Home Forums Lever Action Central Big Bore Levers .45-70 Marlin Cowboy

This Marlin Cowboy was a cowboy action gun, slicked up by a CAS smith. It's slick...

I decided to scope it, convert it to general use. It has a Wild West trigger, an excellent product. I installed a cross bolt safety blank.

I reshaped the stock to look more like the older, long tang Marlins, refinished the wood with a Tung oil/Urethane product, had it checkered in a vintage pattern.

DF

Nice job DF, are you going to be shooting heavy hardcast?

If so, the Beartooth Piledriver and Piledriver Jr. with RL-7 are your huckleberries.

Really nice wood on that rifle.

yep.......you got nice wood........

nuthin' like an ole 45-70 flinging out a 400+ grain boolit..........

Don't know if I'm man enough for a full bore "gunner" load...

With the Ballard, cut rifling, it would be a good candidate for big, hard cast slugs.

Will look into that...

DF

Just factory wood with a tung oil/urethane, "Dirtfarmer" finish...

DF

Sweet rig Pard! Try the 300 Speer Unicore, I hear it is a good one. 1800 should be fast enough and pleasant to shoot too.

Nice looking rifle!

I had a Marlin cowboy .45-70 15 years ago or so, then replaced it with a Guide Gun. Sold that after a while and had no 1895. About 3 years ago I got a GBL which I replaced shortly with another Cowboy rifle. Somewhere in that gap without a .45-70 I lost my love for getting the [bleep] kicked out of me I guess.

I got rid of my .45-70 brass, dies, and bullets. I like the cowboy rifles but I think if I do it again I'm going with an 1894. I'm not convinced a deer would know a 250 grain .430 chunk of lead from a 250 grain .452 chunk of lead from a 400 grain .459 chunk of lead inside 100 yards which is my personal limit.

Back when I had a scoped Cowboy rifle I had a Leupold 3-9X on the first and a 2.5-8X on the 2nd. Both shot under MOA with 400 grain speer handloads, 405 grain remington factory ammo, and about 1.25 moa with 425 (405, nominally) grain cast bullets.

If anyone is looking, I think I have an RCBS 405 grain .45-70 GC mold and a checkered Marlin factory butt-stock with a recoil pad instead of the hard plate. PM me if interested and I'll check.

Tom

Careful... gunner may read this and think you a big wuss...



Serioiusly, you don't have to push those big slugs that fast. When I started shooting .45-70's, over 40 yrs. ago, I thought I had to get the last few FPS out of a load. With a Widefield Redfield set too far back on an 1895 Marlin, shooting a 300 gr. jacketed bullet at 2,000 fps, I cut my eyebrow, first and only time I ever got a "Weatherby trademark". Had to get my good bud to put in a few sutures.

Big cast bullets at reasonable speed hit like a hammer. Those Sharps of old weren't fast guns. Some say, well you need velocity to shoot long range. Don't tell Billy Dixon, shooting a borrowed .50-90 Sharps at Adobe Walls. Or tell that injun he knocked off a horse at a VERY long range. Those old guns shot a big bullet at around 1,500+ FPS.

Yeah, ole Billy probably needed a tall vernier sight and maybe some Kentucky elevation on top of that...

I'm wanting to load some 400 gr. hard cast bullets and run them around 1,500-1,600 fps. One of those should roll WT's and hogs like a bowling ball knocking down bowling pins...

And without messing up much meat.

DF

LOL, IIRC the piledriver jr weighs 425 grains, recoil would be cake at an easy 1500 fps, you could set it 3"s high at 100 in your scope and shoot to 200 with ease, nothing in conus would stop it either.

Don't you think 1,500 fps is fast enough and what would be your recommended load for that bullet.

DF

Lord yes that's fast enough, I did glean all I could out of my cowboy Marlin with the 525 gr piledriver at 1755 fps with a big charge of RL-7, that load rocks and is safe, but completely unnecessary at lever gun ranges.

I'd start the 425 piledriver jr at 35 grs of 4198, IMR 3031, RL-7 and a chronograph, you'll not be long looking for the sweet spot, as I surmise there are plenty.

Thanks, gunner.

Bet that 1,700 fps Piledriver load was "interesting" in the Marlin, maybe a bit too interesting for me.

Just ordered the Piledriver and Piledriver Jr.

We'll see. Could be a while, as they ship when those bullets are available.

I have the appropriate powders you mentioned plus a few more in that burn rate range.

But, I'm not as tough as you, in comparison, just a wuss...

DF

It's all good DF, either at modest speeds will serve you more than well, my big boomers are gathering more dust as of late too, the Sharps rounds ALL operate within 1200 to 1500 fps, we also know what that's capable of achieving, they are so good, they put themselves out of a job when all the buffalo were gone.

What about those Okie sized 'dillers?

Can't believe yo big boomers are gathering dust...

DF

LOL, yes, a couple hulled dillers via 577 Nitro Express and 505 Gibbs rendered all further testing unnecessary.

After putting a 750 gr bullet through nine feet of 1800 lb bedded Eland at a measly 1365 fps from my old big 50-90 Sharps cast a bright light on unused horsepower, after all, once you've punched through the animal, the size of the earth crater on the offside is indeed pointless.

Crater behind the drilled critter is all wasted power...

Doesn't matter how big or deep...

DF

, IIRC, Rockchucker, NHK9 Dogman George, Mac and even our old Bud CrimsonTide may have been in on an 8 foot trench mining operation in Tennessee one year after George smacked a fat hog with my 500 Nitro, they had to cut a hell of a ditch before they found that 570 grain Barnes solid ;]

I remember seeing those "mining" photos...

Had forgotten about that.

DF

With H322, the sweet spot in my rifle was 47 grains, which netted 1679 fps and fairly mild recoil.

I'm trying a load with the PD Lite (350 grain) with 43 grains of IMR4198, shows promising accuracy, and speed should be around 1700 0r so fps. Recoil is very tolerable. When it begins to cool down, I'll chronograph it. I suspect that being an LBT-type bullet, it'll penetrate.

I know velocity is higher than some like, but that's what it took to get enough pressure to get decent uniformity, and in one case, get rid of hangfires.

What did you figure out was causing those hangfires?

DF

Really, really light loads of H4198. I should've been using Unique, or something like that.

The powder just didn't like that low pressure.

The old Lyman factory equivalent load of 400gr bullet and 38.5 grains of IMR 3031 is comfortable and groups exactly with Remington off the shelf ammo.

I ordered Piledriver and Piledriver Jr. bullets, but they ship when they cast a batch. So for, no bullets.

I do have some other cast and jacketed bullets to try.

The Wild West trigger feels like a match trigger, light and crisp, exceptional for a Marlin. It should be easy to shoot good groups.

DF

Order some laser cast 405’s. Put em over 38gr of 3031. My guide gun and sharps loves em. Tried em in my buddies regular 95 and it liked em too.

Piledriver and Jr. arrived this week. Good looking bullets. They included a Gideon New Testament. Found out they're both Gideons. Sent them a note, letting them know my 92 yr old FIL in Wichita is a Gideon. He was on the aircraft carrier, Belleau Wood, hit by a kamikaze in the Pacific. BIg fire, they saved the ship.

I have primed 45-70 cases, all the powder anyone has mentioned. Just need time, the one commodity none of us has any control over.

One of these days...

DF

I have some already.

Thanks for the load.

DF

Well come on DF, were waiting, BTW, a little hint, fully load the mag when you start testing, all those heavy loads work nicely with the magazine spring, they make a nice recoil shock absorber for the shooter.

They are very soft on the shoulder but pack a punch. They will shoot clean through a telephone pole. I tried all the hornady bullets and Remington bullets and those cheap laser casts shoot great, no leading. If I want something more powerful, I grab the old H&H

I also load some 350 hornady's for my dad with trail boss. Have to look up the grains but off my head I think its like 12. Very fun to shoot. and they shoot same POI as my 405 hard cast loads at 50 yds.

Awesome!