Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Substitutions when reloading

Have several powders, AA2230, X-Terminator (same thing) XBR8208, IMR 4064, 4895. Bullets are Hornaday 325FTX and 300 HP. Have both CCI and Winchester LRP. Star Line brass. Will go with Lee data, which appears to be the same as several other books, but no mention of a particular brand of bullet, primer, or brass. Not going to try and hotrod a load. Rifle will be used hunting deep woods where a 50 yard shot is a long one. Consistent minute of deer is the only thing desired.

From the Hodgdon 2022 manual for Lever Actions:

325g Hornady FTX
AA2230
Min 37.5
Max 41.6

The manual also has a wider selection of data from both Hodgdon and Western data for the 300g Sierra HP, which is a similar bullet to the Hornady 300 HP.

Anyone too obsessive about the details, remember the Lee powder dippers?

When I use my scale (which is most of the time) I use the dippers and then trickle in the rest. Been doing that for 40+ years. But I ain't good enough with them to rely on a scoop full to be accurate! lol.......

Use the old Lee dippers the same way, have a Lyman powder dispenser, but mostly use an old Ohaus 10-10 scale.

I might go wildcat in loading .45-70 for a Siamese Mauser and other such.

For a Henry, I know beyond dispute the pressure delta between primers can be 10K psi and that's enough to concern me. I know that between two traditional cup and core bullets the differences can be [can be not is guaranteed to be] negligible and that between an old cup and lead core and a new lead free the pressure delta can be excessive. Given enough proof shots fired at excessive pressures a gun can blow at an otherwise normal pressure load.

I suggest wildcatting is a complex process and maybe reading most all of the Gun Gack books and looking at the CD along with access to a chronograph is a good start. Some substitutions are almost certainly safe and some are not so much. Lee data is compiled not as shot by Lee so I'd be inclined to find current data with the same or similar components.

For a rule of thumb I suggest don't wrap the thumb around the tang in the path of the bolt coming back.

I am not a gunwriter.
Go to the Hodgdon website. https://www.hodgdonreloading.com/reloading-data-center?rdc=true&type=54
Select Rifle data.
Select 45-70 Government (Lever Actions).
Choose your bullet weights.
Choose your available powders.
Click on Update Data.
It will give you 6 different choices.
Load up & shoot!

Not intending to "Wildcat" I have been forced too in the past IE 6.5X57, 7X64. Not a lot of data for those. The little data that exists does not have a big choice in powders, bullets, and brass. One can still "compare" to similar rounds but.. Perhaps a better term Extrapolate existing data. I have all of the data for Hodgdon, Hornaday etc. Just don't have the bullets, brass for an exact match. The 45-70, I would assume is past wildcat stage. Modern brass, standard primers etc. If I blow the rifle and myself up I will be sure to inform the fire.

Both bullets you have as well as the brass won't make any difference but like was said choose a powder that you have and try a few middle of the book loads.

I bet you will find the sweet spot because my 45-70 lever rifle is a forgiving sob.

I don't shoot max loads because they are more than is needed when shooting pigs or deer.

You're over-thinking things. If you're not crowding max, then choice of components isn't all that touchy. All of the brass is pretty good, all of the bullets are pretty good. I sorta shy away from Remington .45-70 brass only because all I've had included a cannelure which would iron-out through subsequent reloadings requiring a little extra trimming. Oh, and maybe avoid the Hornady brass for their LeverEvolution ammo since it is short. It's all good, all consistent, all has close enough to the same capacity to not be a concern if you're not crowding pressures. Even then, if you're being smart and working up loads rather than starting at max, you'll be ok. No huge difference. Look at weight and seating depth. Again, unless you're approaching max loads, variations in seating depth aren't a huge deal. Primers .. large rifle. Brand doesn't matter.

If you're working up loads as you should, then it doesn't matter what components you start with, what matters is to not change components after you've worked up a load without repeating the work-up. There's no predicting what a little different neck tension, seating depth, or a few FPS will do to accuracy. Probably little to nothing, but no certainty of that.

The very best .45-70 load I've cooked up .. in the guns it's been tried in .. used WW brass, Fed 210 (maybe match, I forget .. load notes are downstairs) primers, H4895, and Speer 400 grain flat points. Sub MOA in all three Marlin rifles I tried it in. If I had a new .45-70, I'd still start from scratch.

Not to be unhelpful, but good luck finding it, someplace between 38 grains of IMR 3031 with a soft bullet in the 400 grain class for maybe 1300 fps and 50 grains of IMR 3031 for maybe 1800 fps any case any primer. Faster loads are possible but become painful no matter how safe. I repeat any load that is not book specific is wildcatting and rules of thumb aren't good enough when a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Rumor says the lightest of .45 rifle bullets can be driven too fast for best performance on tough game like bison that wandered out of the Park but the bullet in question was recovered so did the job.

Is there really such a thing as an exact match of a given handload recipe? Even if you have the same bullet, case, primer and powder listed, you certainly have a different lot of the powder, a different lot of the primers, and a different run of cases. You very likely have a different barrel length, different model of firearm, different chamber and barrel tolerances. So even with solid manual data (even the manuals can give different results) we are always wildcatting to at least a small degree. That is why there are starting loads, chronographs, and hopefully a little common sense. How often does anybody come up with the same components for a given recipe anyway?

If you stay with the data labelled .45/70 for 1873 Springfield, I doubt you can get into much trouble with almost any substitution, as pressures run well under 30,000 CUP, and even with 300 grain bullets may be all the fun you want to have in a light lever-action.

That said, for you best chance at a close match to the stuff you have on hand, I suggest you look at loaddata.com, which draws from multiple sources, including years of articles in RIFLE and HANDLOADER magazines, and the list of tables for .45/70 is extensive. You can browse the tables for free and view all the components, just not the charge levels. If you find a combo that looks good, then a subscription is about the price of a hardbound manual, and gives you access to all sorts of articles and lab notes, plus you can print out the data. They used to give you a binder with a subscription as well. Take a look.

An example:

https://loaddata.com/Cartridge/45-7...ceed-21000-CUP-Handloader-Issue-248/3911

+1

This is about as good advice as you are going to get.

The other basic rule of thumb: any time you change a component, nock the load back to the minimum and work back up.

A third basic rule (already mentioned): When stuck for ideas on powder, look on the burn rate chart and find something that's close in burn rate and start with the minimum load for that. Example: Varget and CFE223 are close. Varget and Retumbo are not.

With bullets, if you can't find a load for the one you've got, any bullet of the same weight will work for a starting load as long as you start at the minimum and work up. You can also go up a grain or two in bullet weight and use that load's minimum, but don't go down in bullet weight. Example: If you have a mess of Speer 52 HPs , you can start with the minimum load info for the Hornady 55 SP if no closer recipe is to be found. However, going in the opposite direction is bad ju-ju.

One trick I've found is H4895. Buy a keg of that stuff and you'll probably find a load for nearly any rifle chambering you want. If you don't see a listing for H4895 look up IMR4895 and substitute. At MAX loads they're not identical by a long shot, but at the minimum loads they'll work. H4895 can be downloaded up to 20% without worry.

Lastly: never trust advice from the internet. If you really think your face is worth it, call the mfg and ask. I will often come hear and ask a question and get such a wide range of answers, it'll look like noise. One guy will say it'll blow your head off, the next guy says it's safe and he's been using it for decades. The answer is probably somewhere in the middle.

I have a question of clarification regarding the third basic rule above. I know for a fact that H4895 and Varget are pretty darn close to each other in performance. At well-off-MAX loads you can use either one for things like .308 WIN and 7.62X54R almost grain for grain. If you look on a big burn chart, they're well apart, but if you look at just Hodgdon offerings they're close together. Is it safe to say that within a powder mfg's offerings, the next entry up or down on the chart are usually close? There are scads of powders between H4895 and Varget, but they're mostly other mfg's.