best load for 45-70 moose/bear hunting 150yards max

A

alec ouellet

Regular
EE Expired
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Location
rimouski, quebec
Hello!

Like the title said, what is your favorite load for moose/bear hunting with 45-70 (marlin 1895 ) at 150 yards max.

what kind of bullet??
what kind of powder??

Thanks!

Alec
 
47 grains of Reloader 7 and a 350 grain Hornady flat nose softpoint. W/W cases and W/W large rifle primers. If you can find them, you can substitute for the Kodiak 350 grain bonded core flat nose soft point as well.

Rick
 
Stay away from the 300gr hollow points (winchester, remington, Hornady, sierra), they're really only for deer. Other than that most any .458 bullets will work just fine. H322, Reloader 7, H or imr 4198, Imr 3031, 2400, H335, etc will give you want you want, plenty of powders and bullets to choose from. If you can get your hands on any Nosler PP 300grain bullets snatch them up as they are one of the best .458 bullets ever made for the Marlin lever action. Barnes xfn are good too.

http://www.realguns.com/Commentary/comar171.htm
 
420gn Cast Performance WFN
48.0gn Reloder 7
WLR primer
Rem brass

1800fps out of my Guide Gun.

Effective and accurate. More than needed actually but penetrates very well and does not cause a lot of meat damage.
 
I've been 'playing' with a variety of jacketed and cast bullets in the 45-70. Because of a possible recent development, my primary 'plan' at present;) for hunting bullets in my Marlin 1895GS will be one of three. Hornady 350grFP, Speer 400gr Flat-SP and the Remington 400grFP, Winchester & Remington brass, IMR 4198 & IMR 3031, CCI 200 primers and going by load info listed in the Hornady & Speer manuals.

I may well also use some cast such as the 420grGC but the possible recent development, if it materialises, is the acquisition of a Pedersoli 1874 Sharps:D. I have the 'indefinate' loan of it at present from a shooting buddy and in that I plan to shoot primarily cast bullet loads. I've posted some info and pictures (my 1st picture postings:)) in the Hunting & Sporting Arms forum in the thread 'possible' New Toy.
 
My favorite has always been:

-400Gr Speer FNSP or 405GR Rem FNSP
-46GR IMR 3031
-Win Cases
-CCI 200 Primers

The first buck I shot with that load went to bound away and piled into a stump. I said "That'll Work." I've used it for all my game since.
 
TwoTone said:
420gn Cast Performance WFN
48.0gn Reloder 7
WLR primer
Rem brass

1800fps out of my Guide Gun.

Effective and accurate. More than needed actually but penetrates very well and does not cause a lot of meat damage.
Click to expand...

I've also used the above components with anywhere from 11.0 to 17.0gn of Blue Dot for fun and practice with low recoil and very good accuracy. 17 is not max at all but it's as high as I've tried. I don't have velocities for the Blue Dot loads but the higher end ones would whack a deer for sure, no problem.

One generally doesn't try to find max with Blue Dot loads anyway as that's not the point when using this powder. You won't get high velocity regardless.

That charge range of Blue Dot would work with any bullet 460gn or lighter.
 
H322 is my favorite powder for my 45-70's it burns very clean and is not temp sensitive.

I load from 250gr Barnes X to 550gr Jae-Bok Young Crater's (WLNGC) but my favorite all round bullet/load for my Marlin 1895GS is 54grs H322, Win LR primers, 350gr Swift A-Frames with a 1 turn Lee Factory Crimp die adjustment crimp.
 
start some research here...

http://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/forums/47/1/Big_Bore_Levers

take a link to the marlin forum also...


Many guys have had poor results on moose/elk with common bullets like both the hornady 350 grains and their new pointy tip hornady bullet. Also the rem 405 grain. That is when loaded up warm as most guys would do in the situation described by the original poster. Moose out to 150 yards.


I too am on this trail of a good big game bullet for my guide gun.
My go back to spot for moose next year is a tight area of big timber.
Nice change;)
 
Don't worrry about the 350gr Hornady not downing a critter in NA, (while the swift,hawk, kodiak, rhino, woodleigh, Northforks, etc are better bullets) I've downed Moose with the 350gr RN and FN Hornady and it works just fine. An friend of mine who is a custom ammo maker uses them in his ammo and he has had nothing but great results on game with them, hundreads of reports on deer, elk, hogs, etc. The Remingtons are fine aswell if not pushed too fast, ie over 1700fps. Again it depends on what your hunting and what you want from a bullet, don't expect a 500grain solid to down a blacktail any better than 300grain hollowpoint but don't expect that sane 300grain hollow point to penetrate an elephants skull or a moose end to end. Match you bullets to your intended game. A 350 grain bullet at 2000fps is a good all around load for anything in NA. A 300gr Nosler Partition, Barnes XFN, Speer Unicor are also great bullets for large NA game.

Good luck.
 
Last edited:
My hunting load for my guide gun is 350 gr hornady flat nose in front of 48 grains of imr 4198. Under 2" at 100yrds and good power. The book says it should be 2080 fps but I get 1910+/- out of the short barrel.
Shot a black bear and two wt bucks with it this year with good performance and very little meat damage. I would shoot at game to 200 yrds with this.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom