Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting 45-70 bullet for elk

I load for my son’s 45-70. It is a Henry lever action so it can handle a bit of pressure. I load the Hornady Interlock 300gr HP and they have been great on deer. He is planning an elk hunt with it. Is the Hornady bullet suitable for elk? I have taken quite a few elk with various rifles, muzzleloader and a bow but never a 45-70. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

I used 400 grain cast flat nose bullets.

They were excellent. Fast kills, full penetration's 100% of the time and excellent accuracy.

Do some research on the Hornady 350 FP.

I use the 405 gr, Remington soft point. It has been a standard for decades.

I like 350s for jacketed bullets in the 45/70. The Swift Aframe is an excellent bullet but they are expensive. If you don’t mind the price they’re probably unbeatable performance wise.

I have a friend who uses nothing but the 350 Hornady RN and loves it. He’s killed a pile of caribou and a 69” bull moose with them loaded to about 1850fps.

My favorite is the Speer 350 MagTip. I’ve had great luck both accuracy and performance on game wise with them driven to about 2050fps. The problem is they’re too long for an unmodified Marlin 1895. I shoot a USRAC 1886 and they fit and feed fine. I have no idea what length the Henry will tolerate.

If you have a good load for 300 grain bullets you might try to locate a box of the Speer 300s. They are a bonded bullet and hold together much better that the Hornady, Remington, and Sierra 300gr HPs. I have no idea if they’re still in production or not.

Personally I’d rather any of the 350s I listed over the standard 400gr jacketed bullets from Speer and Remington. They both are made for Trapdoor speeds and will expand widely when driven to more modern velocities. IME they penetrate less and you give up trajectory for no gain.

Same here.. I never had a problem with 405's penetrating and killing elk.

The 350 Hornady rn is capable of all the speed a 45-70 can drive one. A flat nose cast is at least as good maybe better killer but your rifle would have to feed the one you choose. 425 fn rcbs is very popular.

430 grain, wide metplat, cast @ 1800 mv. I haven’t taken an elk with ig yet….but, I think it would work just fine! memtb

Have never killed an elk with these, but have used them on other animals of various sizes from Montana to Texas at traditional .45-70 velocities. All dropped quickly--and have never recovered any of the bullets.

We use the horn 350 RN or flat point in the JM 1895 on elk, deer, bear. With imr 4198 and fed 210 caps, the chrono averaged 1987 fps.

The ONLY animal ever to stop one of the large hornadys' was the biggest mule deer buck I have ever killed. Hit the deer in the neck facing me, the bullet stopped just in front of the shoulders. Jacket and core I found separated, but this was a big deer. 215 lbs in just the hanging carcass. Multip!e deer have fallen after that buck to the same load and bullet but no more bullets recovered.

There was a blonde, long haired early spring black bear the first year I had the big lever gun. The 200 lb bear took a 350 gr. RN to the forehead and it exited just in front of the right hind quarter. No tracking needed or blood trail.

In the same fall a blonde bear fell to the marlin and the hornady, that elk season the wife and I had cut fresh tracks of a small band of elk in some timber I was familiar with. There direction indicated they were heading for a long opening they used for feed and bedding. We caught up to them in the opening and the wife dropped a fat old cow where it stood with a 60-ish yard shot. The big hornady made a big hole in and bigger out on the perfect heart/lung shot. Biggest bone struck was couple ribs.

Good bullets, have nothing but good to say about them. I would recommend them for general 45-70 lever gun useage, or any general 45-70 use.

The gummy bear tipped ftx may help your BC?

But never shot an elk with one.

They done fine with deer.

The 405 to me would be the final answer.

I shot the 400 grain Speer for the most part. I couldn't get hunting accuracy out of the Hornady 350 in my Marlin .45-70s yet all 4 were sub MOA (scoped of course) with the Speer 400 and 3 of the 4 were sub MOA with the Remington 405 grain factory load.

Mention of the 350 grain Speer makes gave me pause to ponder .. I wonder about loading those in the shorter brass Hornady uses with the FTX factory load would keep them short enough to feed through the Marlin. "Hmmmm ..." I wonder if the seating/crimping die could be set short enough to crimp with that shorter brass. Don't have a .45-70 at the moment ...

How does the Henry shoot/group?

These worked well for me from a B78. 510 grain @ 1650 fps.

At first I was thinking it was not worth the money. It was pretty erratic and generally gave two groups 3 to 4 inches apart. I swapped scope mounts and it was the same. I then took the scope off to sight in with the factory open sights. The 50 yard groups improved dramatically. I then put on a known good scope and miraculously the groups were 1.5" at 100yds. This was all with Hornady factory Lever Revolution ammo. I was able to improve the groups to down to just over an inch at 100 yds. I have shot it out to 150 yards and it holds at just over MOA. Being that this is a 200 yard gun (IMO) it is a good shooter.

I’ve used the Barnes 250 TSX, which has a huge hollow point. It blows thru hogs and WT’s, even blows lung tissue out the other side. Ray Charles/Stevie Wonder type blood trails, but those ventilated critters don’t go far.

Barnes data for Marlin level loads are around 2,550 fps. I’ve used Vv 110 but a number of similar burn rate powders will work.

CEB and Hammer both make good bullets, just haven’t tried those.

DF

That’s good to hear. A 1.5-2 inch 45-70 should be adequate 😃

I too like the Speer 350 JFN for the .45-70 and while they're not a problem for my Ruger #1SC, they were too long for my 1895 Guide Gun.

So, I had a friend gift me a couple or three boxes of Hornady once fired brass from the FTX bullets and as I had the same notion to use the shorter brass with these longer bullets.

I WAS able to make them work but had to adjust my Lee factory crimp die all the way to do so.

As these bullets were designed for the .458 WM and as such have a much thicker jacket, they are designed to expand to about .60" or so and penetrate like crazy.....which is why I wanted use them for big bear medicine while roaming the mountains in western Wyoming.

Frog---OUT!

Here's how they turned out.....

Seeing the photo, brought a thought to mind…….very dangerous, I know!

A wide metplat jacketed bullet, with jacket thickness as you described. Giving two potential benefits…..awesome bullet if/when it expands, or giving similar performance as that of a wide metplat cast bullet if it fails to expand. Kinda…..the best of both worlds! 🤔

I’m certain that someone has already produced that…..I can’t be the first to have this revelation! 😂 memtb