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Finished testing bullets for the 450 Marlin Today. Also applicable for the 45-70, 457 Mag or 450-348. My test media was a 4L Milk Jug filled with water followed by a mix of wet and dry hard packed paper. This is a fairly rough test on bullets. The 325 Hornady Flex Tip offers the least penetration and weight retention. The ballistic coefficient isn't superior enough to warrant it's use. The 350 grain FP Hornady is a much better bet, and holds together very well. The 405 Rem almost always loses it's core or just about but the jacket is so thin that the 350 grain remaining lead makes jacket retention nearly irrelevant.

The 400 Barnes Original has a much thicker jacket but also core separates unless you trick it out with an extra cannelure at the bullet base like I do. I have been doing this with Barnes originals (using a Corbin Hand Cannelure tool) for many years and it works very well. Both the 400 Barnes and 405 Remington create a huge mushroom at 1700+ fps (over an inch). This likely limits penetration as the slug sized bullet creates a lot of drag. Huge wound channel though.

Both the 405 Woodleigh and 350 Hornady lose some mass which limits the mushroom to about .80 caliber but allows for better penetration. I wish Nosler still made their 300 grain partition as these penetrated like crazy, and had a useful jolt of hydrostatic shock. That said all these bullets do nasty things to the water jugs. See the video if you want to see evidence of that!





Video if interested, first 30 seconds has some extreme water jug explosions...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5nd2uuhaMA

Interesting post and video, thanks.

It would be interesting to see the average of 10 of each of those bullets fired into the same media.

It would be interesting...also sounds like work! Love to see how variable it would be.

Dont know what you'll be hunting North, but do see your in Canada.

I used to load the 525 gr Beartooth piledriver bullet sized at .459" and a velocity of 1744 fps with RL-7 in my Marlin cowboy 45-70.

That bullet load combo was very accurate, non leading and a freight train plow for penetration, it was a beast for sure.

And here's a 510grn swaged lead boolit, Paper Patched, also shot from a marlin 1895 Cowbooy Gun, with RL-7, Velocity around 1300FPS. Weight retention 100%, non-leading.

A Barnes 300gr X bullet in the 45/70 really expands when you hit steel with it.........

Lots of great stuff... I have some 420 grain hard cast with a big flat-point coming. Should be interesting. The pile driver designs in +500 grain would be I am sure an awe inspiring thing.

You are going to test the 420 grain (I assume LBT-type), and another I would like to see included is the Speer 300 grain Unicor, now called the Plinker.

Or maybe not. They are kind of a sleeper, and if everybody finds out about them, I won't be able to get any!! (grin)

Those are the two bullets I have pretty much settled on in my .45-70, the rest I use as plinkers in my .458 SOCOM.

SH, how do you like the 300 grain Barnes?

I've often thought the 250 would be something to try in the .45-70, but I've kinda gotten away from the light/fast thing in that rifle.

I'll say this, you can remove the head from a deer with a pen knife if you center punch the throat.

I have some 250 and 300 grain Barnes X bullets as well as some discontinued 300 Nosler Partitions. Never see Speer bullets on the shelf anymore. The Barnes X bullets penetrate pretty well and expand to low velocity. At high speed they shed petals but still keep a high percentage of weight. The really long length cut into the powder capacity and velocities are a bit disappointing.

The 300 Noslers out penetrate the X bullets as they expand to only about .65 caliber or less and they often go 20+ inches into the media. I think I would have settled on them but they are now sadly discontinued. I'd expect the 300 unicore to hang together well but expand very wide limiting penetration to some extent but I have never tested them.

A problem with the 450/45-70 is that different bullet weights strike widely different points of impact and settling on 1 bullet weight is a smart thing. For me the 400-405 grain bullets are getting the nod. I am a cheap fellow so next time I can find bulk Remingtons I'll buy five hundred or so and load them up as a practice through Moose bullet. For Bison I'll go double canellure Barne Original or better yet the Woodleigh.Cheaper than the Barnes and bonded reliability.

If I owned a 45/70 again I'd feed it nothing but cast bullets. Which is what I pretty much did years ago.

It has somewhat of a wound channel....(grin)

North61, I agree with both of you in the 400+ grain weight, preferring cast, but like plinking with the 300 grain bullets. Along the way I found the Unicor to be an excellent game bullet, though, quite capable of withstanding high impact velocity.

If limited to one bullet, it would be the Beartooth Bullets Piledriver Jr., or an equivelant. CastPerformance makes an excellent substitute with their 420 grain WFN.

For some reason, I have never taken to the FTX in any bore size.

The 250 X bullets shoot great in a 1895 SBL. Recoil is much less than heavier loads, but they pack a heck of a punch when they hit. Plenty for any deer out to 150 yards or so.

If ultimate penetration for large game (elk, moose, etc.) is what you're looking for it's tough to beat cast bullets with a BRN hardness of 18-22.

The WFN LBT design in 400-460gr, gas checked and loaded around 1700 fps (45-70) is devastating. Full end to end penetration is possible if required.

Keep in mind on broadside shots one should aim at the shoulder and not behind for a double lung shot. A bull elk can go a long ways and get into some nasty spots with a double lung .458 caliber hole. You can still eat right up to the hole on a shoulder shot with a cast bullet.

On deer sized game just about anything will suffice and cast bullets can be overkill from a penetration standpoint although they are usually the cheapest option.

The 300gr Barnes TSX is an intriguing design and I've done some loading with it. I might be a little concerned for maximum penetration with the large frontal area they expand to while relatively light weight.

Which factory load would you guys prefer for a Guide Gun in Griz country. I have a bunch of the Leverlution ammo that I now will use for practice. I have a partial box of Garret 540 gr. hard cast lead, but in the short GG it has a lot of muzzle rise that creates slow follow up shots.


mike r

Grizzly, Corbon, Garrett, Buffalo Bore & HSM all make suitable "bear loads" in the 400-460gr range. I think HSM is the cheapest of the bunch.

Shooting a bear in self defense is a whole different world than hunting a bear as it will likely be at very close range and coming at you. Maximum penetration and damage is what you're looking for. That being said, I've never had to shoot one in that scenario thankfully so I'll leave the specific recommendations to someone who has.

Practicing shot placement for that situation is invaluable, but it's tough to replicate the adrenaline rush, target speed and timing.

There are some good suggestions right there.

I handload and my choices are either the Beartooth bullets Piledriver Jr or CastPerformance 420 WFN at somewhere between 1650 and 1750 fps, let accuracy set the speed.

H322 has been the best powder in my rifle.

I came up with one load, AA2495 and the Piledriver Jr, that was fast and accurate, over 1800 fps, but it kicked so hard I hated shooting it.

I’ve used or tested quite a few different bullets in the 45-70. As with any caliber, ordinary cup and cores seem to work pretty well mostly. However, since they are generally designed for lower impact speeds in this caliber they can also come apart when challenged, even at lower impact speeds.



A 405 Remington through the brain and into the neck of a bull moose.




350 Speer, Hornady FN, and Hornady RN fired into wet newsprint, point blank at approx 1400 fps.



300 Speer and Nosler at approx 1400 into wet newsprint. 14”- Speer; 11” Nosler



300 grain bullets. Swift A-Frame for 375 H&H, Speer l. and Nosler r. for 45-70. Swift: 2560 fps, 287 grains; Speer: 2450 fps, 203 grains; Nosler: 2432 fps, 237 grains. All fired into wet newsprint. Swift 18”, Speer 14", Nosler 26 1/2"



350 Hornady factory load for 450 Marlin. This was the first shot into a beluga whale, a body shot. An identical bullet through the delicate bones of the skull destroyed the second bullet.



300 Speer Uni-Cor through both scapula of a bull moose. A second bullet, a 300 Barnes XFB, punched the near side scapula but missed the off side and exited.

This is what a 45-70 with a Hornady 500 grain RN soft point looks like after going through a buffalo skull and hitting the horn base on the other side..

Would be interested in seeing what the FTX would do around 1600-1700fps vs the 2100fps in your tests. For light-skinned game, I would bet it would fare a little better if it was slowed down a little. I realize it's only a deer bullet, I wouldn't recommend it for anything larger, certainly not for anything that may bite back!

If you want penetration, a hard cast FN or a Punch bullet would be my choice.

[/quote]For some reason, I have never taken to the FTX in any bore size. [/quote]

I've used them in my 30-30 and 35Rem, as well in my 45-70. They have been great on deer and hogs. I've gotten great accuracy out of them as well, around 1 1/2" groups @ 100yds in a Marlin 336 and 1895.

A friend used the FTX in a .30-30 and went back to the 170 grain FP, he wasn't happy with the penetration after a couple of kills, and I've seen several instances where the .45-70 had more expansion(damage)/less penetration than the 300 grain FPs I use. (Though the Hornady 300 FP gets a little frangible above 1900 fps.)

Not that it was bad, they killed well enough. It's just the the guys using them were used to more penetration, and I never got away from the bullets I am using.

There is nothing wrong with accepting the type of performance they have exhibited, it's just not what I want, so I'm not going to say "Oh, they don't work".

They seem to work well, and probably quicker than a hard cast. There's two things I've found deer like to react to, that being speed and expansion.

I'm a bit late, but have been working on my 45-70 load..thanks for sharing your research... I enjoyed your video!

It was fun to do the test. My pleasure.