The ammo, almost two boxes, are of course reloads, they look pretty good too. Normally, I wouldn't trust someone else's reloads unless I knew them pretty well. But I recond I will put my safety glass on and torch one off, when I get the rifle. I may break one round down and weigh the powder, and the bullet, of course I won't know what kind of powder it is, but the weigh might give me a clue.
Apparently, this rifle will cycle over length shells. We will see. I found some specs on the 450 Alaskan and as best I can tell the shoulder is in exactly the right place and the brass looks to be trimmed correctly, but the overall cartridge length is .220 over. According to my specs OAL should be 2.550 but these rounds measure 2.770 All measurements are taken from the inside of the flange, as shown on the spec diagram.
I have read that the Model 71 was a little sensitive to large variations in OAL, or sometimes even minor variations. I guess I will know when I get the rifle. I was told the bullets looked to be a 400 gr. Barnes. These bullets have a pretty long taper to them, not nearly as blunt as most 45/70 bullets I am familiar with. So that would explain the longer over all length, without trimming the brass shorter then spec.
I think I will go pull a bullet and weigh it.
