First rounds fired in new Henry H010 45/70

[fortyshooter]

I wish 5 miles was all I had to drive. Its 25 miles one way for me to get to the grasslands to shoot. Im not complaining at all. At least I have a place to go and shoot now while all this is going on with what we have to deal with.

Same here but it's a relaxing drive that let's you think about how to plan your range fun.
Also time to wonder if that long freight train will be stopped at the rail crossing I have to cross!

[Grunt67]

A bit of an update. Carried the Henry 45/70 out again today to shoot up the rest of that Federal Fusion I bought that was so terrible.
Put the box of 20 thru it, still does the same. You're likely to hit 2 barns with the same shot ( slight exaggeration ), but a 3"group
at 25yds from a rest ain't good. Luckily the reloads work just fine. Going to use the Fed. brass for reloading.

[fortyshooter]

Are you going to try some of the 405 gr. cast bullet loads during your reloading?

[JEBar]

over the years I've had good luck with Federal brass .... good to hear your reloads are performing well .... looking forward to following your progress

[Grunt67]

Are you going to try some of the 405 gr. cast bullet loads during your reloading?

No, forty, I have never used lead. Always preferred jacketed. Lots of folks do, I know. Just never got into that.
Stay safe, pard.

[Grunt67]

over the years I've had good luck with Federal brass .... good to hear your reloads are performing well .... looking forward to following your progress

I agree, always had good luck with their brass, and their ammo,
until this bunch.I guess the ammo & rifle just didn't get along,LOL. It happens. Also like RP .

[JEBar]

I have never used lead. Always preferred jacketed. Lots of folks do, I know. Just never got into that.

understood .... I tried loading lead for our Henry 44 Mag and 45-70 .... that experiment didn't go well, ended up spending money buying several different bulk boxes of bullets for both .... can only wish I had that money back

[fortyshooter]

What was the problem JEBar? Have had great luck with Laser Cast for the 405 gr. bullets and Missouri Bullets for the other calibers.

[JEBar]

What was the problem JEBar? Have had great luck with Laser Cast for the 405 gr. bullets and Missouri Bullets for the other calibers.

no doubt about it, they make fine lead bullets .... as does a bunch of other companies .... we have thousands on our shelves .... from my earliest days of hunting and reloading, I've been a strong proponent of the "speed kills" line of thinking .... every firearm I hunt with I load our ammo and I load to max velocities .... for a very short time back in the 60's I experimented with lead and the experiment was a failure .... the lead built up in my 308 rifle and 44 Mag revolver turned me against it and that has never changed .... a major change too place for me a few years ago when I bought a 44 Mag and a 45-70 .... until then 30 caliber spitzer bullets with muzzle velocities running north of 3,000 fps were the norm .... reading on this forum a seed extolling the virtues of cast bullets was planted .... that seed sprouted and grew .... I ordered and loaded thousands .... at the same time a long and serious discussion centering on the theory that one shouldn't fire both cast and jacketed bullets through the same barrel was raging .... while I still don't thoroughly understand the reasons, I have come to believe the that to be the case .... one day after spending hours sending hundreds of 44's and smaller number of 45-70's down range, it took me a while to get the lead out of the barrels .... that closed the book on lead for me .... I made the decision to go back to firing jacketed only

[Mistered]

Lead bullets are a crapshoot out of nearly ANY gun.

In all fairness lead should never be tried in some calibers that are typically higher velocity and have always had FMJ bullets as factory ammo but it has been done with some success.

In the case of calibers that started out with lead, or had lead as an option at the time one might have more success with lead bullets but again there are no guarantees of accuracy.

Straight wall pistol caliber guns seem to shoot lead more accurately in both handguns and some rifles but again it might take some experimentation to determine this.

An example is a couple years ago I tried lead out of two of my Winchester .30-30s and results were terrible - and both of these guns shoot jacketed bullets with nearly unreal accuracy for .30-30.

My previous WInchester Trapper .357 shot lead very well but was probably a bit more accurate with jacketed.

I have not shot enough lead out of my Henry BBB .357 to make a judgement call but one day I did have some .38 Specials loaded with 125 grain lead SWCs and loaded up the last I had in my Henry and they shot incredibly well - and I may try it again sometime.

No real point to this post other than supporting the fact lead does not shoot well out of all guns and may take some time consuming experimentation to come up with a load that does.

If a gun does NOT shoot well with lead it is not necessarily a condemnation of that gun as it probably shoots fine with jacketed ammo as it was intended.