For a while when they were new I had an 1895G and shot it alongside my AR15 friends. 0-300 yards, positions, rapid engagement, etc. Only really stopped because I have weirdly fat thumbs and the loading gate was just so not working for me.
.45/70 has a perfectly accountable drop if you know you dope and can range well, to those ranges. But you can't go further than that. I mean, everyone knows now that you have to have a 6.5CM to get past 600. 308 is obsolete and .45-70-405? I mean... oh:
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Sure, it's a lot of drop, but how about keeping every shot on a 36" plate at 1,000 yards? (Note, it's radius, not diameter so double that for "group size" as we use it today).
http://home.earthlink.net/~sharpsshtr/CritterPhotos/SandyHook/SandyHook.html
Now to power? How about penetrating several inches of wood, and then burying itself in sand: at 3,000 yards. Not Three Hundred, Three Thousand.
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There's a lot of better ways to get a bullet out there, and yes we've made some bad choices of service calibers. The
.45-70 is old, but if you know what it does, it will absolutely do that, every damned time.
More charts at that link including exterior ballistics. A fun read for the .45 Government fans.
I'd have a .45-70 upper for my SBR'd AR if they weren't rimmed so hopeless to feed in a self loader. I do have a .300 BLK, but it just isn't the same.