when fired, was more of a push than a brutal punishment. The boom of the black powder was impressive. I don't know how they used to put 70 grains in those cartridges. I could only get 65 grains in when loading them myself with a drop tube.

[04-Bravo]

I've only fired two .45-70's: an 1886 Winchester (Browning replica, with a long, heavy barrel) and a Springfield trapdoor saddle-ring carbine. I fired the 1886 Winchester first, and it was pretty comfortable. Then I fired the trapdoor carbine, and I thought the darned thing was going to jump out of my hands.

I imagine lots of cavalry troopers had bruised shoulders...

[MarkL]

At one point, I came very close to buying a T/C Contender from JD Jones at SSK... He's also the guy who gave me some loading information for some VERY HEAVY hard cast bullets for my .41 Mag, though I later just bought a Redhawk in .44 Mag - Why beat up a sweet S&W Model 57?

Anyway, I was seriously thinking about this Contender in either 45-70, .444 Marlin, or .375 JDJ. I was leaning towards to .375 JDJ, as it's been used to take every large game animal on earth, including elephant and cape buffalo. I thought it might be handy to have, just in case one of them pesky cape buffs turned up in my backyard (wife: "Why do you need that elephant gun?" Husband: "To scare away the wild elephants." Wife: "There aren't any elephants in the state!" Husband: "See! It works!") After firing a buddy's TC Contender in .444 Marlin, I decided that I liked my hand, wrist, elbow, and shoulder too much to use one of these cannons on a regular basis! Firing a .44 Mag 300 gr bullet at just shy of 1500fps from my Ruger is mild compared to that!

Mark

[Squantos]

Mr R.T.Hare BTTT !

[PoorMuttly]

.45-70 at Two Miles: The Sandy Hook Tests of 1879

Bump

[Squantos]

E. Arthur Brown sells the JP Brake for TC Encore-Contender Barrels . I have one on a 45-70 barrel and it brings down recoil to tolerable aka easy levels for even heavy Garrett Hammerhead loads....

[Squantos]

A few years back Ruger released the Number 1 in a stainless flavor in 45-70 with the grey green laminated stock. It is one of my favorite hunting rifles. I harvested three Elk , 2 feral hogs and a mulie with it since purchased. Very accurate little rig.....my favorite for filling the freezer each fall.

I have a Leupold 1.5-6X on it and installed a new grip cap from brownells on it that has a compartment. In that compartment I keep a NECG #100 peep sight in case the leupold fogs up or breaks etc .... Warne QD levers make it easy to remove the glass and the NECG # 100 just fits into the half moon on the ruger. Stays zeroed .

I use a neoprene stock sock with 9 spare rounds and a neoprene and web sling that makes it a really nice rig.....

[PoorMuttly]

Ahem.....: "East of the Santa Fe trail, west of the Llano Estacado and south of the Canadian River, lie the ruins of an ancient Spanish trading post, the name of which was long ago forgotten. Because of its only visible remains, during the nineteenth century the site was known as Adobe Walls. It also just happened to lie quite near the migration path of the Great Central Herd of buffalo; today we'd say it sits in the panhandle of North Texas, about 150 miles southwest of Dodge City, Kansas. There were two 'battles' at Adobe Walls, the first occurring on November 25th, 1864 with none other than Kit Carson in attendance, but it was the second which contained 'the stuff of legends'. After the decimation of the buffalo herd in Kansas, the hunters moved south and west to continue practicing their profession. In June of 1874, a group of enterprising businessmen had set up two stores, a blacksmithy, and a saloon near the ruins of the old trading post in an effort to rekindle the 'town' of Adobe Walls and make a dollar off the hunters. By late June there had been talk of imminent Indian problems and, in recent weeks, hunters had actually been killed. Some 28 or 29 persons were present at Adobe Walls, including James Hanrahan the saloon owner, a 20-year old Bat Masterson, Billy Dixon {of whose famous long-distance rifle shot, more below}, California Joe {according to a somewhat unreliable account of California Joe Milner's life, or he may have been at the first battle of Adobe Walls}, and one woman, the wife of cook William Olds. At two in the morning on June 27th, 1874, the ridgepole holding up the sod roof of the saloon broke with a loud crack. Everyone in the saloon and several other men from the 'town' immediately set to repair the damage. Thus most of the inhabitants were already wide awake and up and about when, at dawn, a combined force of Comanche, Cheyenne, and Kiowa warriors {estimated in excess of 700 strong and led by Comanche Chief Quanah Parker, son of a captured white woman, Cynthia Ann Parker} swept across the plains, intent on erasing the populace of Adobe Walls. The initial attack almost carried the day; the Indians were in close enough to pound on the doors and windows of the buildings with their rifle butts. The fight was in such close quarters the hunters' long range rifles were useless. They were fighting with pistols and Henry and Winchester lever-action rifles in .44 rimfire. After the initial attack was repulsed, the hunters were able to keep the Indians at bay with their Sharps rifles. A search following the initial battle turned up the bodies of 15 warriors killed so close to the buildings that their bodies could not be retrieved by their fellows. The Indians rode out of range and camped in the distance while deciding how to handle the situation, effectively laying siege to Adobe Walls. The hunters suffered four fatalities: two brothers asleep in a wagon failed to survive the initial onslaught, Billy Tyler was shot through the lungs as he paused in the doorway of a building to take a shot, and Mrs. Bill Olds accidentally shot her husband in the head as she handed a reloaded rifle up to him {the bullet entering under his chin and exiting out the top of his head}. The second day after the initial attack, fifteen warriors rode out on a bluff nearly a mile away to survey the situation. Some reports indicate they were taunting the Adobe Walls defenders but, at the distance involved, it seems unlikely. At the behest of one of the hunters, Billy Dixon, already renowned as a crack shot, took aim with a 'Big Fifty' Sharps {it was either a .50&endash;70 or &endash;90, probably the latter} he'd borrowed from Hanrahan, and cleanly dropped a warrior from atop his horse. This apparently so discouraged the Indians they decamped and gave up the fight. Two weeks later a team of US Army surveyors, under the command of Nelson A. Miles, measured the distance of the shot: 1,538 yards, or nine-tenths of a mile. For the rest of his life, Billy Dixon never claimed the shot was anything other than a lucky one; his memoirs do not devote even a full paragraph to 'the shot'. Forensic archeologists have discovered several Richards' Colt conversions, some Smith & Wesson Americans, and at least one Colt .45 {then new on the frontier} pistol, along with numerous rifles {in calibers .50&endash;70, .50&endash;90, .44&endash;77, .44 Henry Flat, and at least one .45&endash;70, also very new} were in use at Adobe Walls. Billy Dixon quit buffalo hunting and, the following August, became an army scout. In September, just three months after Adobe Walls, an army dispatch detail consisting of Billy Dixon, another scout {Amos Chapman}, and four troopers from the 6th Cavalry were surrounded and besieged by a large combined band of Kiowas and Comanches. They holed up in a buffalo wallow and, with accurate rifle fire, held off the Indians for an entire day. An extremely cold rainstorm that night discouraged the Indians, and they broke off the fight; every man in the detail was wounded and one trooper killed. For this action Billy Dixon, along with the other survivors of 'The Buffalo Wallow Fight', were awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. In 1893 Billy Dixon left the army, filing homestead papers on the Adobe Walls site. He built a home and died there, aged 63, on March 9th, 1913."

[PoorMuttly]

http://www.garrettcartridges.com/products.asp

[PoorMuttly]

*PING*

[PoorMuttly]

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[Squantos]

LOL I was there yesterday afternoon....It's right off the gate of the turkeytrack ranch up NE of Stinnett Texas....

I have used my laser rangefinder to check the distance of all the ridges that surround the site of the trading post . The entry is from the top of a small box canyon that is open to the south towards the Canadian river. The east and west ridges are easy 1500 yards yet the north ridge is a good 2000 plus yards.....

The road in is a switch back long trail down the north ridge to a site that is more a memorial to Quanah Parker types than the Billy Dixons.......

I have sat and read all the books on the event and the best is by a guy in Canyon Texas at the Plains Museam there....

[PoorMuttly]

I like this part: "Anyone hunting game that averages ten times his own weight and solves problems by running over them had better carry a powerful rifle!"

3000 lbs. is large even by cheesemoose standards.

[Squantos]

This is looking SW at the site towards the ridge / edge of the canyon wall. Too yer left is the Canadian and to the right and behind is the box canyons north and east walls. The monuments mark the structures from where the shots were fired.....

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

The Siameese Mausers! Made in JAPAN for Thailand, sold to the US and converted to 45/70.

[45Auto]

The Gibbs Rifle Company made up some Enfields chambered in .45-70:

[null and void]

Firing the 510-grain bullets from a 14” Thompson/Center Contender is an experience not soon for gotten.

I nominate this line for understatement of the week...

[P8riot]

The 45/70 is one of my favorite rounds. I have a Sharps and a Magnum Research BFR chambered for it. A year or so ago I got a Bowen Classic Arms Redhawk chambered in .475 Linebaugh. I cut down 45/70 brass to handload for it. All three will kick @$$.