45-70 Leading - Follow Up Report / Question

[Red Sky]

Well, after a month and a half without my rifle (back to Remington for lack of complete rifling) I finally got it back. I've now had a chance to take it to the range with 20 rounds of pb Ranch Dog 425s. Unlike my previous trip which resulted in disastrous leading and the discovery of the rifling problem, I came out reasonably well this time.

A happy sight!



However, I'm still having a few issues. First of all, there still appears to be a little leading. My groove diameter measures .457, but that is with calipers (haven't slugged yet for fear of damaging the bluing, but plan on figuring out a way soon to confirm the measurement). I'm using, as mentioned, Ranch Dog 425 grain boolits with the plain base cutout. They are lubed with White Label Xlox 2500, sized to .460, and loaded over 29 grains of 5744 with no filler for around 1350-1400fps (no chrono yet to confirm that). Here's a couple pictures of the mild leading.





Besides that, the accuracy seems mediocre. Now, I have been a bit out of practice and some of this is DEFINITELY the shooter, but I'm fairly certain there's more to it than that. I can usually call a shot when I pull it off, and some of these seemed to be in the opposite direction from my expectation.

Here's the first target. The circled holes were shot after zeroing scope - others were still in progress (after the first couple in the dirt). All shots at 100 yards, and the pictures are sideways but still show groups well.



After zeroing, I shot at this target. It already had some (seemingly .30 cal) holes, so I circled mine in case nobody could tell by the size .



The gun was not allowed to cool between any of the 20 total shots, but they were not fired rapidly either. I'm fairly certain, accounting for the shooter, that the gun is shooting 3-4 MOA currently, and I know it can be better - but first the rest of that leading needs to be gone.

It's possible there are barrel constrictions from the dovetail cuts which fire lapping could improve, something I can confirm with a barrel slugging if I can feel it. Maybe I should go ahead and lap it anyway? It's also possible that there was still some copper fouling that caused the small amount of leading seen. It was test fired at the factory (3 rounds, jacketed) and not cleaned before being sent to me, and I only had Breakfree CLP and a boresnake with me to clean it beforehand. Those did seem to get it pretty clean, but it's plenty possible that wasn't quite enough.

I noticed some gray residue around the muzzle and in the barrel after the first couple of shots that I feared was leading, but it wiped off with my finger. I'm thinking it was powder residue sticking with some of the bullet lube, and it made a bit of a "star" around the muzzle which wiped away easily. Those bullets were dip lubed over the stove and WELL over-lubed I believe (no chances taken!), so it would make sense that this is the case.

In any case, I'm open to and greatly appreciate any suggestions as to where to go from here to improve accuracy (shooter improvement is taken as a given and will occur rapidly with my current excitement to get out and shoot this beauty, so other suggestions preferred ). I'd also like to once again thank everyone from my previous, now old, thread who got my started on the right path - it's been a lot of fun putting this new load together. I also just picked up some gas checks and will be looking forward to some stronger loads using IMR 3031 and GC'd Ranch Dog 425s!

[btroj]

Doesn't look like leading to me. What alloy did you use? If you have more antimony than tin you can get a light grey "wash" of antimony. This isn't a big deal, doesn't hurt a thing.

Did you use a gas check? If you did then what size sizer did you run the bullets thru to seat the check?

That's a good bullet for that rifle. I have found it to shoot quite well in mine. You might also try 22 gr of2400 with a bit of Dacron filler. If you haven't used a filler before I suggest you read up on them in the sticky.

The way I check for leading is to run a dry patch thru the bore. I then old the barrel up to a light and look from the breech. Leading will be quite obvious along the lands and grooves, it'll be the little lumps that look out of place. The dry patch will also give you an idea as it will tend to hang up on spots of leading and the patch will often hae flecks of lead on it too.

[btroj]

Just saw that ou sized to .460 and these are the plain base version. My bad.

That bullet should be quite up to the load you are shooting.

I suggest looking at shooting and bench technique more than the bullet. You have the right "stuff" going into the load, it wants to shoot.

How good a group can you shoot with other rifles? We're these fired off a decent rest or over the hood of a car type thing? This does make a difference. It could also explain the vertical in your groups..

[Jailer]

I don't see the leading but maybe Im missing something.

Try some different powders until you find what it likes. Seems a lot of guys run 3031 but I've found my best accuracy with mild loads of 4198 in my SBL.

Every gun is different and some are more finicky that others so you just have to find what it likes.

[jed]

With that weight of bullet I get good results with 4759 26 grains more or less.

[MT Chambers]

I'd revisit your scope and mounts for tightness or scope malfunction, for me the problems were the sights, mine didn't shoot well for me until I went with peep sights.

[monge]

Shoot some gas check booits or some j word bullits that will help clean up that new rifleing cut barrel .my marlin shot loose till the barrel broke in. My two cents!

[tall grass]

Red Sky

monge has the answer from my experience. Get a 100, 300 grain Remington (because they are probably the cheapest), load up with some pleasant loads, have some fun blasting away off hand. To be honest I still haven't gotten my 45-70 Marlin broken in completely and I am the second and maybe the third owner. It is my break-in experience with my 357 mag. Marlin, shoots great now. The problem is with the 45-70 is that it is not as much fun to shoot 50 to 100 rounds each time out. If your loads are even moderate and shooting from the bench it tends to start feeling like hard work and one tends to grow weary of it before gets broke in.

have fun

Jim

[Red Sky]

Thanks for the suggestions! Shooting was from a decent (but not great) rest that the range has, and shooting technique could definitely use some work - no doubt about that at all. Most of my shooting before this has been at 50 yards as I spend a lot of time with old milsurp rifles and the like, so maybe I'm worse than I think when I stretch the range out to 100. I'm surprised sighting in the scope went as smoothly as it did starting with hitting dirt, but I had a friend along to spot for me and the shorter ranges were full. I'm not 100% certain what I can shoot with other rifles in similar circumstances, but I shoot groups about the same with a 20" AR with irons as I did with the Marlin with scope set at 4x, and it really seems I'm not getting the accuracy I should be able to. I've mostly been a handgun guy as I considered them more challenging when I first got into shooting, but have come to love rifles equally and found plenty of challenge there too .

The scope is new as is the mounting system, and this is the first time I've worked with optics, so that's definitely another very good point. I'll check everything over and see if I can borrow a torque wrench to get it exact before judging the scope itself. It's designed for heavy recoiling calibers and should handle the 45-70 fine, but lemons happen so I'll do what I can to rule that out.

Also, I'm using Rotometals Hardball, so the antimony wash seems like it might be what's going on. This is what my barrel looked like after about 10 hours of scrubbing the heavy leading out from the old barrel, so I figured it was leading as well. Seeing as I was still on paper it doesn't seem to have had the effect that the leading did from before, but I couldn't tell if it was causing my mediocre accuracy or not. I'll rule it out for now as that sounds quite logical. Thanks!

Would fire lapping be a good way to break in the barrel as mentioned to get it over with quickly and in controlled fashion, or is that overkill in people's experience with Marlins? As mentioned, I have the gas checks now and can start shooting a lot of those if that helps break it in better. I planned to use those for my strong loads and the PBs for these practice and fun loads, but I could easily just throw checks on everything for a while. Thanks again everyone for the replies, and for putting my mind at ease on the leading - I guess that's one BIG issue I don't have to worry about, leaving me to focus on getting the groups better. Hopefully the issue is simple and I just suck, but I'm hoping to do everything I can with the load as well to get it as good as possible. That's part of the fun for me anyway!

[Red Sky]

Red Sky

monge has the answer from my experience. Get a 100, 300 grain Remington (because they are probably the cheapest), load up with some pleasant loads, have some fun blasting away off hand. To be honest I still haven't gotten my 45-70 Marlin broken in completely and I am the second and maybe the third owner. It is my break-in experience with my 357 mag. Marlin, shoots great now. The problem is with the 45-70 is that it is not as much fun to shoot 50 to 100 rounds each time out. If your loads are even moderate and shooting from the bench you may grow weary of it before it is broke in.

have fun

Jim

I'll definitely do that and see how it goes. Fortunately, I usually don't go to the range alone, and I don't really mind the recoil even over a higher shot count unless the loads get nuclear. The recoil pad on this thing is amazing (believe it's a Pach. Decelerator) and really makes the gun pleasant even with medium power loads. What would you (and anyone here) recommend to clean copper fouling after going through this process? I hear Sweets 7.62 come up a lot, is that my best bet? Or does CLP do the job well enough? I've mostly just used CLP on my guns for a while now for convenience and effectiveness of normal cleaning (and it's found PLENTY of use on things other than guns), but it may not deal with the copper fouling so well. Thanks!

[Jailer]

I haven't had a single jacketed round down the barrel of my SBL and it shoots cast boolits with fantastic accuracy. I haven't even shot a gas checked boolit, all plain base so far. I haven't tried alox, I use a home made beeswax, parafin, vaseline lube on a standard lube groove boolit.

I say skip the fire lapping and take it out and shoot it until you find what it likes.

[dualsport]

Shoot a couple boxes of factory ammo in it first. Find out if it's the gun or the load. If it shoots good with factory then you know where you're at.

[btroj]

I am with Jailer. Mine shot great with cast from the beginning. No fire lapping, no large numbers of jacketed thru it.

I think it is a shooting issue, not a gun issue.

[Red Sky]

I am with Jailer. Mine shot great with cast from the beginning. No fire lapping, no large numbers of jacketed thru it.

I think it is a shooting issue, not a gun issue.

Well, I'm certainly not going to complain if I have to go shoot some more. I'll post results when I've had a chance to get out to the range again later this week. I'll also share any results with my planned 3031, gas checked load if I get a chance to whip some of those up. I intend the GC'd boolits loaded to 1700ish to be my primary hunting load.

While I'm at it, would Hardball alloy at ~16 BHN be hard enough to handle that with a gas check, or should I quench to 28 or so based on others' results? I'd like it to remain a bit soft so it will not shatter on bone, but it obviously needs to get out of the barrel intact for any terminal performance to be relevant at all. Pressure will be about 32k psi, which is well above the "optimal" pressure for that BHN according to the formula I've seen a few times, but that isn't taking into account a gas check. If anyone knows, I'd love some advice here. I'd rather not start alloying yet as I want to get the art of casting down half-decently before I start worrying about my mix too much, but if that's the best answer I'll definitely consider changing those plans.

Thanks again everyone!

[btroj]

I wouldn't use hardball, way too hard in my opinion.

I would cut the hardball back with 1/3 or even 1/2 pure lead and add a 1/4 pound or so of magnum shot per 20 pounds of alloy. Water dropped that should be plenty hard to handle the speed and pressure yet won't break up on impact.

I use a similar alloy on 2 black bears. Worked like a charm, complete penetration. Load was 46 gr of H322 with a 420 plain base. Velocity was pushing 1700 fps and they shot just fine at 100.

Your bullet with a GC will handle that just fine.

My suggestion is to work up to shooting at kind offload much. Shoot 5 or 10 for a couple times to the range. Work up to shooting 20 or more. It isn't horrible recoil but it does get you tired.

I have come to the conclusion that my future hunting with my 1895 for deer will be with the 420 plain base over 22 g of 2400 wi a Dacron filler. It shoots great and will penetrate any deer I care to shoot.

[rhouser]

I would get some commercial cast known to perform in the Marlin barrels (lasercast 405's are my standard) and address rifles accuracy with a known bullet. Once you have answered your rifle accuracy questions and established what the gun will do, then work on getting your own cast bullet to shoot in your gun. I couldn't be working on a bullet and load while wondering if my problems were with the rifle or sighting system. For fun shooting try 13.0 - 14.0 grains of unique with the LaserCast 405.
Just my 2 cents. rc

[Red Sky]

I wouldn't use hardball, way too hard in my opinion.

I would cut the hardball back with 1/3 or even 1/2 pure lead and add a 1/4 pound or so of magnum shot per 20 pounds of alloy. Water dropped that should be plenty hard to handle the speed and pressure yet won't break up on impact.

Interesting. I think I'll look into getting some pure in the next week or so here and see how that works. Does that alloy work for the slower PB loads as well, air cooled or quenched?

I may try getting some commercial cast to address the accuracy if it remains a problem after the range this week, that's not a bad idea at all.

[Jailer]

I wouldn't use hardball, way too hard in my opinion.

I agree. I've shot my plain base 50/50 WW/pure in excess of 1500 FPS with no leading whatsoever.

[Red Sky]

I agree. I've shot my plain base 50/50 WW/pure in excess of 1500 FPS with no leading whatsoever.

It seems I was placing too much emphasis on alloy hardness when I bought this stuff. I researched enough before buying to know that I don't want to blindly make boolits as hard as possible, but didn't fully understand how well softer alloys worked when formed and used properly. I think this got in the way of my casting and loading techniques the first time around and hurt my chances, though the bad barrel would have doomed me either way. I figured that I didn't want to get into messing with alloying yet as it would add complication, but it seems I missed the fact that it doesn't have to be exact and might make the rest a lot easier.

Unfortunately, it seems nobody has any WWs around they are willing to part with, so I'm stuck buying bulk alloys online. That said, it would be just as easy to grab a load of pure from Roto and start mixing them - and I'm looking forward to trying. For now, at least this load isn't leading up, so I'm going to churn out a bunch of 'em and see where it goes.

To test the GC'd 3031 loads for the time being would I be better off quenching, air cooling, or holding off for a proper alloy? I know Ranch Dog's data uses quenched Lyman #2 boolits, but that seems to not quench to nearly as high of a hardness, so I'm worried about brittleness and potential gas sealing problems.

[btroj]

The 425 RD has lotsof bearing surface. Combine that with a gas check and it will handle velocity and pressure better than you might think.

I would have no problem trying a 12 Bhn alloy at 1500 for or better as long as the bullet fits and lube is up to the task.

Hard isn't needed in most cases.