Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting 45/70 for elk?

One of my goals is to kill an elk with my 45-70 High Wall and a cast bullet with black powder. My buddy killed one with his original Ballard 44-100 Everlasting shooting a cast bullet and Swiss BP. Thrill of a lifetime.

As said, 350gr Hornady, he can go from mild to all he cares to sit/stand behind with RL-7 powder, were it me, i'd shoot a 500gr flat nosed greaser with 70gr 2F Old Eyensford black powder, he can buy a Smith ladder barrel sight from Buffalo Arms, correlating the sight and using a good range finder, 300 yards is cake.

Get on that Utahunter, the satisfaction from it is indescribable.

try......

This was my first 45-70 elk kill with my 1886. Sometime in the 80's.It was the last day of elk season. Three other hunters had left camp for home already and just me and my brother were left. This raghorn came past me early in the morning and I missed him in a thick grove of aspens.I sat there awhile and then realized it was the only elk I saw all season.

I took off trailing him, just by the scruff marks in the forest duff. In about a 1/2 mile he had entered a thick blow down. I crept in and about 15 feet, sat down against a pine tree, and gave a soft cow call with one of those old plastic Cow Talk calls. Not 20 yards from me, he jumped to his feet. I was as surprised as he was. He stood there looking, but couldn't smell me and I was against that tree so he could not make me out.I could see his brisket and his head. It was a 4 point area and I had to study for a bit to grow enough points on him.

I could see his brisket thru two big horizontal logs about 18" apart . I slowly raised that 86 and threaded a 405 gr bullet thru two logs and hit him front on. He reared up and went over backwards and there was lot of crashing trees ,breaking and then silence.I heard his death groan and knew he was dead. Amazingly, he went about 20 yards in blow down so thick,I had to crawl over logs under some.

The photo shows where he fell, wedge around some logs with his legs going under one. I had a small axe and saw with me and I had to cut some 2-3"diameter trees on the far side to get his leg straightened out and then with a heck of a lot of grunting, pulling, and ropes, I was able to get him under the log far enough to gut out.

I went back to camp and got my brother and we rode the mules as close as we could get,about a hundred yards, We were able to skin and quarter enough a little at at time to get him out form the logs and bagged.Then we had to carry it back to the mules.We got back to camp about dark,exhausted,but my tag filled.



I had hard copy of a photo of my brother carrying a hind quarter along the top of a log to get the meat out.I sent it to him awhile back as he is in hospice with not much time left. He is 82 now and was able to call me when he got the photo. We talked about that hunt and many others including the 2nd elk I killed a few years later with the 45-70 that he was with me also.

I've been thinking on using my 45-70 bolt action, a Siamese Mauser conversion. I have some hot 350 grain factory loads that I can hit clay pigeons with regularly out to 300 yards.

Those square bullets sure lose steam fast. I'm wondering if penetration will be adequate at the longer ranges....dunno. Still thinking on whether to take the 45-70 or a different rifle that shoots that has tall cartridges and pointy bullets.

Whatever slug he is accurate with should more than suffice.

Hell of a story saddlesore, thanks for telling us about it.

When you mention the above, this one was easily the most memorable hunt of my lifetime. Ballard 45-70, Brooks 540 gr cast bullet and Swiss BP. Not an elk, but I'm sure the results would be similar...

I only shot a 500 gr cast out of my 45-70 once. I learned all I needed to know about that shoulder thumper.OUCH!

I didn't feel a thing when I shot that buck, but at the bench I wear a pad

Good stuff there JGray, very nice deer, big Paul Jones 540gr Creedmoore bullet from a Brooks mould, i'll bet you didn't get that bullet back from that mule deer ; ]

I asked Mr. Brooks for the 540 Creedmoor design with the nose modified to the original Sharp's paper patch bullet. He called it the 'original' Postell which is a little more round nosed and less pointy than the current ones. I cast 'em at 30:1.

No bullet recovered, exit was slightly larger than entry and lungs were liquified goo. I was amazed how much internal damage was done for what I presumed was minimal expansion.

Walked up to a blood puddle and legs in the air where he tipped over

LOL, damn right, i've told countless numbers of the effects of big chunks of lead at 12-1400 fps on game animals, they dont believe me either, i shot completely through a buffalo [bison] at 166 yards twice, the last shot was slam through both shoulders, it was with my little Shiloh Sharps 45-70, the 530gr paper patch load left the rifle at 1244 fps, the buffalo spun around and stopped on the first shot, after the second shot landed, it tried to take a step, fell straight down on it's nose.

Hit a good heavy horned 8pt buck with the same rifle and load quartering in hard to the rattling antlers at 30 yards, his whole front end done the Chubby Checker twist trying to get his steering back under control, he made a half circle and collapsed, the bullet split the hide all along his offside hip on exit, Yessir, i like big lead and blackpowder.

Awesome topic.

But I have a question, does anyone manufacture a lever or single shot theses days? Or is the BLR/450 the only option.

Henry makes both lever actions and single shots now.

Yes, there's lever guns you can aquire out there in 45-70 like used Marlins, Chiappa makes them, so does Winchester as well in their 1886. Henry makes them and you can find good single shots from Browning, C. Sharps, Shiloh Sharp's, and used Ruger No1.

The Browning BLR in 450 is a nice rifle. I've got one and it's a fine rifle. Wish I came to know the BLR much earlier

I've got a marlin 1895 I bought 6 years ago and I believe they are still making them. It's a good rifle

There are some very nice used ones out there. Ruger has stated a couple of times that the Marlin levers will be available sometime this year.

Pedersoli , Henry, Sharps, Uberti and others still produce single shot 45-70s.