The 45/70 is not fussy to load for and works well with a range of powders. When I first started off I used Elmer Keith’s load of 53gr of 3031 behind a 400gr Speer. I later switched to cast and had to reduce the load to 49gr as the cast pill took up more space. Both loads were very accurate. When IMR powders were no longer imported I switched to Reloader 7. This is a top powder for a lot of straight wall levergun calibres. It’s dense and fills the case well. I did a run of loads from 1600 to over 2000fps and the thing I liked about R-7 loads is they were accurate across a range of velocities. Behind a 415gr cast HP I settled on 45gr of R-7 as a good balance between velocity and recoil. Accuracy was slightly better than 3031.
