Sharps40
Senior Member
Had some questions from folks on loading black powder rifle cartridges. Here's how I've loaded 45-70 with success.
I generally choose WW cases as they hold the most powder and full length resize, expand the necks per normal procedure and lightly bell the case mouth. The cases are also prepared by drilling all flash holes larger with a 3/32" drill. This more nearly matches the total flashhole surface area of the inside bennet primers in early composite cases and proven by the early arsenals as necessary to fully ignite compressed charges of black powder once the switch to Boxer primers was completed. (Once flash holes are drilled oversize, the cases must be marked and never again loaded with smokeless powder.)
I use two bullets with this load, typically cast from 30/1 lead/tin and both with wide and deep greese grooves. Wide and deep grooves are best in order to have enough greese to soften fouling. The Lee 405g hollow base and the Lyman Schmitzer at about 480g. Neither of these loads requires a greese cookie between the bullet and powder. The greese cookie is a pain to make and install in the case, best gotten rid of!
Federal 215 Magnum primers are seated and the case charged with 63g weight of Goex fff. (With the 330g lead hollow point, up to 70g of Goex fff may be used.) The powder is dumped in, no drop tube is needed.
A card wad, about .460" diameter is punched from waxed milk cartons and seated in the mouth. Then the entire wad/powder combination is compressed into a solid pellet in a Lee compression die. The height of the wad/powder column in the case is situated to just touch the base of a properly seated bullet. (If loading the hollow base Lee bullet, do not use the wad. It will stick in the hollow base and reduce accuracy.) If you take a shortcut and use the bullet to compress the powder during seating you will swag the nose to a larger diameter, prevent chambering or at the least, loose a good bullet nose/bore riding fit and accuracy will suffer.
The powder charge is compressed into a solid pellet, and thats why the arsenals had trouble when switching to modern style external primers with a single small flash hole. After having such success with compressed charges in the inside primed bennet cases with 2 flash holes they realized a single flash hole about .070" diameter did not allow enough gas (plus there was considerably less priming mixture in the outside primer) to push the bullet slightly forward and break up the solid pellet for full ignition.
The bullets are lubricated with either 50/50 bees wax/vasoline or Montanna Arms BPC lube in a lube sizer that reduces the bullet to a size about .001" larger than groove diameter.
Seat the bullet using a seating die that fits the nose. Do not crimp during the seating operation, you can damage soft lead bullets that way. After loading all the shells, apply a light roll crimp or light taper crimp separatly.
What you have is ammo that will fit any standard chamber, even when fouled. There is nothing like sticky ammo or ammo that won't chamber when hunting or in the heat of a shooting competition.
The compressed powder charge burns much cleaner allowing as many as 20 shots between cleaning without serious deterioration in accuracy. And, not having to clean after every shot keeps your mind on task and your body on position.
Standard and average deviations will often be in the single digit range and mean accuracy is increased over loosely loaded powder in cartridges.
Why compress the powder charge in the first place?? - Original American arsenal specifications called for power/weight and velocity similar to the British 450 ammo but in a smaller package - Soldiers can carry more ammo for the same weight w/o sacraficing ballistic authority.
I've applied these techniques successfully to loading a number of black powder calibers including .32-40, .38-55, .40-50 BN, .40-65 and .50-90. In every case, compressed charges have out shot, shot longer and cleaned easier than more traditional loosely loaded cartridges.
For more information, locate a copy of "Loading Cartridges for the Original 45-70 Springfield Rifle and Carbine" by JS and Pat Wolf. I believe JS has passed away but Pat may still be self publishing this very excellent resource for black powder cartridge shooters.
V.R.
I generally choose WW cases as they hold the most powder and full length resize, expand the necks per normal procedure and lightly bell the case mouth. The cases are also prepared by drilling all flash holes larger with a 3/32" drill. This more nearly matches the total flashhole surface area of the inside bennet primers in early composite cases and proven by the early arsenals as necessary to fully ignite compressed charges of black powder once the switch to Boxer primers was completed. (Once flash holes are drilled oversize, the cases must be marked and never again loaded with smokeless powder.)
I use two bullets with this load, typically cast from 30/1 lead/tin and both with wide and deep greese grooves. Wide and deep grooves are best in order to have enough greese to soften fouling. The Lee 405g hollow base and the Lyman Schmitzer at about 480g. Neither of these loads requires a greese cookie between the bullet and powder. The greese cookie is a pain to make and install in the case, best gotten rid of!
Federal 215 Magnum primers are seated and the case charged with 63g weight of Goex fff. (With the 330g lead hollow point, up to 70g of Goex fff may be used.) The powder is dumped in, no drop tube is needed.
A card wad, about .460" diameter is punched from waxed milk cartons and seated in the mouth. Then the entire wad/powder combination is compressed into a solid pellet in a Lee compression die. The height of the wad/powder column in the case is situated to just touch the base of a properly seated bullet. (If loading the hollow base Lee bullet, do not use the wad. It will stick in the hollow base and reduce accuracy.) If you take a shortcut and use the bullet to compress the powder during seating you will swag the nose to a larger diameter, prevent chambering or at the least, loose a good bullet nose/bore riding fit and accuracy will suffer.
The powder charge is compressed into a solid pellet, and thats why the arsenals had trouble when switching to modern style external primers with a single small flash hole. After having such success with compressed charges in the inside primed bennet cases with 2 flash holes they realized a single flash hole about .070" diameter did not allow enough gas (plus there was considerably less priming mixture in the outside primer) to push the bullet slightly forward and break up the solid pellet for full ignition.
The bullets are lubricated with either 50/50 bees wax/vasoline or Montanna Arms BPC lube in a lube sizer that reduces the bullet to a size about .001" larger than groove diameter.
Seat the bullet using a seating die that fits the nose. Do not crimp during the seating operation, you can damage soft lead bullets that way. After loading all the shells, apply a light roll crimp or light taper crimp separatly.
What you have is ammo that will fit any standard chamber, even when fouled. There is nothing like sticky ammo or ammo that won't chamber when hunting or in the heat of a shooting competition.
The compressed powder charge burns much cleaner allowing as many as 20 shots between cleaning without serious deterioration in accuracy. And, not having to clean after every shot keeps your mind on task and your body on position.
Standard and average deviations will often be in the single digit range and mean accuracy is increased over loosely loaded powder in cartridges.
Why compress the powder charge in the first place?? - Original American arsenal specifications called for power/weight and velocity similar to the British 450 ammo but in a smaller package - Soldiers can carry more ammo for the same weight w/o sacraficing ballistic authority.
I've applied these techniques successfully to loading a number of black powder calibers including .32-40, .38-55, .40-50 BN, .40-65 and .50-90. In every case, compressed charges have out shot, shot longer and cleaned easier than more traditional loosely loaded cartridges.
For more information, locate a copy of "Loading Cartridges for the Original 45-70 Springfield Rifle and Carbine" by JS and Pat Wolf. I believe JS has passed away but Pat may still be self publishing this very excellent resource for black powder cartridge shooters.
V.R.
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