PDP,
Being currently all but confined to shooting long guns off the bench, I've really gotten hooked on cast boolits in the lever guns. For the last 3 years, thanks to some of my favorite internetsuperhighy enablers, the mixture of cast boolits pushed with pistol powders has become addictive. That GT 150 gr HP gas checked bullet with a proper dose of AA#7 will amazingly shoot MOA groups at 1700 fps at 50 yds, closer to 1-1/2 moa at 100 yds, from my 30-30. Not having a 45-70, I won't have the satisfaction of tinkering with it, but I sure would like to hear a success story of a GT bullet load in a 45-70.
I wish I'd had the funds at the time to go ahead and order 1000 of both the 44 boolits and the 30-30 boolits .... might as well add 1k 357 bullets to that wish list too since we're looking at a minimum of 3 month wait time.
jd
jd,
I want to make sure I support the cast bullet enabler team. If you think you like pistol powder for rifle cartridges, you should try a few shotgun powders. All of these are dual purpose for shotgun and pistol. They also work extremely well in hyphenated rifle cartridges. Unique, Herco, and Blue-Dot or IMR Blue. My personal favorite of the three is Herco. It has more bulk per grain. Shotgun powders are designed to burn completely at lower pressures and are bulky taking up more space per grain of weight. Just the thing for reduced loads with cast bullets. Oh, and easy to ignite as well.
Here are a few Herco use examples. 357 rifle, 215gr plain base bullet, 5.0 gr, 1,050 fps. Same 5.0 gr for 155gr, 190 gr, and 205 gr plain base bullets with standard small pistol primers. The 155 gr is moving at 22 lr high velocity, 1,200 fps. The others are all subsonic. Also very accurate loads. For 30 carbine T/C pistol 4.8-5.0 gr for 135gr and 170 gr. For the 30-30 Unique and Herco both work well for me in the 8-10 gr range base on bullet weight. A Berry's 110 gr 30 carbine plated bullet in the 30-30 with 10 gr of Unique runs at 1,750 from my 26" barrel. If I want more velocity, IMR-Blue has also performed well.
I use Herco enough to purchase in the 8# bottle. Over 90% of my shooting is with cast bullets.