.45-70 adapter for 12 gauge: Worth it?

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TTv2

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I've had an off/on interest in this for a few years and have usually passed because I've tried other adapters in my shotgun before only to find that the POI was way below the POA. The groups were fine once I could figure out where to hold to measure them on paper.

That turned me off of adapters in a shotgun for a while, but long story short I started thinking about the .45-70 adapter again because... I don't have a .45-70 rifle and even the H&R/NEF ones are starting to get pricey and they don't have iron sights. At $165, the MCA adapter is the least expensive way for me to get into .45-70.

So, I checked to see if anyone had done a review of the .45-70 adapter and I found one video of a guy who was shooting his in a combination gun that had front and rear sights and at 15 yards his looked like it was shooting to POA.

I have surmised that this happened because the weight of the bullet helped raise the POI and thought, given that .45-70 can shoot anything from 300 to 500 grain projectiles, that I should be able to find a bullet that does the same for me in my shotgun.

Thus, I come here now to get input from others to see if this is something worth pursuing. I'm not looking to get 1 MOA with this, I probably would never shoot beyond 150 yards with it anyway. Trajectory is so steep.
 
Im considering a set as well to turn my browning in to a el cheapo double rifle.

to test the theory my ffl buddy and I are working on a project with a Chaszel 9mm 11" insert in his little break action 20ga, topped with adjustable turkey sights...that just clamp onto the rib.

I shimmed the rear of the insert to have less play in the chamber, and added all three orings that can be attached to the front as well as greased them well. Hopefully, we can try it tomorrow, tho I think he's going to the other side of the island so I cant get ahold of the gun.

PXL_20201119_012534160.MP.jpg PXL_20201119_012543127.MP.jpg
 
I just wanted to add that I would consider trap door loads to be max. Be careful what you shoot in it.

On a side note, if you do this can you mark the adapter at 12 o’clock with a sharpie marker before you shoot it? I’m curious how much the adapter will spin in the chamber from the reactive torque of the rifling. Just something that popped in my head.
 
I remember not too long ago that EAA or one of the importers had a double shotgun that had available 45-70 tubes that locked in with the choke tube screws and lock rings. Wish I'd bought one.
 
I just wanted to add that I would consider trap door loads to be max. Be careful what you shoot in it.

On a side note, if you do this can you mark the adapter at 12 o’clock with a sharpie marker before you shoot it? I’m curious how much the adapter will spin in the chamber from the reactive torque of the rifling. Just something that popped in my head.
MCA uses O rings and they are a tight fit, there's no spinning occuring, but marking the adapters so that they're in the same position each time it's removed and re-inserted will help with repeatable accuracy.

I agree on the trapdoor loads as a max. I've read that some break actions can take the next level Marlin loads, but for what this is, I don't see the point of going above trapdoor.
 
borrowed and shot the little 9mm/20 today, but didnt get to shoot any groups. I just got the thing hitting to poa at 75" yds. I did manage to powder a fist size rock with consecutive hits, so its not too bad. The turkey sights clamped to the rib zeroed in just a couple shots.......this is looking more promising for a psuedo double.

Pulled the insert, tossed it in a bag with the 9mm ammo, and then went bird hunting.
 
I have an MCA 12" 30-30 to 20 ga adaptor. I have tried it in three different 20 ga guns and it shoots to a different POI in each one, none of which are accurate much beyond 30 yards. Where I came out is that there was no advantage over Brenekke slugs. I'm confident that the same would be true with 12 ga and 45-70.
 
What is the push for 45-70? With all things considered (in my mind) when you swap a shotgun over your stuck with lower level loads, questionable accuracy, and an odd extraction system. You would be roughly in the upper limits of 410 Slug range and that can be done a lot cheaper.
 
I would have some concerns about the strength of the breech face to withstand the repeated battering of 20K+ psi Trapdoor loads- they are still way higher than normal 12 ga. The H&R/NEF Handirifles used a different receiver material than their cheaper basic shotguns to get around this problem.
 
Im not horribly concerned with the strength of my Citori. The little 20ga were messing with now wont be used with anything heavier than the 9mm, and IF this works my buddies Rossi 20ga will probably get a few inserts, but that frame takes rifle barrels.

Theres plenty of guns out there I WOULDNT mess with for sure.
 
I have pondered this some in the past also. I only have one adapter though, a 9mm for my 35 Whelen. It worked well enough for cheap plinking and to get some trigger time with the rifle. However, was a bit annoying to eject, punch case from adapter with stick, load adapter, return to rifle etc. Would say that it had its place for limited things though, none of which would involve crisis situations for me.

It's a really neat proposal, keep us posted. I am concerned that it may be a bit of $$ spent, frustration, etc for limited return.

Buddy had one of the Baikal 45-70 double rifles which were imported for a short time years ago. I should have jumped on it just to have one. They were not great, but may have been my only chance at a reasonable price.

How long are the 45-70 inserts you're looking at? I have seen some barrel length as well as short. Barrel length would be best so long as you had no intention of removing them often. Twist on them?

The $$ and challenge of double rifles is regulating the barrels so they shoot to the same place. Not sure how to address that. Different sight on each barrel maybe?

Please keep us posted. Good idea on the turkey sights!
 
IMHO Just buy a dedicated rifle for the 45/70. For those who like to tinker the project will be fun. I have tinkered on projects gun and none gun related and at the conclusion I thought I would have been better off to buy what I wanted right off the bat. But I did learn something about myself.
 
Perhaps a misplaced aside.... but back in the day, this was the late 70's, we'd take the cheap $150 Walmart single shot break open shotguns, and a CVA or TC .50 or .54 black powder barrel.... bore the choke (mostly, not completely) out of the shotgun, and turn the black powder barrel down to fit. Instead of the breech plug, we made up plugs to fill the back of the chamber to the breech face, and they'd be cut for 209 primers with a little groove just big enough for your fingernail or knife to pick out the spent primer. The barrels were held inside the shotgun with Accraglass, and were driven into the choke area (that was just a small constriction). Those worked, accurate, and ALWAYS went off in our swampy wet Florida blackpowder season. That's not like a 45-70, and there was no stress on the action lock, since the breech plug was there, not a cartridge case. But it was an interesting conversion. I think we made up... oh... six or eight of those, all of 'em still going strong as far as I know.
 
I have pondered this some in the past also. I only have one adapter though, a 9mm for my 35 Whelen. It worked well enough for cheap plinking and to get some trigger time with the rifle. However, was a bit annoying to eject, punch case from adapter with stick, load adapter, return to rifle etc. Would say that it had its place for limited things though, none of which would involve crisis situations for me.

It's a really neat proposal, keep us posted. I am concerned that it may be a bit of $$ spent, frustration, etc for limited return.

Buddy had one of the Baikal 45-70 double rifles which were imported for a short time years ago. I should have jumped on it just to have one. They were not great, but may have been my only chance at a reasonable price.

How long are the 45-70 inserts you're looking at? I have seen some barrel length as well as short. Barrel length would be best so long as you had no intention of removing them often. Twist on them?

The $$ and challenge of double rifles is regulating the barrels so they shoot to the same place. Not sure how to address that. Different sight on each barrel maybe?

Please keep us posted. Good idea on the turkey sights!

With the 9/20, you can just pull the cases out with a finger nail, or just turn the gun over and they fall out.

Im considering 18-24" inserts.

The regulation will be handled by shimming the rear of the insert in the chamber IF there is enough room to do so. If not then ill see about shimming the front in the barrel.
If all thats a bust, well Ill have a spare insert and run a single .45-70 in the top tube and adjust the sights to that.

If I can ever get the stupid win24 im working on running, Ive got a second set of wrecked barrels I was considering trying to epoxy inserts into and fit with actual rifle sights.

IMHO Just buy a dedicated rifle for the 45/70. For those who like to tinker the project will be fun. I have tinkered on projects gun and none gun related and at the conclusion I thought I would have been better off to buy what I wanted right off the bat. But I did learn something about myself.
Id have to agree, if one wanted a double .45-70 for a real reason, there's still plenty around for semi-reasonable costs.

For me at least, the project is more important than the product. If I CAN make a double rifle for 300 bucks ill be stoked, but I honestly don't care if it fails, I don't actually NEED it.
Heh, If I end up with even one working insert set up, ill effectively have a combo gun. Might go as far as to disable the upper ejector/extractor and loctite the insert in...or see if I cant make slot in the insert and modify an ejector to lift the case.......hrrmmmmm.....slot and weld in a 1/4" tab to an extractor......ideas abound......
 
Double rifles really don't appeal to me, much. I think the real deal would be to just run a insert in one barrel of a double shotgun, and have a combination gun.

Where I live a lot of seasons overlap, and I'm sometimes hunting black bear, cougar, turkey, and deer or elk at the same time. And grouse. So having one barrel a rifle, and one a shotgun, would be pretty cool. For me.

I saw a video that Mike "B", (no way could I spell his name, "Belliviue"??)(duelist?) did with a double barrel shotgun with an insert on one side, and with rifle sights on it. Left the right barrel as a shotgun. I really liked it. I'd love to do that. Again, how and where I hunt that would be a really great gun. It certainly would be much lighter than a double rifle.

I have found that break-actions aren't real strong. I've seen quite a few break-opens.....wait for it....break open on firing. So one would not want to use just any shotgun for such a project.
 
I saw a video that Mike "B", (no way could I spell his name, "Belliviue"??)(duelist?) did with a double barrel shotgun with an insert on one side, and with rifle sights on it. Left the right barrel as a shotgun. I really liked it. I'd love to do that. Again, how and where I hunt that would be a really great gun. It certainly would be much lighter than a double rifle..

Ever think about a Savage 24?
 
The coolest rifle/shotgun combo I’ve ever seen was a Jaeger Red Label 20 Ga and .375 H&H O/U set that an LGS called The Shootist down in Murrieta, Ca. had in their cabinet for sale for years.

I think the asking was 8k?... maybe it was more. Honestly, if I’d won a lottery prize this was the first gun I’d buy.

I recall when Browning used to have catalogs with Superposed .270 and .30-06 rifles in them... those were also things of beauty!

https://www.morphyauctions.com/jame...ing-superposed-express-rifle-with-case-49163/

F6D122DD-8B1A-4ABE-8FBE-30647AA4540D.jpeg

Stay safe.
 
You can still get superposed sets, but as doubles go I don't believe they were that well regarded in terms of regulation etc.....This is just what I remember reading from when I bought my Citori and wondered if I could have a set of double rifle barrels made for it.

I was looking at them again yesterday, and some of the sets in the 8-9K range were pretty sweet.
 
borrowed and shot the little 9mm/20 today, but didnt get to shoot any groups. I just got the thing hitting to poa at 75" yds. I did manage to powder a fist size rock with consecutive hits, so its not too bad. The turkey sights clamped to the rib zeroed in just a couple shots.......this is looking more promising for a psuedo double.

Pulled the insert, tossed it in a bag with the 9mm ammo, and then went bird hunting.
I would be interested to hear what you get for groups, but at a shorter range than 75y as I don't want to judge these inserts based off a pistol cartridge at that kind of distance.

Getting the POI down is the challenge with these things if you don't have sights you can work with. Luckily, I could make mine work with a red dot if I wanted, I'd just have to find one that could hold zero with 12 gauge.
 
Double rifles really don't appeal to me, much. I think the real deal would be to just run a insert in one barrel of a double shotgun, and have a combination gun.

Where I live a lot of seasons overlap, and I'm sometimes hunting black bear, cougar, turkey, and deer or elk at the same time. And grouse. So having one barrel a rifle, and one a shotgun, would be pretty cool. For me.

I saw a video that Mike "B", (no way could I spell his name, "Belliviue"??)(duelist?) did with a double barrel shotgun with an insert on one side, and with rifle sights on it. Left the right barrel as a shotgun. I really liked it. I'd love to do that. Again, how and where I hunt that would be a really great gun. It certainly would be much lighter than a double rifle.

I have found that break-actions aren't real strong. I've seen quite a few break-opens.....wait for it....break open on firing. So one would not want to use just any shotgun for such a project.
Never said I wanted a double rifle, but if I did find that the POI was fairly close depending on which barrel these were shot from, I would entertain the idea of buying a second adapter. Like I said, the .45-70 having such a wide range of bullet weights means that it's plausible I could find a combination (no pun intended) of bullet weights that match at a certain distance relative to which barrel they were shot from.

Basically, if I found that a 300 grain .45-70 load shot in the bottom barrel to the same POI as a 400gr load in the top barrel, I'd call that cool beans. Same could be said for different ranges. If I could dial in a load with one barrel to hit at say, 75y and then dial in the other load in the other barrel for 150 and they hit to POA at those ranges, again cool beans.

The goal right now is to buy an adapter for one barrel and leave the other alone so I could have a .45-70 that costs a lot less than $500. Besides, the thought of two 18 inch long adapters and lugging around a 10 pound gun is not something I would enjoy doing.

As to the strength, I'm not shooting this in some $3000 Browning or Beretta, I'm slapping it into a cheap Mossberg Maverick o/u.
 
I've always been nterested in Drillings and cape the..... only problem is they are out of my price range.
I currently have a SxS with a 18" 45 Colt insert...with rifle sights it's 3-4" groups at 50 yards.
I currently have a savage 24 but I'm not a fan of the hammer selector switch
 
Never said I wanted a double rifle, but if I did find that the POI was fairly close depending on which barrel these were shot from, I would entertain the idea of buying a second adapter. Like I said, the .45-70 having such a wide range of bullet weights means that it's plausible I could find a combination (no pun intended) of bullet weights that match at a certain distance relative to which barrel they were shot from.

Basically, if I found that a 300 grain .45-70 load shot in the bottom barrel to the same POI as a 400gr load in the top barrel, I'd call that cool beans. Same could be said for different ranges. If I could dial in a load with one barrel to hit at say, 75y and then dial in the other load in the other barrel for 150 and they hit to POA at those ranges, again cool beans.

The goal right now is to buy an adapter for one barrel and leave the other alone so I could have a .45-70 that costs a lot less than $500. Besides, the thought of two 18 inch long adapters and lugging around a 10 pound gun is not something I would enjoy doing.

As to the strength, I'm not shooting this in some $3000 Browning or Beretta, I'm slapping it into a cheap Mossberg Maverick o/u.

No, never said you did. I just said that I'm not real interested in them, not that I don't like them, but because they are usually very heavy and expensive. As far as converting a double shot gun to a double rifle, that opens that whole can of worms as far as getting both barrels regulated to each other. And, I just think a combo-gun is more useful than just having a second shot of whatever rifle caliber. One could just load a repeater with only two rounds, and have the same thing!!! Kind of.

However, regulating the barrels with different weight bullets, is cool beans and very interesting.
 
No, never said you did. I just said that I'm not real interested in them, not that I don't like them, but because they are usually very heavy and expensive. As far as converting a double shot gun to a double rifle, that opens that whole can of worms as far as getting both barrels regulated to each other. And, I just think a combo-gun is more useful than just having a second shot of whatever rifle caliber. One could just load a repeater with only two rounds, and have the same thing!!! Kind of.

However, regulating the barrels with different weight bullets, is cool beans and very interesting.
I too see a combination gun a lot more useful, but the cool thing about these inserts and a double barrel shotgun is you can have either a combination gun or a double rifle or double shotgun all in one.
 
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