Cole, Two of my good buddies hunt in MS and both own the Buffalo classic in 45-70. One is shooting the new Hdy Leverevolution 325 grners and the other the Remington 300 grn Corelocts. I'd be loading my own as I do with the rest of my guns, but the only down side is Hdy will not sell the pointed .458 LR bullets. I like the BC of that bullet and it's on game performance, but don't like the thought of $30+ a box of 20!
I don't much care for the heavy BR with the super long 32" bbl, I bet it would be a bear in the brush or a box blind. Although the guys I know that have the BR say they tend to shoot alittle better than the cheaper handi with the 22" tube.
I like the H&R 444 Marlin with the Syn stock, recoil pad, no open sights, hammer extension, and weaver rail. I bet my 2-7x32 3200 would fit it nicely.
The 265 grn Hdy LR round has some impressive ballistics. As for handloading, I don't really see any bullets other than pistol bullets that are HPs or Flat nose. For that reason, I'm not sure if the 444 would be the best choice. My primary big buck area only has a Mler season during the rut and it's only 1 week long, the rifle season is prior to the rut, so we take most of our big bucks with Mlers and shots out to 200 yards are very possible.
I may not even get a handi as my Savage ML10II smokeless Mler is very accurate and good to 200 easily. The ease and convience of the H&R would be nice though. I sold a laminate handi in 25-06 last year that shot pretty good and had a nice trigger, guess I should of held on to it and just bought an extra bbl.
Have a Good One,
Reloader7RM
