So any advantages of the a modern rifle in .45-70?

whm1974 said:

Didn't the .45-70 almost disappeared entirely at the time when created the .444 Marlin? Which was why Marlin developed the cartridge in the first place....

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Indeed. No 45-70 rifle had been made in years when the 444 Marlin was introduced. Perversely, the 444 probably gave some impetus to the resurgence of the 45-70.

Could try to find a Siamese mauser, I've loaded this one up to 2300fps with 400 grainers.

Nothing like slinging 600gr lead chunks at 1500yds and just holepunching through a dead tree.

And hitting the 300yd steel with 500gr 1400fps gaschecked goodness with SERIOUS AUTHORITY. The 6.5 creedmoor next to me was pinging it while I was pong-ing loudly.
True enough it takes my rounds 3x as long to get there but I like the senic route


Sometimes bigger is better

whm1974 said:

So how does the .458 SOCOM compare to the .45-70 in rifles with short barrels? About the same?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.458_SOCOM

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In a stronger action than the AR they are pretty comparable, from what Ive read and been told.

Best i could get from my Ar was 300gr nosler balistic tip (muzzeloader bullets) or hornady hps at 1950, and 405 remingtons at 1650ish.
Thats a middling at best load from a modern .45-70.

Those 405s went clean thru an 650lb feral bulls skull and thru the shoulder, maybe shoulders, on another one.

whm1974 said:

So you gotten two feral bulls with only one shot? Not bad, not bad at all... What did you do with all of that meat..?

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sorry poorly worded.
I shot two bulls, one thru head twice. The other took a single round thru the shoulders up high.

There were ......6-8 of us on that run i think, i cant remember. We took 4 bulls and shared the meat with some of the dlnr guys too i think.....again cant remember. I was still eating it a year or so later.

And to be fair these things arnt all that hard to poke holes in, but they dont die very easy.

Once their adrenaline is running, they can soak up damage. I emptied my stw into one, and watched one take 4 or 5 hits from a .300 and .270 before tripping on a log and not being able to get back up.

In Ohio, we are limited to straight-walled cartridges for deer hunting with a rifle. I have .44mags and .45-70s for the job. I do like the .45-70. It’s just cool I guess. The 1885 is a stock photo from Bud’s, but I have the same model tucked away in the safe. The lever is (was) an unfired JM Guide Gun Picked up on trade. That was a good trade!

Riomouse911 said:

No, not the dark. I have one of these:

https://www.marlinfirearms.com/lever-action/model-1895-big-bore/model-1895cb

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I've been after a couple of these on the used market in the past. One of these days i'll probably have to spring for a new one.

I had a Marlin lever .45-70. Loaded up some stomper rounds with some boxes of bullets that were pushed to the back of a shelf and less than 1/2 of going price. Once those were gone, the cost of feeding it was pretty steep, and I had no real use for it so it went away. Even hand loads were +/- fifty cents

If it had been deer legal in Indiana at the time I would have kept it

And you can carry your little Snub and have the same cartridge.

Ernie Bass said:

And you can carry your little Snub and have the same cartridge.

View attachment 919486

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I hurt just looking at the pic.

Because a ported JM Marlin is cool yo.

One thing I like about the 45-70 is it gives me another platform to shoot these big fat beauties.

Ernie Bass said:

And you can carry your little Snub and have the same cartridge.

View attachment 919486

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I wonder if they made pocket or inside the waistband holsters for this one?

I'll bet even the 9mm worshipers might allow that a hit from one of these might be almost as good as a 9mm hollowpoint. Whether they admitted it or not, the cast bullet would be cheaper. It could be kind of a poor boy's ultimate self-defense round.

Sneakshot92 said:

I've been after a couple of these on the used market in the past. One of these days i'll probably have to spring for a new one.

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I stumbled onto this one while killing time before a meeting in a pawn shop. It was practically unfired, and the shop had three boxes of ammo for it that was missing five or six rounds. Clearly the first owner bought it, shot it, then sold it in quick succession.

I offered $500 OTD for it and the shop took my offer. I guess there wasn’t a rush on used lever guns there so I helped them reduce their inventory while I increased mine .

The only change, other than adding a peep and swapping out the rear sight with a folder, is someday adding a black recoil pad. The hard plastic buttplate isn’t shoulder-friendly in the least.

Stay safe.

jmr40 said:

The lever action loads which take things up a notch pushing a 400 gr bullet to about 1900 fps

Then the modern loads intended for strong single shots or bolt guns. You can shoot a 400 gr bullet to about 2100 fps, about the same speed a 458 shoots 500 gr bullets.

On paper that looks good, but in the real world even the hottest 45-70 loads are marginal on truly big game.

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As a counterpoint here, Brian Pearce documented in Handloader Magazine an African Safari with a 45-70, firing a 400grn solid at 1800fps, during which he killed a large bull at 100yrds, AND killed the unseen cow standing behind the bull, both in one shot.

whm1974 said:

So how does the .458 SOCOM compare to the .45-70 in rifles with short barrels? About the same?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.458_SOCOM

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The Socom doesn’t quite match the standard “trapdoor level” .45-70 loads with the same bullet. Marlin Level loads leave the 458 behind.

Even if both are chambered in the same strong, modern bolt action, the 45-70’s larger case will deliver more, at a lower pressure, than possible from the much smaller Socom case.

For most folks hunting deer at 100yrds or less, there’s not much functional difference between the two - nor between the 44mag and 45-70 either - but for anyone pushing the limits of either, the smaller cases need not apply.

All of them are blissfully fun cartridges, and quite capable in hunting fields. Frankly, all of them are far more capable than most folks ever give them credit.

The .45/70 is a great cartridge. Velocity-wise, in a strong rifle, it does with a 400gr what a .44 does with a 250gr. The problem with .44 rifles is the way they are configured. They're pretty much limited to original type revolver loads. If we could get one with the standard twist rate (1-20" vs 1-38") that was tuned to feed long, heavyweight bullets, it'd be an entirely different animal. I will say this, there are plain few critters I'd hunt with the .45-70 that I wouldn't also hunt with a .44Mag revolver with the right bullet.

Bear in mind that jmr40 posts the same nonsense about the .45-70 in every thread related to it and never responds to a counterpoint.

whm1974 said:

I heard no idea that a big bore rifle round could bring down two large game at a time... Aside from some hunter hunting with a .50 BMG Rifle.... But that shoots a heavier bullet at a 1000+fps more then teh .45-70 does.

To be honest I always thought that bringing back a couple of large game with only one shot was a bunch of leg pulling...

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Nope. When you're hunting with a big bore, you always have to be careful what's on the other side.

I recently posted about working up a 405gr hardcast at 1830fps from an 18.5" barrel. If you like to use muzzle energy as a reference, it's over 3000ftlbs of energy. So a little more than your average .44 mag.

My dad and his friend were the first round here to get the 45-70 bfr the next year his friend used it inAfrica, he shot the big 5 with it.
Both were the 7.5 barrel,