Has anyone ever heard of taking a encore or contender 45-70 barrel and fitting it with a breech plug and making it into a muzzeloader? Just wondering if the twist would work?

I have not heard of anyone doing this, but the twist would be OK for heavy conicals and sabots. You might run into a barrel diameter problem, however, because most ML bullets and sabots are made for a bore diameter running closer to .451" than .458". There may be some larger .45 ML bullets out there, and you could use cast .45/70 plain-based slugs sized to where they would just slide down the bore with a little force, like the White muzzleloaders do. (.455" to .456", or so. Would require some experimenting.) I do this with one of my .45 ML's, but have to size the bullet all the way down to .450" to get it to load. It still shoots accurately to 150 yards, however, despite the big change in diameter.

You could do it, but why? Unless you did the work yourself you would likely have almost as much invested as it would take to just buy the ML barrel in the first place, plus the ML barrel will have the ferrels for the ram-rod. Fox Ridge makes ML barrels for both rifle and pistol (.50 cal), but I'm sure if you had to have a .45 cal barrel then SSK or Bullberry could make you one. Also, if I am not mistaken, the rifling used on ML barrels is deeper cut than rifling used for cartridge barrels. I know it use to be that way, especially for barrels used to shoot patched balls, but I'm not sure about barrels that are mainly designed for sabot use.

I have seen a T/C 357 pistol used as a 50M target Pistol by fitting a false Stainless steel cartridge head with a nipple and then breech loading a wadcutter pour in powder and finally seat the false head with cap on nipple.

The method works very well as all the shoot records are now held by this type of pistol. The advantage is that the bore can be easily swabbed after each shot and after you can go back to cartridges if you want

I did something remotely similar. I used a 45 caliber cartridge barrel on a muzzleloader. I made an in-line of my own design, 20 years ago, before they were popular. Used a modern style stock and scoped it. I guess I missed the boat on marketing it . Anyway, I cut the barrel to 28" having previoulsy lapped and choked in it. I saved the four inches that I wacked off the end and made a size die for my Lyman bullet sizing machine. See where it is going?? Fitted bullets. Use any 45 caliber cartridge bullet. All your 45-70 bullets are now ther to experiment with. You can load them with no tools other than the rod, in the field or at the range, and yes it does shoot straight. If you use SPG lube it doesn't take much whiping.

Recalling that makes me want to make a bench rest, underhammer, slug gun.

As for your contender the problem is going to be loading the long bullets and starting them straight. Maybe use Brownell's reamer and make a smoothbore section at the muzzle? Perhaps wack a piece off the muzzle and make a size die?

[ 05-29-2002, 19:37: Message edited by: scot ]

When the surplus Rem Rolling Block rifles hit these shores in the 60's kitchen gunsmiths fitted breech plugs and nipples to make muzzleloaders. Muzzleloaders were a high dollar commodity then and a $4.00 RB made a cheap alternative. Cabelas has one of a modern variety in their catalog last I knew. Inlines?