Henry Rifle Forums

loading tables list 3 levels of loads for 45-70 .... the lightest level is commonly titled "1873 Springfield" .... the mid level is the one recommended for our Henry, it is commonly entitled "1886 Winchester/1895 Marlin" .... the strongest level is not recommended for use in our Henry, it is commonly entitled for " Ruger #1 & #3 .... to find a target load for our Henry 44 mag, we plan to begin with light loads listed for 44 Special .... to find a target load for our Henry 357, we plan to start with light loads listed for 38 special .... to find a light target load for our Henry 45-70, I am considering starting with charges listed for the 1873 Springfield .... thoughts ?? ... comments ?? ... concerns ???

When I was trying to determine my "go to" load for the .45-70, I tried some mid-level loads. Recoil almost the same as my Remington 870 shooting 3" sabot slugs. This is more recoil than I wanted to have for frequent shooting.

I have settled on a upper end Trapdoor (1873 Springfield) load. I only use one bullet and one load and it is deadly accurate at both 50 yd and 100 yd. with iron sights. That is all I need and I could shoot 50 rds a day and my shoulder would be fine.

I use the MB 405 grain LFP with Hi-Tek coating over 30.0 grains of H4198 powder.

what you have learned coincides with what I thought might be the case .... I have found that in our H010CC has a recoil pad and I've found that I can literally fire HSM Cowboy Action loads for hours without any recoil type issues .... once I get our reloading equipment setup and in operation, I want to run some through our Chrony and then check the tables for a load that will approximate the muzzle velocity of the HSM's

Unique powder, 12 gr and a 300gr cast is pure fun low recoil. And cheap.

I have 750 Oregon Trail 350 grain bullets that I plan to use as paper punching rounds .... if they work out as well as I hope, that is what I'll probably stick with .... if not, will regroup and probably try their 405 gr

bradf wrote:Unique powder, 12 gr and a 300gr cast is pure fun low recoil. And cheap.

This!

I'm loading from this data. The text and links explain why. Load data in left column. Recoil is similar to shooting 44 special out of my 44 mag Henry. 900-1,100 fps in 45/70 is quite pleasant and similar to original Black Powder loads.
http://www.gmdr.com/lever/lowveldata.htm

There are quite a few nice light loads listed on the powder sites for "Trailboss", "Unique", "Tite Group" and others.

Squatch wrote:900-1,100 fps in 45/70 is quite pleasant and similar to original Black Powder loads.

just curious .... with bullets at the above speeds, if you wanted to zero it at 100 yards, approximately how high would it be at 50 yards .... I'm trying to get a picture in my mind of what the bullets trajectory would be like

That one I can't answer for sure. I do most of my shooting at 50 yds. The few I've tried at 100 yds required me to aim about 4"+ high at 100. Bullet weight will make a difference also. I've been shooting 300, 350, 405 gr bullets with similar loads. Each hits a little different.

I do intend to shoot more at 100 yds. It one of the reasons I upped the last batch a grain or so. Honestly I haven't been shooting much over the summer. it's been stupid hot here and I've been too busy with projects to do much handloading. I hope to remedy that soon as I'm low on ammo. The shooting I have done has been 22's because of that. I have 3 other powders I want to try at similar speeds. Just to see if there is much difference.

1/2-3/4" high at 50