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Smith,
The experience you describe is all too familiar! I hear these complaints nearly on a daily basis. The fault lies not in the rifles, or your loads particularly, but in the bullets employed.
Before we get to the issue of bullets, your bore condition is of primary concern: EVERY trace of jacket fouling must be removed from the bore prior to shooting alloy bullets for gratifying results. The jacket fouling increases the exetent of leading in any bore. Consider this scenario: When making a wiped soldered joint in copper tubing used for plumbing, we burnish and clean the copper tubing, then apply a grease/wax based flux, then add heat and a tin/lead solder to solder the joint together. Now, apply this to your barrel: we have a copper washed bore (jacket fouling), which is burnished clean by the abrasion of a cast bullet (tin/lead alloy, aka solder) in the bore, which is lubricated by a wax based bullet lube (flux), creating great amounts of friction in the barrel (read heat). What we have is a recipe for a well soldered bore! Enough dissertaion... just clean the bore spotless before shooting lead bullets!
Now, concerning bullets: Most bullets are too small in diameter for the majority of .45-70 barrels and chamber throats. The other two factors in bullets are bullet hardness and bullet lubricant quality.
For 95+% of all .45-70's of modern production, a bullet of .460" diameter will shoot the best. Gas checked designs are a must if velocities are much above 1500 fps.
Beartooth's .460"-405g LFNGC and .460"-450g LFNGC are superb shooting bullets in all .45-70's tested, delivering MOA or sub-MOA groups on demand. Don't take just my word for it however, below are excerpts from the May 2001 edition of Guns Magazine, from an article titled: "Ruger's Big Bores: The 99/44 Deerfield & .45-70 No.1" by John Taffin:
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Take heart! There is hope for your .45-70's and cast bullets!
God Bless,
Marshall
The experience you describe is all too familiar! I hear these complaints nearly on a daily basis. The fault lies not in the rifles, or your loads particularly, but in the bullets employed.
Before we get to the issue of bullets, your bore condition is of primary concern: EVERY trace of jacket fouling must be removed from the bore prior to shooting alloy bullets for gratifying results. The jacket fouling increases the exetent of leading in any bore. Consider this scenario: When making a wiped soldered joint in copper tubing used for plumbing, we burnish and clean the copper tubing, then apply a grease/wax based flux, then add heat and a tin/lead solder to solder the joint together. Now, apply this to your barrel: we have a copper washed bore (jacket fouling), which is burnished clean by the abrasion of a cast bullet (tin/lead alloy, aka solder) in the bore, which is lubricated by a wax based bullet lube (flux), creating great amounts of friction in the barrel (read heat). What we have is a recipe for a well soldered bore! Enough dissertaion... just clean the bore spotless before shooting lead bullets!
Now, concerning bullets: Most bullets are too small in diameter for the majority of .45-70 barrels and chamber throats. The other two factors in bullets are bullet hardness and bullet lubricant quality.
For 95+% of all .45-70's of modern production, a bullet of .460" diameter will shoot the best. Gas checked designs are a must if velocities are much above 1500 fps.
Beartooth's .460"-405g LFNGC and .460"-450g LFNGC are superb shooting bullets in all .45-70's tested, delivering MOA or sub-MOA groups on demand. Don't take just my word for it however, below are excerpts from the May 2001 edition of Guns Magazine, from an article titled: "Ruger's Big Bores: The 99/44 Deerfield & .45-70 No.1" by John Taffin:
Take heart! There is hope for your .45-70's and cast bullets!
God Bless,
Marshall
