"over the counter Ammo"

[DFMills]

I'm patiently awaiting the arrival of my Shiloh, a Sporter #1 in 45-70 with a 30" heavy octagon polished barrel, extra-fancy wood, accent line on the cheek piece, AAA finish, pewter tip, fire blued screws, Bone and charcoalpack hardened finish with pattern #13 engraving, steel shotgun butt plate, semi-buckhorn sight, MVA long range soule sight, and a MVA #113 low profile spirit level globe front sight. If the estimates are accurate in a couple of months I should see the smoke rolling from it's barrell as I spend the first of what I'm sure will be countless enjoyable days at the range or hunting with the rifle. I hope to take the Shiloh on a Caribou hunt in Quebec next August with a trip Elk hunting in the fall of the next year. I am also interested in shooting silhouette matches if there are any in this area. However as much as one of my mother's favorite sayings is "If life were fair, dessert would come first"- I find myself living in an apartment where reloading will not be a possibility. I am aware that companies such as Buffalo Arms and Cabela's sell black powder cartridge ammunition and am very interested in the opinions people have about what "over the counter" manufacture, bullet type and size would make a good hunting blackpowder load for big game. Since I was raised with the idea that you should use the same loads for both target shooting and hunting, if there is a good setup that would work for both I would appreciate the information.
Thanks for your input,
Don

[Gunny]

Don,

It is a shame you will not be able to do your own reloading, as this is the way to make these rifles really shine. But if you can't then you can't and thats that. I am not familiar with store bought BP ammo so I can not rally speak to what you will find there. Best to give it a shot and just see. There is another option and that would be to find someone in your area where you may ba able to go and reload, this just may work.

I do feel however that you harbor under an illusion about hunting loads and target loads. These are two completely different deals and need to be approached in different ways. Lets take hunting loads, The goal here is not to shoot at a great distance. While these rifles are capable of great accuracy at distance, no "Good" hunter is going to take these very long range shots. Most hunting shots are limilted to somewhere of an extreme of 150 yds or so, and that is the distance than any conscientious hunter will limit himself to. In target shooting on the other hand we are not hunting for the table we are looking for extreme accuracy at distance. This opens up a whole new ball game. Bullets are now available to us that are great target bullets and terrible hunting bullets. Different loading technques are open to us that we don't have to worry about chambering problems etc. on the Target Line. We also are shooting at a known range in Silhouette, can take our time getting sight settings and don't have to worry about those steele animals running away, although when it is my relay and my bank of animals i could swear that those critters are moving. So in summary a good target load has almost nothing to do with a good hunting load.

Good luck to you and I hope that you find a way to do your won reloading.

Gunny

[Mike Hansen]

Another maker of .45-70 black powder cartridges is Cor-Bon.

http://www.corbon.com/catalog/index.php ... &uid=12665

I have a few boxes on order, but haven't fired them yet.

Good luck,

Mike

[Mike Hansen]

Of course I haven't fired them yet, they're still on order. JEEZ! :)

I wish the forum had an edit feature. As soon as I post a message, I see an error. I can look at the posting with the Preview feature and it looks fine, but the moment I post it and look, the error jumps right out at me.

Mike

[DFMills]

Gunny,
I understand what your saying about target and hunting loads. My only basis for my opinion has been shooting a modern rifle for target practice out to 300 yds. to gain practice and confidence in preparation for hunting. I have yet to become involved in any match competitions. I hadn't considered that with these rifles target shooting could be at greater ranges than those I can reach at the local gun club. Do you have any suggestions as to what to look for in a target load?
Thanks for the info and I hope to find a place to relaod as well.

Best regards,
Don

ps - At worst I can reload at my father's however that is a two hour drive from here. My father and I have reloaded at lot of ammo together in the past and I always found those times to be very enjoyable, lots of old stories etc. Sounds like a good way to get back into old habits.

[Matthew_Q]

I live in an apartment, and reload quite a bit. I have a Dillon 550 set up to load .45ACP, and load everything else (for now) in an old RCBS single stage press. Soon, I'll be getting a turret press which should make things easy.

Midway has a nice portable table you can mount a press to. Check it out. Set it up and stow it in your closet.

[JAGG]

DFM ! You will need a load with a 405gr bullet as that weight should handle anything you are after and then some ! JAGG

[abenson]

DF, I live in a house not much bigger than a good sized apartment. My reloading setup consists of a Craftsman fold away workbench with an RCBS Rockchucker Supreme single stage press mounted on it with carriage bolts and butterfly nuts and the powder measure attached with just a C clamp. This arrangement has worked very well for me. On the rare occasions I need to get it out of the way, both the press and measure are easily removed and the bench folds flat.

If space is a concern, it's not really; you'll be able to work something out. If the problem is some kind of regulation preventing you from storing flammables...that's a problem.

[Texas Shooter]

To All:

Since I am not set up to reload quite yet, I thought I would through some rounds down range until I am.

The only ammunition I've found locally that shoots a totally lead bullet is the PMC 45-70 405 grain.

Does anyone have any experiance with it? How did it shoot. Anything I should know?

Thanks in advance.

Texas Shooter