doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Rimmed cartridge for North America?'s & opinions

Stan--What powder are you using for your #3 or #1 in 45/70? I'm currently using DuPont 3031 but am thinking of switching to DuPont 4198. I use nothing less than a 400 grain bullet. Definately not a load for 90 lb. soccer moms to shoot.

There are plenty of recorded instances of "Little Women" shooting & enjoying large rifles that many "Big Men" would shun. Don't sell those Soccer Mom's too short.

My baby sis was 115 lbs wet when she insisted that she shoot mine. She has more guts than brains. She pulled the trigger and I caught my gun mid-air as it knocked her flat on her butt. I guess you could say that in a split second I valued my gun more than her. When ever I buy a new gun she still has to be the second person to shoot it, me being the first. Never learns.

J.R.B.,

I settled on Reloader 7 years ago. Start out with 50.0 gr. behind the 300 gr. bullet and work up, to whatever you can stand. I can handle a little heavier load in my #1 than I used to in my #3. I sold the #3 several years ago to a guy who just had to have it. Didn't really need both of them anyway. 50.0 gr. RE 7 should yield over 2000 fps with the 300 Gr. FNHP Hornady or Remington bullets. I have loaded 'em up to 2800 fps. Don't remember how much RE 7 it took to get that, but worked up to it slowly and never saw any excessive pressure signs. I seat them out 'til they barely touch the lands. That'll rock your world pretty good out of a #3.

I've got some 500 grainers I'm gonna load up for it to try on some hogs. OBTW, a Kick-Killer leather lace-on pad can be pretty useful on a lightweight .45-70 when working up heavy stopping loads. Sure would like to try some of the 500 grainers on a Cape Buff one day. I've got a Leupold M8-3X on the #1 now, but I think I'm gonna pull it off and try a set of NECG iron sights, big aperture rear and big moon bead up front. I've always shot open and aperture sights well and find a big aperture extremely fast with which to acquire a moving target. And man, those big hogs can move fast!

Tom,

Heavier bullets are good. I try for head shots if at all possible, and the 300 gr. slugs do fine when they end up in the brain. Brain shot hogs don't get up and hurt you. I just don't know about those "little' .30 cal. pills, even 220's. They may penetrate O.K. on body shots, and should be great on brain shots, but I'll let you try 'em out and report back to me. Watch yo' se'f, though.

SRH

Thanks for the info Stan. I think the reason that the #3 kicks worse than the #1 is the weight difference. Mine weighs a skosh over 6 pounds. I don't mind heavy recoil. At 175 lbs. I just roll with the punch. Like you I work up my loads looking for signs of pressure. That Ruger action is one tough brute. You should have kept that #3. They are getting scarce. I know I'll never sell mine. A good shot on a hog is just behind the ear to break the spine. I've butchered many hogs in my life including old 600 pound brood sows and I will say that a frontal brain shot is a small target. The skull is pretty thick towards the top of the cranial cavity and they don't have a very big brain to begin with. I've sawed the skulls in half lengthwise to check on this.

Stan
The only boar I've ever shot was from the safety of an elevated deer stand; and it wasn't large at less than 200lbs, but one 150 grain 30/06 pill thru the ears did the trick. My son has killed several, all one shot kills, with his little 257 Roberts and 117 gr. bullets. Most of my BIL's wild pig count are the result of his 35 Rem and 200 grain Coreloks; but then he has also taken a few with his 6mm Rem. Like you, if I'm on the ground in tight cover, give me a heavy bullet; but I honestly believe his experience with the boar above was an aberration, maybe the bullet just failed to perform? The largest wild boar I've seen personally was also killed by my BIL; but we have no idea how much it weighed. The only scale we had handy was a 300lb cotton scale; and even field dressed, that scale bottomed out before we got the hog's head and shoulders off the ground. All I know for sure was that it was so heavy its weight significantly bowed the tail gate of his little D50 Dodge as it was loaded.

I used to raise hogs when I farmed. The biggest herd boar I sold weighed 910 and had 6 inch tusks. Right after I would unload a herd boar they would tie a cable around its snout to hold him and then take a bolt cutters to cut the tusks out. This was done to prevent fighting during shipment. I have the tusks from every boar I sold.

Yeah, the front brain shot is pretty exacting, but doable if he's standing still. It doesn't take much of a gun to kill a hog, IF all conditions are perfect. Heck, I've killed 250 pounders with a .22 LR to the brain. Reason I like the big heavy bullets is because you just don't always get that brain shot I like. Then, when you have to shoot through that shield, or even a broadside shot behind it, bigger is better, IMO.

Somebody had put a Pachmayr ventilated pad on my #3 when I got it, and it helped a lot. But, that short barrel just reared up so bad when she recoiled. My son killed his first deer with that #3, at 10 years old, using my 2100 fps reloads. He used to shoot it off the bench at that early age. I got a kick out of watching the grown men cringe at the way it bucked and jumped around when he shot it. I made a point not to ever let him hear the old wive's tales about a gun "kicking yo' teef out', or one "knockin' you flat on yo' back", and he never was bothered by it. 'Course, ear protection is the best recoil pad ever made, anyway.

SRH