45-70 for 200yd deer?

I have been shooting variations of this load for years.

45-70
300 grain Hornady Hollow Point seated to 2.54" and crimped with a Lee Factory Crimp die
Winchester brass trimmed to 2.1", if necessary
CCI 200 primers
55 grains of H4198
2160 fps from a 22" barrel
28,000 CUP
Sighted 3" high at 100 yards it is about 3.5" low at 200 yards.

You might want to look into the new Speer UniCore .458 300 grain bullet. I've seen pictures of text book expansion on hogs at close range.


A Speer 300 grain recovered from a 150 pound hog after travelling the entire body length.


Speer UniCore 300 grain hollow point.

The Speer 300 grain at MidwayUSA

The 300 gr. X bullet is an excellent choice, but go with the Spitzer X, not the flat nose. There is no reason to handicap yourself, as far as flat shooting, with the XFN bullet, not out of the No. 1. I shoot this out of my 15" Contender and get 1890 fps. This limits shots to 175 yards due to the velocity falling below 1600 fps, the minimum needed for expansion with this bullet, but the trajectory is quite flat out to 200 yards. I shoot H322 and get 1.5" groups for 5 at 100 yards. I have not shot this out of my No.1 yet, but I suspect you would have a real deer slayer, or anything else for that matter. I have taken over two dozen deer from 90 to 200 pounds with this bullet from every conceivable angle, and it is absolute murder, and this mind you is out of a handgun. And, I have yet to recover a bullet, they always go clean through and all but one deer dropped in its tracks, and no, there were no CNS shots. All were heart/shoulder/lung from various angles. Meat damage is minimal. Put this puppy in a rifle, get the extra velocity, and you will have a flat shooting S.O.G. on your hands. By the way, the X spitzer bullet expands at lower velocities than most any lead-core bullet, including Barnes and Woodleigh, which both need 2000 fps impact velocity to expand reliably. Barnes states 1500 fps with the .458 300 gr. X spitzer, but my test show that below 1600 fps, in wet newsprint, expansion becomes iffy (the XFN expands down to around 1000 fps, but you give up a lot of range with the flat nosed shape). Stick with 1600 fps as your minimum and they work every time. Plus, the X spitzer shape really holds its velocity and lets you reach out and touch something. Much better for long range work than any flat-nosed bullet, obviously.

I did a little research last night after the puter was shut down and thought you might be interested. In the NO. 1 the 300 gr. X bullet, spitzer or fn, can be loaded up to about 2260 fps. That's cooking. With the X spitzer, this allows a MPBR (6" vital) of 217 yards, with a zero at 185 yards. Of course, that means that all the way out to 217 yards, the bullet is no more than 3" above or below the line of sight, so in effect, it allows a dead-on hold out to 217 with X spitzer bullet. Velocity does not fall below 1600 fps until 300 yards, at which point it is down 16 inches, so you can see it is falling like a rock past 217 yards. With a muzzle energy of 3403 ft-lbs, it still has 1709 ft-lbs at 300 yards.
With the XFN bullet, same velocity, the MPBR is 203 yards with a zero at 175 yards. Not a lot of difference, but some. This bullet is down 22 inches at 300 yards (6 inches more than the X spiter) and while having the same ME as the 300 Xstizer, the FN is down to 1121 ft-lbs of energy at 300 yards, or almost 600 ft-lbs less than the X sptizer. While the FN does not fall below its minimum needed velocity for expansion until 425 yards, the bullet drop is so severe that it pretty much makes the bullet useless (down 77 inches at 425).
I have way too much time on my hands...

On game, the longest shot I have taken on an animal is 50 yards. Yes, I know that is not a real test on long range terminal performance, but I did extensive testing on wet newsprint early on. I downloaded the ammo from my hunting load of 1890 fps all the way down to 1500 fps, and yes, these were measured loads shot over a chronograph into wet newsprint 10 yards away. What I found was complete exansion all the way down to 1600 fps; then things got interesting. Barnes told me they would open all the way down to 1500 fps, but that is not what I found. I shot three bullets at each velocity level. I dropped them from 1890 to 1800, then to 1700, then to 1600 and all was fine. No petal sheding and they opened up all the way. Then at 1500, two bullets could have been shot again, and the third opened up fully. Hum. I uploaded to around 1650 fps, one failed to open, one opened all the way, and one opened about 10%, not even opened to bullet diameter. That was enough to tell me 1600 fps was the limit. The following picture shows two at 1500 fps with no expansion, two at 1550, one fully expanded and one just a little, and the single last one is what they all looked like at 1600 fps and above.


The best accuracy/velocity for my TC was using H322, out of my No.1 and 1895 H335 have been the best regarding accuracy/velocity.