Best Cowboy Nostalgia Caliber: .30-30, .45-70, etc.?

Status
Not open for further replies.
The original blackpowder .45 Colt load pushed a 252 grain bullet to around 800-950 feet per second, depending on barrel length. (I've heard different numbers) VERY potent nonetheless.

The cheap cowboy loads you find today usually do a 250 or so grain bullet at 750 feet per second. Good for plinking, but not "authentic".
 
Tall Pine,

Yep, I know.

That's why I said "pretty much over" and "as we romanticize it."

Talk to a lot of people and the "Wild West" was still firmly in action as a cowboy/Indian/cattle type thing until about 1967, or when they go old enough to start watching girls instead of TV, and the last of the good daytime TV westerns went belly up.

Wounded Knee, the last great indian uprising, happened in 1890.

The vast herds of Bison that everyone seems to naturally associate with the west were gone long before that.

Barbed wire had slammed shut much of the open range by that time, too.
 
One of the neat things about a "carbine" or saddle gun was that it used the same ammo as your pistolé, which is not something a big game hunter or buffalo scout would do, nor would a long range shooter.

While its true that the Peacemaker and Winchester could be had in the same caliber (44wcf or 44-40) the same was true of Colt's Lightning rifles in 38-40, 44-40 and 32-20.

Colt's large framed rilfe came in 38-56, 40-60 and 50-90 (if I recall correctly) and would be one HELL of a game getter.

You can find reproduction Lightnings at http://www.awaguns.com/rifle_se.asp and http://www.usfirearms.com/usfapages/USlight.asp.

Definitely cool.

I'd like to see one in 44 magnum. If I buy a "cowboy" long gun I'll likely get a 44 mag, as i already have access to a 30-30 and 45-70's, all are Marlins btw. no it's NOT a "cowboy" caliber, but my vaquero is a 44 mag... and you need 2 revolvers to compete in SASS... and a rifle and a shotgun.. well you see where this is all going right?
 
And Tom Horn (hanged in 1903) used a 30-30.
Click to expand...

Well, that pretty much indicts the effectiveness of the .30-30. If he had been carrying/using a .45-70, he might still be alive! ;)
DAL
w/tongue firmly in cheek
 
Yup if you want to be authentic and use the same cartridges in your pistol caliber rifle and revolver, then .38-40 (.40 S&W Cowboy) and .44-40 are your choices. No lever gun was ever made in .45lc or .45 schofield in the old west, if you wanted the both guns to fire the same cartridges you used the above.

Now if you bought some older guns, like the cartridge conversions and an older lever like a '66 winchester, then you might chamber them in .45lc under the auspices of ".44 henry centerfire".

That said there is a lot of debate on what a real cowboy carried. Pistol caliber carbines are nice, but won't take bigger game easily which is potentially important. And we're completely neglecting shotguns which were also fairly common.
 
I believe slide action rifles of period design are legal in SASS. Seems to be a lot of chatter about them on the SASS Wire. The new "Henry" lever guns are not however.
 
Re: Tom Horn's rifles

While it is well documented that Tom Horn used a .30-30 during some of his Wyoming "stock detective" exploits, he was a well known figure prior to that time. As in the link given by TallPine, Horn participated in the 1886 expedition to capture Geronimo.

Horn was apparently a marksman of some repute. It stands to reason that he would have outfitted himself with the best available rifle for BOTH long range shooting and fighting. This would indicate some type of repeater, and it would not be at all unreasonable that he would have had a .45-60 or .45-75 (or some other, for all I know) model 1876 Winchester, before the 1886 arrived. While Horn was aparently quick to adopt the smokeless .30-30 soon after it became available, it would have been unlikely that he could have procured an '86 so early in the same year as it was introduced.

I hasten to add that I also ridiculed the image of Horn (actor Steve McQueen) affixing a tang sight to a '76, in the later era. The more I think of it, though, it is likely that he owned BOTH '76 and '86 Winchesters prior to the .30-30. I read somewhere that he went to the "small bore" smokeless .30 because it has so much flatter a trajectory than the older, larger, cartridges.

Horn was a fairly up-to-date rifleman, indeed. He also carried a double action Colt revolver in a flap holster while in the field, at least part of the time. He was not really state-of-the-art in his handgunnery, however. After his trial and death sentence, awaiting appeal, Horn broke jail. He stole a jailer's automatic pistol - - I read in one place that it was an early model Luger - - but couldn't figure how to make it fire, and was promtly recaptured.

Oh, well - - - -

Best,
Johnny
 
My main point was that there was still some wild west goings on after the 1894 introduction of the 30-30, at least in the northern part of the west.

A lot of people don't realize that the homestead era in Montana wasn't until about 1910 - 1925. It didn't last long because the dustbowl cut it all short, but by then the native prairie was plowed under to blow in the wind.

Slowly, all of the little claims began to be coagulated into larger ranches again, but never anything like the days "before the wire"

A lot of ranches up here are 10 to 20 sections (that's a square mile, BTW) or more, that's what it takes to eek out a living. Unfortunately, many of these ranches aren't contiguous - everybody's land is all mixed up like a checkerboard.

These days, a cowboy's horse is likely to be named Kawasaki or Yamaha.

"If I could roll back the years ....."
 
"I also ridiculed the image of Horn (actor Steve McQueen) affixing a tang sight to a '76, in the later era."

Two comments...

Tang sights are pretty ridiculous on any rifle with recoil much more than a .30-30, and even that's marginal, IMHO. Too much of a chance of taking the sight disk off the eye if you're making a snap shot.

But, but that as it may, I don't have any problem believing that he would have used a tang sight. Even then tang sights were recognized as being vastly superior to the ludicrous buckhorn sights, and were extremely popular as extra-cost addons. Tang sights are really the precursor to the modern receiver-mounted peep sight.
 
Pine,

I know what your point was. But my point remains that when people think of the "Wild West," they don't think of unfenced land, herds of cattle, and dirt farmers.

They thing of Indians in war paint, vast herds of buffalo, and cowboys dueling it out with Matt Dillon-types in Dodge City.

That's the romantic notion, based on what the Wild West was between about 1865, when the major westward expansions across the plains began, and about 1885, when the last of the vast buffalo herds were exterminated, the majority of the indians had been rounded up and stuck on reservations, and barbed wire began closing the open range.

Moreso, the view that most Americans have of the Wild West is largely a fantasy created by eastern writers who never visited the area.

Montana, Idaho, the Dakotas, they all maintained significant open range until well after the death of the classic Wild West.

My Great-Grandmother homesteaded -- solo, but her brothers had their places in the area -- in Idaho in the 1890s through the first decade of the 20th century.

My Great-Grandfather, who married the woman above, was a cowboy for several years in the Dakotas.

My Grandmother was born in the Black Hills.

Oh, and there are a few states that still give homestead exemptions on property taxes.
 
Skunk...

get the .30-30; you'll be glad you did. Nostalgia is a great thing, but the .30 WCF was as much of an improvement over the 'punkin rollers' as the '06 was over the .30 WCF a few years later. If you're just shootin' at tin bad guys then any of the pistol-caliber lever actions will work fine- but for a 'using' gun, the .30-30 outclasses them significantly.
 
I like the 45-70 myself(custer and all that), but if I were to buy a revolver and rifle of the same caliber it would be a 44WCF(44-40).
 
Hey Mike, Colt only ever sold all of 6000-ish large-frame Lightnings, apparenly they had issues with primary extraction, so they didn't sell so great. You notice any such effects in the two you shot?

It is worth noting that Trapdoor Springfields also had extraction issues, but that was not the fault of the gun. Early Frankford Arsenal cartridges were inside-primed, and made from drawn COPPER.

Copper completely lacks brass' springiness, and the cases would fire-form a very malleable metal into the chambers, and stick them hard enough to have extractors rip through rims. This was a BIG problem for Custer and Co. when it mattered. Frankford Arsenal didn't fix the issue with brass cases until a couple years after that, IIRC. Didn't replace the copper-cased ammo in inventory, just used it up.

I dunno if the various other rounds that were prevalent at the time had copper cases or not. .45-70 was the first center-fire case in gubmint service, and certainly one of the first extant, dating from 1873 like the rifle that introduced it. Lightnings were introduced in 1884 I believe, with the large-frames coming out in 1888, I think. (Don't have my Wilson handy right now.) By then, the copper thing may have been hammered out. Lightings don't have any camming action for extraction, just elbow power.

My vintage Trapdoor certainly spits brass cases with alacrity, and they even re-chamber with no problem. Not so my 1884-vintage .44-40 Lightning! Those cases come out with their shoulders very nearly gone, a problem typical for most vintage .44-40's, which contributes to very short brass life due to excessive re-forming. I've read speculations to the effect that these grossly oversize/mis-shapen chambers were an attempt to assure functioning with lots of blackpowder fouling, but I wonder if in fact it was to attempt to fend off case sticking due to copper cases.

I dunno. I can't remember the details of the dates, I don't have my books handy, and I don't know if anyone other than the gubmint arsenal used copper cases. They certainly would've stuck any serious-powered round like the big blackpowder rounds in the .45-70 class, and stuck HARD. Mallet-rap on a cleaning rod hard.

FWIW, my '91-vintage .38-40 Lightning also has the same case-bulging tendency that the .44 has. Funny fire-forming aside, both rifles have no extraction issues with modern brass, and both are quite accurate with black-equivalent smokeless reloads with either jacketed or lead bullets. (I shoot lead, though. Jacketed bullets are hard on archaic barrel metallurgy, and jacketed Winchester ammo costs $25 a box IF I can find it.)

I want a large-frame Lightning. But at only 6000-ish built, I've never even SEEN one. They cost a lot, as you can imagine. I wonder if the replica folks'll ever make 'em. I don't think the Lightning action will ever be offered in big-bore magnums, though. While not as delicate as a '73 Winchester's toggle-link set-up, the dropping-lock action parts (The action bar does sorta the same thing that the FN FAL bolt carrier does. The front-pivoting locking brace drops down against frame lugs when locked, but at the front rather than the back of the bolt.) are pretty thin, as are the receiver walls, and even with modern steels I doubt they would withstand 40,000 psi. Winchester 92's and 94's are a bunch beefier.

Lightnings are GREAT fun. Lots of folks at the range come up to me wondering "what kind of .22 is that?" because of it's funny little fore-end grip, negligible recoil, and it's (Relatively.) quiet operation. Then they see 1.) the brass fly out, 2.) the "thwack" of a 200-grain flat-point bullet impact, and 3.) the hole in the end of the barrel. Most people have never heard of 'em, much less seen one. I like to tell 'em it's my "Colt-flavored Winchester competitor".
 
Copper cased .45-70? Inside primed?

Oh, you mean one of these. :)

attachment.php


I've got one of those around here in .45 S&W, too...

The copper-cased .45-70 round was adopted for a very logical reason -- deep brass drawing was still in its infancy, and still giving the military a lot of trouble. As a stop-gap measure it was decided to stick with the copper until the brass draw method was perfected a few years later.

Commercially the deep brass draw method was used a number of years before the military used it, but it was very problematic. The only saving grace was that commercial ammo didn't tend to sit around for nearly as long as military ammo.

And, early on, the commercial companies didn't necessarily use deep brass drawing, they spin drew them, a much slower and less precise method that leaves you with thicker case walls.

In fact, I'm pretty sure that's how Ballard's "Everlast" cases were made. There is no way that they could have been deep drawn using the technology and methods of the day, not with case walls that thick.

As for not knowing anyone using copper cased ammo other than the US military, the commercial loaders in this country churned out BILLIONS of rounds of copper-cased .22s all the way up to, and possibly past, World War II.

The priming method, in this case the type developed by Col. Steven Benet, was because copper wasn't strong enough to support a punched through center fire primer.

The British, of course, addressed both problems in a different way -- to deal with the fact that they couldn't draw brass, they used a rolled brass foil/cardboard sandwich for the bodies on the .577 and .577/.450 cartridges. The body was rolled, and then inserted into a punched brass cup. An iron washer was placed on the back of the cup, and a hollow rivet was run through all three pieces, holding the whole thing together. The primer was then set into the hollow rivet, making it look not unlike a shotshell.

Contrary to popular belief, the extraction problems weren't due solely to the fact that the cases were relatively soft copper. It had lot more to do with the design of the extractor (it bore on only a very small part of the rim), it was a black powder gun, so the chamber fouled, and when fired quickly, the gun heated up.

The British experienced many of the same problems with their Martini-Henry's and they were shooting the composition cartridges I've described above.

As for the Colt Lightning, the rounds that I shot were very light reloads to take into account that the rifle is old and valuable. So, no extraction problems.
 

Attachments

  • benet2.jpg
    benet2.jpg
    2.1 KB · Views: 658
I'm partial to my lightweight Marlin 93 carbine in 32-40. The stock John Wayne loads were right on the money for SASS shoots . I reload cast lead 190 grains at 1200-1300fps in my 5 boxes of John Wayne headstamped cases for the same results. I had Dale Storey tune it up and make new firing pin. The original Ballard rifling makes 32-40 unbelievably accurate for some reason.;)
 
I've got a pre-64 model 1894 Winchester in .30-30 and love it. Sure, most the west was tame by then but I think it should still count as a cowboy gun/caliber. If it's good enough for John Wayne its good enough for me ;)

And how about a model 1895 Winchester? Does .30-40 Krag count as a cowboy round? I think the rough-riders used this round durring the spanish-american war...
 
Thanks for filling in the details, Mike. That clears up my questions nicely. It's worth remembering that metalurgical technology and machine engineering was evolving side-by-side with gun technology.

I agree that the Trapdoor extractor isnt all that big, but the only gun with a bigger one I can think of is the "Super Claw" typical of a Mauser. The Springfield extractor covers about 40-50% of the cartridge's upper left quarter, which is pretty good, almost 1/4" of bearing surface. With the leverage provided by the length of the breech-block, Trapdoors can tear through drawn brass cases too. I remember an account of a Cavalry fight where-in one of the soldiers was equipped with an infantry rifle, and he used his cleaning rod to knock frozen cases out of his compatriot's rifles so they could continue to fight without having to be reduced to a knife with the tip broken off from trying to prise out a lodged copper case.

The military's initial solution was to issue a broken-shell extractor. You can still buy 'em for cheap, but you'll likely never need it with modern brass cases. I wouldn't have wanted to stop in the middle of a fight to run through the tedious process of running the silly things. Some Indian's gonna charge up and scalp you while you fiddle about.

I've seen those nightmarish wrinkly rolled brass confrabulous flabtraptions the British were making, but I'd never heard of a similar problem. I haven't read as much British battle material as Indian war stuff, mostly because Trapdoor Springfield was the second gun I ever bought. Luckily, I don't expect to find myself shooting numerous blackpowder loads through my rifle fast enough to heat it up and get it dirty enough to cause problems.

That begs a couple of questions, though. Did .45-70 caliber Gatling guns have issues too? And I wonder if .44 Henry and .56 Spencer cartridges ever had extraction issues, or was it not a problem because of the much lower operating pressure in the big-bore rimfires. Spencer carbines ran a 530?-grain bullet at about 900 fps, and I think the Henry was pretty close to that also with it's 200-grainer in front of 28 grains of black. I imagine Henrys and Spencers would get plenty hot in a tight spot, but I've never read about similar problems.

Oops, thread drift. Lessee...

Skunk, go with the .44-40. It's got the most classic "Ree-haw!" nostalgia value, and it's more appropriate to CAS than a high-power round like the .30-30. It's getting findable for cheap-ish these days, (Like $10-ish/50.) it hits good and hard with big bullets, and has very little recoil and not much noise. And the guns hold TONS of those short little buggers. My Lightning will take 15-16 of 'em under it's 24" barrel. Winchester 94's hold 6. The Winchester '92 action is also one of the fastest, smoothest leverguns ever made. Only a Lightning, with it's approx. 2" action throw, might be able to surpass it for speed of operation.

.30-30's are LOUD, and in a Winchester 94 or similar, it kicks rather briskly. It'll drill right through a mild steel CAS target, and the lever throw is greater than 90 degrees. They get HOT too.

Henry rifle replicas have an unmistakeable silhouette due to their lack of a fore-end stock, and they all come in .44-40. Henry's have mucho style. '66 and '73 Winchester's also have a lot of panache.

The .45-70 belongs in single-shots, preferably of Trapdoor persuasion.

Jus' my $00.02. In CAS, style is half the fun. There we go, safely back on topic, at least until Mike reads this. ;)
 
A large part of the problem appears to be related to case length, more so than the power of the round.

The longer case would tend to hang up in the chamber more readily when the gun was hot.

You need to review some of the accounts of the early battles using the short lever Martini-Henry rifle and the brass foil cases. Jammed guns were found on the field at Islawandana after the battle, and jamming was experienced by soldiers at Rorke's Drift.

A show a few years ago, called "Secrets of the Dead" on PBS, examined a lot of the contemporary lore about both battles.

They did a rapid firing test of the short lever Martini-Henry, and used a temperature gauge on the barrel at the breech to see if the jamming problems were real or might have been caused by a measure of panic on the part of the troopers.

I forget how many rounds they fired in fairly rapid sucession, but when they hit a certain temperature, the Martini started jamming. Badly.

This wasn't as bad a situation as with American ammo, though. Remember what the head on the British ammo was made from -- it was a composite case with an iron washer as the case head. Pretty resistant to pull through.

Part of the response to this problem was to issue the Long Lever Martini-Henry starting in, I believe, 1883.

I don't think the Gatling guns had a problem replated specifically to this, but they MAY have. Early Gatlings were considered to be jammers. It could have been related to fouling, it could have been related to barrel heating, or both. One of the advantages of the Gatling is that each barrel gets a chance to cool, but if you do the math, if you manage to crank out 200 rounds a minute (a doable speed), and you have a 10 barreled gun, each barrel is firing 20 times in one minute. No matter what that's going to heat those barrels substantially.

Spencers and Henrys I don't know about, either, but once again I could see it being less likely because of the much smaller amount of powder being burned, which generates less latent heat, as well as the shorter case being less prone to jamming.
 
David 4516 wrote - - -

I've got a pre-64 model 1894 Winchester in .30-30 and love it. Sure, most the west was tame by then but I think it should still count as a cowboy gun/caliber. If it's good enough for John Wayne its good enough for me
Click to expand...
Wouldn't surprise me to learn that the Duke used a .30-30 in SOME movie. However, since I began paying attention to such things, he used a Winchester 1892. I've read that it was a .38-40 at least part of the time. Yup, even in a lot of movies clearly set inthe era when an 1873 would have been more proper.

Sorry - - - -

Best,
Johnny
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

S
  • Locked
Uberti vs Cimarron vs Winchester lever rifle question.
Replies
13
Views
3K
CraigC
CraigC
S
  • Locked
Best 45-70 under 450
2
Replies
29
Views
2K
Dmitri Popov
D
R
  • Locked
The 30-30 round?
2
Replies
43
Views
2K
saturno_v
S
S
  • Locked
Looking into a lever action and was curious about calibers
Replies
15
Views
855
115grfmj
1
C
  • Locked
I have always wanted a 30-30 and a 45-70?
Replies
11
Views
757
kptaylor
K
Back
Top