I remember when this calibre first came out and the ammo was hard to come by and expensive. Anybody here use one or know of somebody who does? Whats the ammo situation in Australia now?

First of all Happy New year.

Second of all,geez I hate moving!!

Now Bakes about the 450.Don't waste your money just get a 45/70 in new or s/hand,plenty around.

The 450 is just a hotly loaded 45/70.It was made so silly buggers won't stick it in their old 45/70s.45/70 can be loaded to equal 450 loads easy.
HTH

I second what ER said....the 45/70 is a gem, and the 450 that Marlin bought out should have been a .50 Alaskan !!

50 Alaskan! Yeah Baby!!

Don't get me started on Harold Johnson's babies.

sigh.....

No no fellas just interested thats all. You don't hear much of it in Australian gun mags. Some times old Nick tells someone to buy one instead of a 45/70 but I don't think its made an impact here.

Bakes ,
In W.A. the .45/70 is category A (low powered) . .450 Marlin is category B (high powered) .No difference in performance when reloaded but a lot less hassle to get the .45/70 here . Not sure about other states despite our üniform" gun laws .

Hey Bushchook,can you tell us how the diff powers work over there?

I've always wondered.TIA

Here is my 45/70 Bakes, I have shot a few pigs with this and a lot of grassy's. I like the 405 rem's the 405 woodleigh's the 300 gr sierra prohunters and the 400 gr speers although the latter two are very soft.

I go with what PC says on this one. A 50 Alaskan would have been good. A 50 Alaskan on a bolt action will be one of my future projects. I was king of toying with getting a 450 Marlin barrel for my weatherby ,a switch barrel one for close up hunting when I take the 300 weatherby barrel off.

I Have had a 450 since they come out here,she sports ghost rings and a scout setup. Bought two boxes of the Hornady factory stuff and 200 unprimed brass, put a good thousand rnds through her, shot 8 Deer, and a shit load of roos and goats, excellent performer, the ports annoy me, had my choice again would have went the 45/70 in stainless, purely on round availability.
The difference in performance between the two rounds is insignificant.

On another note, when I got the 450, there was not much loading info available, so I rang up ADI and they said use 45/70 data for the Marlin rifle, which the max load was 60gns 2207, so I slowly worked up to this load, no pressure signs, I thought no worries.
Then they published data, for the 450 and THE MAX LOAD THEY PUBLISHED FOR THE 450 WAS 53 GNS 2207! I thought I was bloody lucky not to root my rifle, 53gn 2207 equals around 40,000 PSI, what sort of pressures was I getting being seven gns overloaded?
I would hate to know

Now the gun guru's all say that the 450 is more gun than the 45-70 BUT the 45-70 max'es out at 60gr and the 450 at 53 And from a supposed stronger case. I think they are flogging a dead horse.

CR500,

because Marlin will not produce a .50 AK last year I imported a reproduction 1886 45/70 so that I could build a 50-110....it will get 2200 fps with a 525 gr .510" bullet in modern starline brass !! It is at Bob's now.....hopefully will have it by the end of the year.

Easy Rollins ,
How do police differentiate between low and high powered rifles in W.A. ?
From observation I think anything capable of over 3000 FPS is automatically high powered . Must be some muzzle energy component too , based on factory loads .
.45/70 is low powered as is the .30/30 and yet .17 Remington is high powered .
You work it out ! Mind if I bring a .17 on your next buff hunt in NT . Not sure that a .45/70 would be up to it !

PC,
A bloke I know picked up a nice original .50 Express 1886 at the last gunshow in Brissie.Still had strong rifling,under $3000.

Thanks Bushie,
What do you use to shoot Roos with if you don't have a HP ticket?
How hard is it to get a HP ticket?

E.R. ,
Have to license the individual rifle in W.A. so in order to get a category B high power ideally you need letters of permission to shoot from a landowner who has a property of say 5000 acres or more. Must have property location numbers .
Letters aren't mandatory but unless you want a rifle for club purposes you are more likely to make a successful application if you have them.
After you spend 3/4 of an hour filling out your application at your LOCAL police station they will visit the property and interview the owner and surrounding property owners to establish your requirement is "valid". Provided the local police think you have good cause they will send your application to their regional office where it must be approved by a specific officer . They then send the approval back to the locals who will contact you and arrange a permit to purchase . If you're lucky this might all happen in 2 weeks . If not it may be 3 months .
Buy a new rifle in the same calibre and you get to go thru the whole thing again .
Fantastic system and not at all labour intensive !
Roos Can't be shot legally without tags from Dept. of Conservation and Land Management . Property owner must arrange these and will need to establish that they are in problem numbers to get them .
C.A.L.M. recommend a minimum of .222 for roos from memory . Guess .30/30 would meet their requirements in a low power .