45-70 BP load

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TomADC

TomADC

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I have Lymans Black Powder handbook, reading it, I'm going to try 60 grs of Goex FFg with a .062 veggie wad, Federal LRP, 500 gr cast bullet.
This is for my Pedersoli Sharps, I finally have all the components together to give these a try.
 
Well after much more reading and talking to those who have done this before I bumped my starting load up to 66 grs of Goex FFg. After weighing the bullets I find they are actually 525 gr +/- .5. Loaded up 25 to start with now going to load 70 grs and see if that makes a difference.
I'm also wondering about what it is going to be like at the buttplate end of these.
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Benchrest Hold

fineredmist, an experienced .45-70 bench rest shooter showed me this hold to help dampen the amount of felt recoil when shooting heavy loads, especially from lighter weight rifles.
He said that this hold would help to control the rifle from torquing when the long, heavy bullets blast through the rifling as they expand and get engraved. I found that it certainly does help to protect the shoulder from the pain and discomfort of recoil, especially during warm weather when people wear light clothing and are without protection. But a slightly higher gun rest may be required.

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If 66 grain of powder gives you 100% load density than that is the charge you need. You do NOT want any air space between powder and bullet.

Recoil ican be tempered with a towel between the shoulder and buttplate or negated by firing from a standing bench.

Personnally, I tend to fire the heavy hitters from a sitting position (not sitting at the bench but the traditional sitting position) and let my body absorb the recoil. With some cartridges, I have to pick myself up and resettle to sitting before the next shot.
 
I have a strap on shoulder pad made by Past that works great plus my rifle is 12 lbs plus which helps. With luck I;ll shoot this week.
Articap, had a friend that had a .50 BMG WW 1 Britsh Boy's anti tank rifle, that hold is how that rifle was set up, hand grips for that hold, but it still kicked pretty good.
 
Got my Pedersoli Sharps a year ago, it has 500+ rounds since.
Like you, I thought start small and work up, NOT, start with 69 or 70 grains of FFg and the 525 grain slug. The recoil just isn't there, people who shoot mine say, "that kicks less than my .308" or whatever they have.
I load 69 grains of FFg, a .030 card and a 550 grain Postel bullet, at an avg. of 1150 fps. That happens to be the best accuracy out of my Sharps.

Ray
 
I've got about a 100 unlubed bullets 525 gr that were supposed to be 500 & 485 that were supposed to be 500gr. I'm going to pan lube these using 50% beeswax, 40% Crisco & 10 % anhydrous lanolin. I'll kick the powder up to 70 grs of FFg and see how those shoot.
 
I went out and shot 25 rounds of 69 gr. 2f and 25 rounds of Triple 7 yesterday, I like the 7, but need to do some serious working with it before I go any further. It ain't black powder and has a lot more recoil. The Triple 7 load was not 69 gr..
The catch to shooting black is that you can't get enough in a .45-70 case to cause any damage with bullets up to and beyond 550 gr.. One of the fellows on BPCR said to just stuff it full and seat the bullet and shoot. Don't work quite that way.
I use a 34" aluminum arrow shaft with a funnel on top for a drop tube, it makes compression easier, speaking of that, have you loaded for one of these before?
IMPORTANT> do not leave an air gap between the bullet, wad and powder column. I don't think that would be possible, but it is the warning that appears the most for beginners.

Ray
 
At 66 grs I didn't use a drop tube, but it did fill the case, I added a .062 veggie wad, then used the Wolf powder compression tool and compressed the podwer to allow for seatting the bullets I used, I did use a case expander tool first to a depth of .610 into the case. Everything went together just fine, my next loads as soon as I get these bullets lubed will be with 70 grs of FFg using my drop tube of course, I'll also used the case expander which is .458 and the podwer compression tool.
Probably won't get to the range until week after next, going to the desert to play golf for a week.
 
You may want to slug your bore, I was told, after shooting about 50 rounds of .459 sized bullets, that Pedersoli's are more like .460 bore. I slugged mine and they were correct, I no longer size my bullets.
My first 50 rounds shot 8 plus inches at 100 yds. I were hoping for 3-4. After I eliminated the sizing, the groups went to 2-3 inches.

Have fun, good shooting.

Ray
 
My Pedersoli slugged right at .458 exactly. Mine actually has a fairly tight throat so I had to get a custom Brooks mould with the front driving band undersized to allow me to seat the bullet out farther. Once I started shooting that bullet it was a lot easier to load and much more accurate.
 
45-70 loads

I've got a Rem rolling block on hold,rebarreled w/what looks like an old win highwall barrel,30in heavy,just begging for a tang sight setup;wonder what weight bullets it will require? Black powder frame,so it shall be.
 
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