45-70 bullets anyone?

[Jimimac]

Was wondering if any of you guys are shooting 45-70 bullets with orange MMP sabots? I'm interested in an alternative to pistol bullets without the high cost associated with buying the buck a shot specialty muzzleloader bullets that are so popular.

This looks good:
http://www.speer-bullets.com/ballistics/bullet_detail.aspx?id=127

[gleason.chapman]

ORIGINAL: Jimimac

Was wondering if any of you guys are shooting 45-70 bullets with orange MMP sabots? I'm interested in an alternative to pistol bullets without the high cost associated with buying the buck a shot specialty muzzleloader bullets that are so popular.

This looks good:
http://www.speer-bullets.com/ballistics/bullet_detail.aspx?id=127

Yes, 45-70 bullets in an MMP orange sabot are good. Several of us however use the Speer Gold Dot pistol bullet (.452) with either an MMP12 or MMP24 or Harvester Crushed rib sabot. Several people also use Crushed Rib sabots with .458 Barnes Origonals, depends on the tightness of your bore. In general flat nose pistol bullets are great in MLer, in fact in the book "Rifle Bullets for the Hunter" the writer of the ML chaper recommended the Flat Nose Speer bullet as an excellent ML bullet. Many of use like the Speer Gold Dot because the jacket is bonded to the core and the regular Flat Nose rifle bullet is not.
Chap Gleason

[Jimimac]

Thanks... I've heard good things about the Gold Dots and that is one of the handgun bullets I'll be trying also since they are constucted in such a fashion and are not very expensive. I guess I was gravitating towards a 45-70 rifle bullet like the Speer I listed above since that bullet should have been designed to expand reliably without fragmentation at velocities generated by modern muzzleloaders.

I'm not locked in on any load at this point to be honest. I like to fiddle around a good bit since shooting the muzzleloader is fun, so for now I'm kind of looking for lower cost alternatives thatwill also work well as a hunting bullet.

In the not so cheap bullet category, my old Knight disk rifle likes the Precision Rifle 275 grain, 44 cal bullet loaded over 120 grains of Pyrodex. I picked up a new Omega last week and that same bullet loaded over 100 grains of Pyrodex gave me a 1" group the first time I tried it at 100 yards. I just picked 100 grains out of the air, loaded the bullets and had at it. I was pleasantly surprised, so I'm anxious to shoot this Omega more and see what it can do with different bullet and powder combinations, since my initial results were so favorable.

Thanks again for your input.

[Semisane]

I shoot the Remington .458 300 grain JHPs and thelee(cast).458 405 grain flat points with MMP orange sabots with pretty good results. Not getting target accuracy but plenty good enough for 100 yard hunting.

[flint head]

The Swift A-Frame 350 grain .458 bullet looks very nice but they are a little pricey.

[sabotloader]

Jimimac

I have not shot that exact one, but i do shoot the .458 Nosler for elk hunitng and I have shoot Hornady 300 grain and 350 grain .458 a bunch in that sabot. They all shot very well.

One of the keys will be can you get that combination down your barrel? Another thing a lot of people are doing is using the Harvester 'crush rib' with the .458 so that they can get them down. I think it started over on the Savage board and they have had really good success with them.

For the Nosler's I am shooting 110 grains of T7-2f, touched of with either a Renington 209-4 primer or a 25 ACP depending on which gun i am shooting.

I did have shot a couple of elk with this load, this year I shot a cow @ 176 yards - pass through... It was excellent.

[hossdaniels]

I swear by these and a black crush rib sabot http://www.midwayusa.com/eproductpage.exe/showproduct?saleitemid=635838&t=11082005

The 300g hornady 4500 .458 and the remington will also shoot out to 200 yds. (and alot cheaper)

[wabi]

I bought a pack of orange sabots last fall to try them. I have several coffee cans full of .458 - 350grcast bullets a friend gave me when he sold his 45/70 and I wanted to try them. I tried them in my Knight and they were not as accurate as I like. Then one day I was shooting my T/C NewEnglander (1:48) and thought I'd try them. I was flat amazed at the accuracy. They shoot as well as anything else I've ever tried in that rifle. With 80 gr T-7 and that sabot/bullet combo I was shooting just over 1" at 50 yards with the factory open sights, and that was a 5 shot group! The first 4 shots were well under 1", but I got the last shot out of the ragged hole I had been making. [:@]
I have a couple other inlines I plan on trying themin this summer. If they look promising I will buy some jacketed bullets to try.

[Semisane]

Hey wabi, are those cast bullets pure lead or an alloy? Roundnose or flatpoint?

[Johnmorris]

I have ben useing 458 bullets cast sabots with harvestor 452 sabots work ok so far