Extrapolating out the same 40k MAX pressure whilst extending the case to 2.4" for a COAL of 2.85",
Is this Lee24 or Oldman1942? Your rifle, your medical bill, the 1895 IS NOT RATED for those kinds of pressures! Glad i ain't yer insurance company.
I shoot for about 50k psi. Crazy right? I've gone past that even. I once accidentally loaded 62 grains of RL-10x into a batch of 2.6 COL .45-70 using sierra 300 HPs. Being the foolish redneck that I am and risking my beautiful 1895 cowboy I decided to shoot them. I loaded the gun in the lead sled and shot it with a string a couple times. The gun didn't blow so I kept the loads. Eventually the loads began tweaking the lever so I got rid of them and bought a new lever.
At the time I didn't have QL so I had no idea what kind of pressures I was at. Once I bought QL I plugged it in and saw that it estimated that I was above 60k psi. Needless to say I have trimmed it back and shoot for about 50k psi starting 10% low and using the chrony/QL as my feedback to estimate the pressures I'm at.
VAnimrod,
I plan on cooking up all sorts of loads to for the 2.85 COL. One that I particularly am interested in seeing how it performs is the .458 Hornady Lever-lution. They have a great BC and should really be able to reach out there. I have to admit, the first time I used their factory .47-70 leverlution rounds I was really afraid the magazine was gonna blow up.
FYI,
On a side note pertaining to the tweaked lever mentioned above. I purchased a Wild West Guns big loop lever this past year and it appears to be stronger than the factory lever. I appears to be a higher grade of steel and completely heat treated (the factory lever is just heat treated at the tip). One sign of its strength is the fact that if you hold it by the tip and tap it with something it rings like a bell (more so than the factory lever).
