45-70 effectiveness at 200yards?

ohihunter2014 said:

I will be getting to a 200-300yards range this weekend and thought about loading for the 45-70 and seeing how it shoots at 200yards but after some thought is it and a 50cal muzzleloader really effective at 200yards on whitetail?

Muzzleloader will be 110gr bh209 and 300gr xtp and 300gr hp with 45-70 going about 1800-2000fps.

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I shot clean thru a goat end to end at 169yds with a 250ftx at 1800 from my buddies muzzy. Thats longer than any deer is wide.
IMO a 300gr .45 cal bullet will reliably kill farther than most of us can hit with one.

Get your sighting down and what you propose is more than adequate for a 45-70 at 200 yards.

them 1000 plus yard shooters with the 45/70 with 500 gr bullets they still go 2 feet in the ground. with the 250 gr and up with the size of the 45 bullets u just have to hit them to kill.

Of course it is

Yep, and you probably won't have to field dress it.

schotzfyred said:

Yep, and you probably won't have to field dress it.

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if anything the 45/70 is easy on the meat. there is really no need to go over trapdoor fps. i do some very very hot loads in my Siamese mauser in 45/70 but hunt with a 405 at about 1400 to 1500 fps a hard cast does not damage t much meat just clean hole.

Learn to judge distance and the 45/70 will do the job out to as far as you can see your target.

VA27 said:

Learn to judge distance and the 45/70 will do the job out to as far as you can see your target.

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Agree. The thing drops like a rock. At black powder velocities, my Trapdoor was 22 inches high at 100 yards, with the 200 yard leaf. And, based on looking at data on the web, that is about right.

If you plan to hunt with it, get one of those range finders. I bought a Burris at Cabelas for close to $100.00, they have a Nikon Aculon on sale right now for $149.99, https://www.cabelas.com/product/hun...nikon-aculon-rangefinder/1745134.uts?slotId=0, and I took that range finder out all over the place lasing things. The distances at my gun range where consistent with the device, and so where distances at CMP Talladega, out to 300 yards. I don't remember trying the thing at 600 yards. Something had to be big enough and reflective enough to provide a reading, but it was fun guessing at a distance and seeing what the Burris range finder said it was. I found that I had made some 47 yard kills on squirrels in my neighborhood, with a 177 pellet gun. Average murdering distance for a tree rat was around 25 yards. Once you find a hunting spot, you can laser trees, big rocks, and get an idea of the distance, and decide on a sight picture if some poor deer wanders in the area.

The 45/70 is a heck of a round and will put a world of hurt on anything.

Used to shoot a rolling block at 100 and 200 yards. Lyman 457124, 375 grains, 5 grains DuPont shotgun bulk smokeless under 55 grains ffg black, card on top. Bullet seated just in the rifling. Zero at 100, 24" elevation for 200. Groups, 1 1/4" at 100, 3 5/16 at 200. No clue what 300 would take.

A mortar team to plot the grid azimuth and range

In all seriousness if you can get the proper distance and the holdover for the target the old warhorse packs a good whollop at distances far beyond what you may think it’ll do.

Stay safe!

I had a friend who had the Browning Single shot in 45-70 (BPCR). It was used for gongs at 200 yards and was VERY effective. ( I should have bought that rifle from him when I had the chance. Damn 20-20 hindsight)

Slamfire said:

Agree. The thing drops like a rock. At black powder velocities, my Trapdoor was 22 inches high at 100 yards, with the 200 yard leaf. And, based on looking at data on the web, that is about right.

If you plan to hunt with it, get one of those range finders. I bought a Burris at Cabelas for close to $100.00, they have a Nikon Aculon on sale right now for $149.99, https://www.cabelas.com/product/hun...nikon-aculon-rangefinder/1745134.uts?slotId=0, and I took that range finder out all over the place lasing things. The distances at my gun range where consistent with the device, and so where distances at CMP Talladega, out to 300 yards. I don't remember trying the thing at 600 yards. Something had to be big enough and reflective enough to provide a reading, but it was fun guessing at a distance and seeing what the Burris range finder said it was. I found that I had made some 47 yard kills on squirrels in my neighborhood, with a 177 pellet gun. Average murdering distance for a tree rat was around 25 yards. Once you find a hunting spot, you can laser trees, big rocks, and get an idea of the distance, and decide on a sight picture if some poor deer wanders in the area.

The 45/70 is a heck of a round and will put a world of hurt on anything.

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Did you actually shoot BP out of it or just load it to get that FPS out of it.

I have started doing BP for my trapdoor and have really had fun shooting it....but I doubt I will do it much that loading process is just a little more of a pain in the butt to me.

You do your part, it’ll definitely do it’s part.

fpgt72 said:

Did you actually shoot BP out of it or just load it to get that FPS out of it.

I have started doing BP for my trapdoor and have really had fun shooting it....but I doubt I will do it much that loading process is just a little more of a pain in the butt to me.

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I loaded AA5744 to black powder velocities. Accuracy was awful. I used commercial cast bullets, I have not slugged the barrel to determine its diameter. Those commercial cast bullets leaded, and I tried an experiment in which I dipped the bullets into white lithium based grease, and fired them. This positively reduced leaded to almost nothing. Point of impact changed as the barrel greased up.





Cases heavily greased besides ungreased cases. A heavy grease coating will squeeze around the case and out the back, into the action.



I need to slug the barrel, I plan to get off my duff someday and cast some softer lead bullets, and see if that will reduce the groups. I think the real problem with these smoke sticks is the barrel dimensions are all over the place. I have been told, and I believe, don't ever shoot jacketed in a vintage Trapdoor or you will shoot the rifling out. I do know, the period steels were soft and weak.

I "plink" with my 1886 Winchester........11 grains Unique pushing a 350 cast at around 1000.....fun load, easy on the shoulder.

I shoot my guide gun with a 350 grain cast bullet over I think 17 grains of trailboss which gives about 1250 fps. Just a nice gently thump in the shoulder. I don't know how much drop there is at 200 yards but I have my peep sight marked for it and hitting a 10" plate through the peep sight is not a problem. Even with full power ammo I would need a range finder and a scope to hunt at that distance but I would be confident I could do it. My normal 40-100 yard hunting ranges is a piece of cake. I have a couple stands that only have 50 yards of visibility so I take it with when I go to sit in one of them.

Just got my 1873 yesterday. Thanks for the info. I have a Guide Gun. At the range I can hit a 1 foot square metal target at 200 yards at will with cowboy loads or modern loadings. No issues with taking a 200 yard shot as long as you know where you are aiming. But isn't that true for everything? All bullets fall at the same speed. A slower bullets get down range at a slower pace for it falls more per yard. Doesn't matter as long as you know what your aiming at. You do have to consider the time it take for the bullet to get there.

200yrds with a 45-70? No way. Those big ol’ punkin balls fall out of the sky once they cross 70 yards, and the bullets are flying so slowly they won’t expand unless you use extreme pressure Marlin Only loads, which will kick your arm clean off of your body, and you’d be much better off with a modern bottleneck cartridge...

Take your pick of misguided internet myths about the .45-70... as is often the case, reality is typically quite different...

If you can manage drop and are willing to invest 1) the time and ammo cost to learn the actual drops for your load, and 2) the money to equip a scope with either dialable turrets or a graduated reticle to allow you to better manage said drop, you’ll be happy out to about 350.

My processor calculated 315-325 live weight for this guy. He was hit by a factory Hornady 325grn FTX leaving that Marlin 1895 Guide Gun at 1795fps, at 250yrds. He ran a few yards, jumped a fence, and crumpled where he landed. The near lung was cut in half, heart turned to jelly, and the rear lung was shredded. The bullet stopped under the hide, outside of the rib muscles on the far side. It DID require 30” of hold over in the plex reticle Bushnell Elite 3-9x on top, but it obviously did the job.

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:



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.


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.

shoobe01 said:

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:

View attachment 799476

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.
View attachment 799477

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.

Click to expand...

Build yourself a .458, all the cool kids are doing it

Very effective on buffalo.

shoobe01 said:

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.

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Try a .450 Bushmaster. I've been shooting one as a replacement for my 1895G and it's all the .45-70 fun you could ever want in an AR platform.