1.6" and 1.4" 45-70 sixgun

with trimming the 45-70 case to 1.4" and 1.6". what do you guys think?

basicly a fatter 454 cassul and 445 supermag but you get to use 45-70 bullets.

i am working on the merrits of this idea...

has it been done before?

i think black powder 45-70 velocities could be achieved in the 1.6" version

yes, unconventional but what do you think?

The 45-70 trimmed to 1.4" and1.6" is the Original versions of the 475 Linebaugh and the 475 Maximum as this was how the brass was made. I had an original in 475 Linebaugh made back in 1987
You could neck the case down and make a bottle necked 45

Yes, it can be done. However, I have found through some penetration testing that 1,200 fps with the proper projectile gives optimum penetration. To achieve more penetration, one has to boost the velocity considerably, on the order of 500-600 fps to achieve an appreciable difference. Back when the Linebaugh Maxs came out, they caused quite a stir until testing showed the gain in penetration is about an inch or two. That for all the extra recoil and noise generated.

John linebaugh and bowen both do a simular round based on 458mag brass.

yes the 458 win brass has been done and they are o.k. but using 45-70 brass is more apealing i think and a tad more volume i think. if you have a 45-70 (which a lot of people do) this would go over well i think.

i like the idea of using cheap and avaliable components that are in my garage. yes 1300 fps is all you need. i like heavy bullets or lower preasure. old school black powder velocities in a packing pistol is a great thing i think. 405's@ 1300 cheap cheap cheap!

so yes it would be a 458 linebaugh and 458 maximum but i would have to name them something different wildcat dibs on those...

BS, I'm almost sure you would have to turn the rims off the 45-70 brass to even get 5 in a normal sized cylinder, no? Seems like alot of work to push bullets to 1300 which alot of big bore pistols do already. I'm sure you could go bigger (cylinder) but then that defeats the purpose of a packin pistol. Thats why Freedom arms had to add a belt on their wyoming express.

yes the rims taken down or put 475 linebaugh brass in a 45-70 sizer. 5 on a cylinder is o.k.

Trimming brass sucks, so the easy way to go would be to just run 475 linebaugh brass. But then why go to the effort of custom dies and a custom gun when you can just have a 475 Linebaugh.

I do have an article about the round called I believe the 458-400 express that was in Handloader some years back. The author mentioned there was a problem getting cast bullets with the canalure in the correct spot, and I believe the cases were shorter than 1.4" to take advantage of available bullets.

To me it's an expensive and time consuming way to get a not quite 475 Linebaugh.

yes there is not many gaps in performance for there to warrant it but that aside the merrits are interesting and cost is not one of them in the initial investment.

what about 460 s&w brass with neck turning to avoid high dies and reamer costs? 458 s&w? then in a larger s&w frame you could go out to 1.79" and rebore

You don't need to turn the rims down for a Ruger 5 shot conversion. As was said above, the original 475 Linebaugh was made by cutting down 45-70 brass to the desired length. If you used Winchester, that was all you had to do. If you used Rem, the case walls were thicker and needed to be inside reamed.
Cartridges of the World has the 45 Silhouette listed as a 45-70x1.5"
Many years ago the .458 would have given you many more jacketed bullet options vs the .475 bullets.
When S&W was building the 500, I wrote them about what to do as a follow on cartridge and suggested the 45-70x1.6" You have factory bullets from 300gn up to 500+.

You should build one and call it the .458BS. I'm sure it would be a great round and there is nothing wrong with being different.

I bought a Ruger 357 max years ago with the thought of building a 475 Long. Now that I have a 475 Linebaugh I don't want to go bigger.

I think it was Bowen and Ross Seyfried(sp?) that did a Ruger max action and a 1.6" 45-70. I think he called it his Parradox Revolver.
They used a long Taylor throat in the barrel. The Taylor throat is the rifleing bored out for about the length of a bullet(just putting that clarification in for anyone who might not know). This gives an easy transition into the barrel and reduces the contriction from the frame threads. It also allows the bullet to get aligned straight with the barrel before engageing the rifleings. What they did was to bore the barrel out(to .458") farther and farther(removeing the rifleing and leaveing a smooth bore except for a short rifled section at the muzzle) and tested it on each step. He loaded regular .458 bullets and also did some shot loads. That's why the 1.6" case was better(more shot capacity).(for those who don't know, put powder in the case, then a gas check, shot ontop and finally an upside down gas check on top with a light crimp) I think they determined the best all around performance was with 1.5" of rifleing left. The bullets still stabilized and shot accuratley and the shot loads didn't get a big spin to blow patterns way out. At the 1.5" they got tighter shot patterns. The article showed Ross shooting thrown clay pidgeons with his revolver.

I haven't heard of anything like it since. Here's your chance to be way different BS.

I wonder if the Ruger Bisley Hunter barrel would be a great place to start from(if you could find one). Use the factory barrel and have it bored and rifled. Then you would have the flat "Rib" area on top to help with. Then get the Ruger Max frame hard chromed with a satin finish or something?
Buy both the Bisley Hunter and the Ruger Max and mix the parts up? Then sell the left over gun put back together.

awesome post lar45...thank you! you gave me a lot to think about. it is always good when i think there may be a good idea and find out that i am not stupid or crazy...i am shocked it has not been done before

quote:

Originally posted by boom stick:
awesome post lar45...thank you! you gave me a lot to think about. it is always good when i think there may be a good idea and find out that i am not stupid or crazy...i am shocked it has not been done before

Go back and re-read, it has been done. Bowen built the gun for Ross Seyfreid.
That doesn't mean that it isn't still a good idea.

Since a 454 casull load is equal to a standard 45-70 round what have you gained.Some of my 454 casull rifle loads using compressed H 110 are really hot in fact they travel beyond the 260gr Win Partition Gold Ammo reaching the 200 yd target.I'm going to load some SW 460 Mag ammo and see how it performs at 200 yards.

lar45...yes, sorry i was unclear...i meant done before in an other than one off custom...

scr83jp...

yes the casull is great but this is about 45-70 brass and bullets. shooting 405's @ old black powder velocities in a pack'n pistol is great imho. like i said there are not any real performance gaps, its more about style

I have drawings from a gunsmith who did this in the 80's. Odd you bring this up, because I found these drawings while looking for some data, and took a chance and called the guy. He only does gunsmithing for himself and friends now days. But he was converting maximum frames to the 1.6" long cases using a rifle case. Have to go look up what case it was, but it wasn't any inside neck reaming involved in it. His other conversion was using standard 45 Colt cases! Had to be a certain brand 45 Colt case, but don't recall which of them it was, but he was using .458" bullets on both of these conversions. And for those who might say the 45 Colt case is weak, Dick Casull proved it years ago that its strong enough. In fact, I recall one conversation with Dick Casull(use to call him often at his home in the early days of the 454) and he stated that with a strong tight cylinder, you could make the cases out of tinfoil! He started getting technical on me, and way over my head, but the statement about tinfoil caught my attention. Anyway, if you really want, I can go look up what parent case the max was on, and the brand of the 45 Colt. At the time, I couldn't afford to go with the 458" conversions, and in them pre LBT days, I just sized down the .458" bullets down to .452" instead.

thanks hhi812...

any info you could get would be great. thanks!

If you send me an e-mail at dennis.madriaga@gmail.com When I find the paper, I might be able to send the scan of his reamer drawings and stuff.
Dennis

Dennis,

If you give the papers I can scan them as PDF's and then post them.

Was that Gallagher that did the 45-70 rugers? That was the article in Handloader I mentioned.

i got the scans...i will try to post later...

Yup Paul, it was Gallagher.

i got them as microsoft documents and i need them converted to a jpeg ect. can anyone help???

I was on duty the other day and while reading "Cartridges of the World," I found exactly what you were looking at, it's called the 45 Silhouette. I'll post more info when I dig it out of my car

Let's see if this works, if not the cover of the mag is here http://www.riflemagazine.com/magazine/PDF/187hl.pdf



Guess the picture didn't come, anyhow, you can backorder the issue http://www.riflemagazine.com/magazine/index.cfm?magid=158

Does anybody have the article? If you could e-mail it to me at idahobronco@aol.com I can post it on my website.

I do remember hearing something about the 458 on a 45 Colt case. Maybe he used Remingtom brass as the case walls are thin farther down than most of the others.
With the way that Ruger has such huge over sized chambers, you might be able to just open up the throats and put a .458 barrel on. Then you would need a larger size die and let the brass fireform and stay large. Probably put a small piece of tape wrapped around the base to keep it centered while fireing the first time.

You can always just take a 405gn 45-70 cast bullet and size it down to .452" Just don't use BlueDot if you're searching for Max velocities. (not one of the smarter things I've ever done)

lar45...p.m. me yer email...

finaly figured a way to do it...

parent case

I thought it would be the Remington cases.
I took a Win case and ran a 45 acp expander stem all the way down to over expand the case. Then used a Lee 45 Colt factory crimp die to size the case. It leaves the case .480", but shrank the case from 1.282" to 1.268". The case capacity went from 42.5gns H2O to 44.1. I would imagine that you could use a 454 Casull case and then trim to whatever length you wanted.
I checked the .480" expanded case and it fit the Ruger cylinder just fine. You could just open the throats to .459" and screw on a .458 barrel.
I did cut down a 7.62x54R case and other than the weird rim, it looks like it should work fine.
Many years ago I bought some cast bullets from Liberty Bullets in Oregon. they were a 405gn 45-70 flat point that they sized to .452", they are 1.1" long with a .43" nose.

Anybody have a short piece of .458 barrel lying around? Any idea on what twist would stabilize a 405gn bullet at about 1200 fps?

Just a quick guess in quickload shows about 19-20gns WW296 should give about 1200fps with 30ksi. ISH. That should be doable with a factory 6 shot cylinder with the throats opened up.
458-400 Fat Colt?

I built my 458 Devastator in the early 90s using 458 Win Mag brass cut to 1.40". At the time it was a cheap alternative to 454 because Casull brass was so expensive. Now with Starline and Winchester producing cases, the 454 is the way to go. 45-70s cut down won't give you much over the 454 Casull (if anything). As suggested, if you want to use 45-70 brass in a standard length frame, opt for the 475 Linebaugh.

Lee Martin
www.singleactions.com

With his drawings, Mr. Johnson also sent me load data, with bullets used, powders, primers and their velocities. I think I have them mixed in with some other paper work somewhere, because I was comparing various cartridges. Was trying to decide on whether to do the standard cylinder conversion, or the maximum frame conversion. Will have to go look through my files. I think Elgin Gates did a series of different caliber Maximums or Super Mags, but IHMSA used mostly the 357 and 375 Super Mag(I had good luck with the 375 Super Mag in the Dan Wesson, when IHMSA offered special runs, and Hornady had runs of their 220 FP, with the crimp groove moved to work in the Dan Wesson), and I think the 445? Not sure if Elgin did a .458, but I think he did do a case in .50 or .60" cal?