I have a Ruger No 3 action and the use of a .45/110 reamer. I am thinking of building this rifle into a .45/110 for use primarily with blackpowder loads.

What is the correct rifling twist for a .45 calibre barrel for the .45/110 and 500 grain cast bullets?

Anyone have any other comments about such a project?

thanks in advance,

You can go to Green mountain site and look at their twists for 45 caliber barrels , I personally use 1in18 twist , 1in20 is for lighter weight bullets ,example 300 up to 400 Gr. 1in18 heavier to 500 gr. ,1in16 twist over 500 gr. Better check out what twist is in the barrel you are considering to re-chamber ! If you are going to get a new barrel for your action ? I suggest Green Mountain ! I have several 40/65 40/90 45/70 45/90 50/110 all 1in18 twists I have loaded fron 300 to 520 gr cast wheel weights in all of them ! the 40 cal shoot 400 gr best , the 45 need heavier to be target grade , Good luck !

BwanaBob--I have three 45-110 Shilohs. Two are 15 pound bull barreled rifles, and the third is a Business Rifle. All three have 1-18 twists, and all three shoot well, one of the bull barreled guns will shoot .850 to .900 at 100 yards.

Having said that, a 45-110 can be difficult to find a good load for. They are component sensitive. I bring this up as I see you are from Australia--NONE OF THE THREE WILL SHOOT ACCURATELY WITH BERTRAM BRASS. One will not shoot Norma brass either.

Loaded with a 520 grain Lyman 457125 Govt. bullet and 106 grains of Goex 2f Express powder, the Business Rifle went to South Africa with me last April and delivered impressive performance. I took a kudu at 302 yards, a gemsbok at 196, a black wildebeest at 225, and knocked a good blue wildebeest off his feet at 312 yards. I also got a springbok at 325 and an impala at 229 yards. I am going back the first of May, and am carrying the same rifle.


All of this was with black powder, and all of the bullets gave complete pass throughs. I have yet to recover a bullet, and this includes two American bison. The caliber is the Real Deal, but it can be a problem to make shoot.

I would make it a 1/18" for long bullets. The original standard government twist for the .45/70 was 1/22", and that worked well for BP loads of 405 and 500 grains both.

But the use of BP alone does not require a different twist from what works well with smokeless too. The use of 110 grains of BP isnstead of 70grains is not going to change the MV of those bullets enough to allow you to use a slower twist rate in the .45/110.

Thanks for the feedback guys.

But now I have another question following on from the first:

There is a .45/125 reamer for sale and I am now wondering if that would be an alternative, as well. I realise that the .45/125 was originally loaded with relatively light 300 grain projectiles but if the twist of the barrel was correct, would there be any reason why you couldn't load 500 grain projectiles in this cartridge?

If you go .45-125 - what is the brass you will use? I don't know much about the 125, but the standard answer to someone wanting something bigger than a .45-110 is the .45-120 (3.25" Sharps) case. Although ever made by Sharps it has the same head size - just longer.

18 twist will throw bullets as long as 1.5" and as heavy as 550 grs with fine stability out to 1000 yds using bp.

I predict that you will not shoot this rifle very much in 110 or larger configuration. But maybe you are looking for hunting rifle that will only occasionally be fired.

Brent

The original Sharps cartridge designation was stamped on the barrel to indicate caliber and case length. The 45-2 7/8" was the 45-110 with a light bullet loaded to 110 grains of powder. And it was the biggest 45 that Sharps made. I have a Shiloh that I've owned for 14 years. It has the #1 heavy, 34" barrel with a 1-18" twist, and weighs in at 14.5 pounds. I shoot it alot at long range matches, usually 70 to 100 rounds a day, and I find the recoil to be manageable shooting across the sticks. I don't like shooting it from the bench so much. It is very accurate with a Hoch 550 Gr bullet with 90 Grains of Swiss 1.5F.
When I first got this outfit together, the only available brass was Bertram or Red Willow turned brass. Neither brass was satisfactory. The turned brass would fail with splits in the case, and the Bertram was just drawn badly. Case heads were too thick to close the block, and the case walls were very erratic in thickness. I use HDS or RCBS brass now and have had no problems with it.
Personally, I see no reason to go to a basic brass length of 3.25". I do reccomend a 34" barrel to achieve a more complete powder burn and more velocity.
This past winter I have loaded some paper patch bullets and I hope they shoot well. I know a few fellows that have done that with some pretty high succes as far as accuaracy is concerned. Good luck with your project!

quote:

maybe you are looking for hunting rifle that will only occasionally be fired.

I guess that I should have stated what I want the rifle for and perhaps my questions would then make more sense.

My primary purpose for this rifle is to shoot in the Blackpowder Express event of the Big Game Rifle competition. The rules for this event state that the cartridge must be at least .400" calibre and have a capacity of at least 110 grains of BP. These rules were mostly written around the old British BP cartridges, and the .45/125 is quite similar to these cartridges in many aspects.

My seconday purposes are that I would like to hunt with the outfit and, if it will shoot well, I might dabble in some of the long range BP matches (although I realise that it will not be ideal for that purpose).

But the rifle and cartridge must fit in with Big Game Rifle rules.

As to what cases I would use? Good question and I am not particularly excited about using Bertrams. I was going to look at what Horneber has to offer and see if they have anything suitable.

Bob,
As you may have surmised by now, there is alot of ifs, ands, or whys as to the logic behind this particular cartridge. As I stated, the barrel length should be at best 34" to accomodate the burning of this amount of powder. You can load a 405 Gr grease groove bullet to get a full load of 110 Gr black powder. You can also achieve this by seating a heavier grease groove bullet out further, exposing the grease grooves. I don't care for this practise as it's too easy to get dirt imbeded in the lube and run that abrasive down your barrel upon firing. What range will you be shooting in this big game rifle match? If it's not creedmore type ranges, than by all means, a lighter bullet will do fine, and a 1-18" twist will be sufficient.. A good friend has an original Sharps in 45 2 7/8", and bagged a nice bull Moose at 200 yards with a 405 Gr gas check bullet.
One other little "cheat", as I call it, is after charging your case by means of a suitable drop tube, compress the powder to a certain degree. Many shooters here in the states do this, and claim it improves accuracy in their particular arms. Compression of the powder column can be anywhere fron 1/8" to 1/4". There are companies that manufacture caliber specific compression dies for this purpose. I hope this helps in your decision.

FWIW, I load 105 gr of Goex Exp 2fg in my .45-90-55 (2.4") and 107.5 gr of Swiss 1fg in my .45-100-550 (2.6")

Brent

Brent,
Do you find the need to compress your loads? Do you load by volume or wieghed charges? Personally, I am of the old school of thought. When I read so much about the old time shooters going to the trouble to screen thier powder, I find it rather odd that some folks would compress and crush the powder charge. I weigh my charges, drop tube them,(30" tube) and gently seat the card wad atop the powder. I know some shooters that compress their loads, either by a compression die or just seating the bullet with a seater die. I can't argue with their succes, but I haven't been able to make that method work for me.

Compression is a sometimes thing. Those two loads are compressed quite a bit. But not all my loads are. Depends on what I'm doing and what works best for that application. I weigh, drop tube, compress (NEVER with the bullet), and then crimp or not, sometimes with a lube cookie, sometimes not. All just depends on the situation.

The amount of compression could be slight - 0.05" or so, or it could be a lot - 0.40" for instance.

As for grain crushing, well I don't think it happens quite so much as people think.
Compression is "of the old school" dating back to the 1870s at the very least.

Start a tight patch; being sure the jag is tight on the rod.
Mark the rod with a felt tip to indicate Top Dead Center and a starting point.
Advance the rod until it comes back to Top Dead Center.
Measure the distance traveled from the start mark. That is the rifling twist, one turn in xx inches.
A lot easier than trying to estimate the amount of twist in a foot.