Who has & what is your experience loading .45-90 WCF?

[Hobie]

That about says it. Who has experience loading and shooting the .45-90? What about it? Will you share your loading 'secrets'?

[rafter-7]

with black powder or smokeless?

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[Hobie]

with black powder or smokeless?

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7

Yes, with BP or smokeless... Tell us about it.

[Mike D.]

I have loaded the .45-90 for several years for use in my pre-1920 Winchester. I prefer lighter bullets, so the heaviest loaded would be the Hornady 350 RN, but most involve 300 grain bullets. Heavier bullets are not required for light skinned, hoofed game, and I do not hunt bears.

My favorite load has been 64 grains IMR 3031 under the 300 Barnes Original. Now that the California Condor has been reestablished in a portion of it's historic range, we now must look to non-lead projectiles for hunting use. I have yet to load any of the Barnes TSX bullets for the .45-90, but will do so at the earliest convenience. Those bullets are darned near $1 each, so plinking is out of the question. I know how well they perform in the .45-70, and fully expect the same for the longer cartridge. MV will of course will be higher, probably in the 2300 FPS range. We shall see.

I have some ammunition loaded with 70 grains Varget and the same Barnes Originals that I will try in the Browning that was recently modified to .45-90. The gun is as yet untested and Mike requested that some light loads be used at first. I doubt that there will be unexpected issues with this rifle, so full power loads will soon follow.

Any powder that is suitable for the .45-70 will also work well in it's longer cousin. H322, 4895, 4198, and a number of other powders will also get the job done.

[crs]

Hobie,
My .45-90 experience is loading for the Miroku/Winchester 1886 with 26 octagon barrel and some of the loads are heavy. 86er, Ricky , and I have collaborated on these and will continue to do so. If that is your area of interest, I can provide you several links to loads and share some of our experimental loads with you.
However, I am leaving for Jackson, Miss today and will not be back home till Sunday - Monday.
regards, crs.

[rafter-7]

we used 3031 and R7 with the 300 grain bullet our playing was done 3 or 4 years ago so I am not going speak just going off my memory

we did play with black and with out a drop tube its very hard if not impossible not to get a few fliers... The bigger the case the more the drop tube comes into play

The one thing I will never forget Byron and I took 3031 @ 60 gr. and topped it off with a 300 gr. cast and it was a nice load then we took the same charge and put a 500 ish' cast and it almost broke our collar bone we loaded 5, shot 2, and pulled 3 nasty!!!! this was done with my Shiloh Sharps 45/110 and it was still not showing pressure yet!! ouch!

I seam to recall playing with reloader 22 and the big 45 cases but the results were less than average so Byron and I agreed "Why" and left it at that... We have put R22 in every old levergun cartridge and the only one that had spectactular results was the 33 WCF

slow powders and a strait case is not the answer.

Byron and I wanted to get a 90% to full case load of smokless with the slow powders and everything came up poor acc. to just plain wasteful with out decent results... we gave up and just load 3031 and R7

when it comes to all the 45-whatever case just stay with the 45-70 because it has all the room you need for smokeless loads.

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[BigSky56]

Hobie, Snooky Williamson has a lot to say about the 45-90 and reloading it in his book Lever Legacy if you dont have it I will scan and email it to you. danny

[Hobie]

Gentlemen,

I just wanted to hear about YOUR experiences and have you share them with the forum. I don't have a .45-90 but I do have all of the references cited. Thanks for the responses!

[cowboykell]

My most accurate load for the BPCR gong matches is 80 gr. of Swiss 1 1/2 schuetzen black powder, a newspaper and .03 cardboard wad, slight compression with a 510 gr. cast bullet out of a Browning BPCR 45-90.

[geobru]

My experience is with an original 86 with a cut down barrel with the 1:38 twist express rifling. I don't have access to my notes right now, but I loaded it with 3031 and 5744 and TP filler with good results.

It liked the 320 grain cast bullets right away, but it took some experimentation to get it to finally shoot 370 grain cast bullets very accurately. (~1.3" at 55 yards)

One thing I can say off the top of my head is that it would NOT stabilize 405 grain Lasercast bullets, but it did stabilize some cast bullets from a friend that weighed 407 grains, but were slightly shorter than the Lasercast. That experiment convinced me that the Greenhill formula is pretty darned good at predicting if a bullet will stabilize in a gun with a given rate of twist, and that the length of a bullet is more important than the weight as far as bullet stability is concerned.

[Pistol Mike]

Yes! Let's hear about your experience loading the .45-90 WCF.

I've having trouble finding "full power" loading data for my Miroku/Winchester 1886 EL (almost wish it was a 45-70).
Only have one good load in my '86 so far, it's Berry's 350grs RS under 40.0grs of A5744 (shoots under 1.5" at 90 yards)

Would be nice to hear if anybody is loading cartridge to full power as is done with the 45-70, in strong guns of course!


Regards Mike

[86er]

Wanna knock down some big stuff? I load the 450gr brass or copper bullets (Northfork, Nosler Banded Solid, Dzombo) with 53 grains and the lead filled bullets (Kodiak, Punch) with 55 grains of H322 with a magnum prime. Either loading gets a hair away from 2100 fps in a 26" bbl. I shot the cape buffalo and elephant with these loadings.

[kimwcook]

Welcome to the board, Pistol Mike. Your over in ole shatterhands territory (Norway, I believe).

[KirkD]

Hobie, I did quite a bit of playing around with different .45-90 loads back when I had my first original '86 in .45-90. I don't know what to say other than one thing:

1. Case is too big for smokeless powder unless you are looking for some high end loads, in which case the big case volume helps keeps pressure down. In my case, I only worked for loads around 1,500 to 1,600 fps with cast bullets from 300 to 330 (Gould) bullets. To help get consistent burning (low E.S.) I found toilet paper was very helpful, even with 5744.

[Sixgun]

Hobie,
I've been loading the 45-90 since 1975. Back then I used 50 grains of IMR 3031 with the Speer 400 jacketed. Killed a few deer with it and that load stopped 'em in their tracks.

Then I discovered the proper use of cast bullets. What I did not discover was the extended use of medium to high pressure loads in a blackpowder barrel. I used a Lyman 300 gr. sized to .459, along with a 325 gas checked bullet on top of 38 grains of AA 5744. After a thousand or two of them in that rifle, she, well, let go. (you know about that). In my other two NICKEL STEEL 45-90's, I stay with 30 grains of 5744 with a 375 NEI gas checked bullet for around 1500. (don't have my notes handy).----------Sixgun

[KirkD]

Sixgun, that load looks a mite steamy ..... you might want to ease off a bit. For comparison with Sixgun's load he mentioned above, my max load with 5744 was 32.2 grains of 5744 which, with 1 sheet of toilet paper filler, under a 330 grain Gould bullet, gave me 1,563 pfs. Same load with no filler gave me 1,554 fps. In a moment of living on the edge, I tried 37 grains of 5744 under a 330 grain Gould bullet with no filler and got 1,725 fps. Don't ask me why I did that .... cause I have no idea what got into me. I certainly don't do stuff like that anymore and I think Sixgun has gotten pretty careful as well.

[jorgy]

I have an old Marlin 1895 pistol grip 26" barrel. What works best for
me & gives the most accuracy is 48 grains of IMR4895 & a 405 grain
cast bullet with a gas check base. I had good results out to 200 yds
with this load. Due to the pistol grip recoil is not bad. However with a straight grip it is murder.

[Pistol Mike]

Welcome to the board, Pistol Mike. Your over in ole shatterhands territory (Norway, I believe).

Thank you for welcoming me!
Well... i'm almost from "norway", to be more precise i'm from Smaland in the southern part of Sweden. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden

Wanna knock down some big stuff? I load the 450gr brass or copper bullets (Northfork, Nosler Banded Solid, Dzombo) with 53 grains and the lead filled bullets (Kodiak, Punch) with 55 grains of H322 with a magnum prime. Either loading gets a hair away from 2100 fps in a 26" bbl. I shot the cape buffalo and elephant with these loadings.

Not as big as elephants! But i would like to push a 400-405grs bullet up to about 2000fps for moose and boar hunting.
I've tried Remingtons 405grs SP and A2230 but didn't get any good results. The nose on this bullet is a bit to long if you want to use it in the '86. I think it's important with a good crimp to burn all the powder propoerly!


Regards Mike

[RKrodle]

Welcome to the board, Pistol Mike. Your over in ole shatterhands territory (Norway, I believe).

Thank you for welcoming me!
Well... i'm almost from "norway", to be more precise i'm from Smaland in the southern part of Sweden. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden

Wanna knock down some big stuff? I load the 450gr brass or copper bullets (Northfork, Nosler Banded Solid, Dzombo) with 53 grains and the lead filled bullets (Kodiak, Punch) with 55 grains of H322 with a magnum prime. Either loading gets a hair away from 2100 fps in a 26" bbl. I shot the cape buffalo and elephant with these loadings.

Not as big as elephants! But i would like to push a 400-405grs bullet up to about 2000fps for moose and boar hunting.
I've tried Remingtons 405grs SP and A2230 but didn't get any good results. The nose on this bullet is a bit to long if you want to use it in the '86. I think it's important with a good crimp to burn all the powder propoerly!


Regards Mike

You also may find that the 405gr Remington is a little soft at the higher speeds, It can expand rather quickly and then not penetrate well. I like the 405gr Remington but I keep the speeds down to around 1600-1700 fps and the bullet works pretty good. Also you can't crimp the bullet in the crimp groove or it will be to long. Seat the bullet for the correct COL and the use a Lee Factory Crimp Die to make your crimp. Oh, and Welcome to Leverguns. I hope you post some story's and pictures of your hunting and shooting.