Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles 45-70 vs. 444 vs. 44 mag lever gun

clockwork –

Are you a reloader? If not, that would argue for the .44 Mag. If not, the .45-70 gets my vote, hands down.

My collection includes a Ruger Super Redhawk in .44 Mag, a Browning B92 in .44 Mag and a Marlin 1895 .45-70. There is NOTHING the .44 Mag or .444 can do that the .45-70 cannot do as well or better, except when it comes to less expensive ammo for the .44 Mag.

Factory loads for the .45-70 run from ‘mild to wild’. Standard 405g loads at about 1300fps are actually pretty low recoil. Subsonic loads are available with even lower recoil. For hunting you have factory 350g loads at 2150fps. HAndlaods extend your options much further, such as the cowboy loads listed at gmdr.com where a tiny load of pistol powder under hardcast yields 22LR velocities at very low cost.

With the right load, 300 yard shots on big game are easily doable and ethical using a .45-70. The 6x6 bull elk I killed at 213 yards would have died just as quickly at 300. Love my .44 Mags, but the .45-70 is king.