optimal barrel length and twist for the .45-70 and .358 Winchester?

Mr. Friendly

Mr. Friendly

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what do you think the optimal barrel lengths and twist would be for the .45-70 and the .358 Winchester?

these are the two calibers I've decided to go with and get custom barrels made for my T/C Encore frames. at this point, I'm looking at Bullberry with 1" bull barrels...one blued and one ss.

I know most ballistic reports are generated on a 24" barrel, but since I will be hunting in fairly thick wet coast forest/brush/bush, looking for advice on the pros/cons of barrel length.

thanks to everyone for your assistance, patience and long-suffering with my recent post whoring. I have appreciated it very much. :)
 
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well, the usual pro/con apply...longer barrel means higher velocity, slightly less recoil...but becomes more awkward to maneuver with.

I know the .45-70 is a slow moving cartridge already, so barrel differences aren't huge...about 20fps per inch of barrel. I dunno about the .358 Win though. :yingyang:
 
No point in going longer with either calibre; They aren't exactly ballistic marvels and considering the range you'll be hunting at theres little to be gained. My BLR is a 20" and its handy in the bush, in a tree or stalking. Certainly shorter you'll gain a little recoil and bark but not much.
 
DTM5 said:
No point in going longer with either calibre; They aren't exactly ballistic marvels and considering the range you'll be hunting at theres little to be gained. My BLR is a 20" and its handy in the bush, in a tree or stalking. Certainly shorter you'll gain a little recoil and bark but not much.
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indeed...but since I have to 'choose' the length, these are custom barrels, I'm debating and seeking assistance in deciding. :)
 
T/C frames are as short as they come so even the 24" barrel wouldn't make the whole rifle to long.
I would go with barrels no less than 22" for reduced noise while hunting.
Who is employing the noise suppressors while in the woods?
 
I would go with a 20 inch in each caliber. Believe this would give the best of balance and performance for each cartridge when using the tc encore or a bolt. Tried using the 15" in 4570 and 3006 on the tc encore and did not like the balance, but that was using the pistol fore end. I have a 243 15" brl on the encore using the rifle fore end and find it to balance better.
 
For the 358 Win I too would go with a 20 inch barrel. No real need to go longer with that caliber. Noise is not that bad to add extra inches. I’d do a 1-12 or 1-14 twist. Likely not going to be loading 310 grain Woodleighs though anyway lol.
 
My double rifle has 23" barrels and is very quick and handy. Not having an action length really shortens a gun.
Id go 1-12 twist and 20" for the 358.
Are you shooting jacketed or cast in the 4570?
 
I had a custom 1886 Winchester made some years ago with a full octagon 28" Douglas air gauge barrel. Heavy? that's an understatement! But I was a lot younger then, and the weight didn't matter so much. It was annoying when the rifle across your knees put your leg to sleep though! Very accurate rifle with the heavy slugs, and heavy loads. I didn't give twist much consideration at the time. It has a standard 22" twist. If I were doing it again, and I'm not, it would have an 18" twist. Probably wouldn't make a hell of a lot of difference, but it might make the light stuff group a bit tighter. Also has a period Redfield receiver sight, and wears a stock that has a 2" longer Length of pull for my larger frame. I had a Marlin style forend put on it, for my larger hands. I still use it, but no longer carry it much, it's a stand rifle.
 
Mr. Friendly said:
what do you think the optimal barrel lengths and twist would be for the .45-70 and the .358 Winchester?
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Can't offer experiences with the 45-70; don't own one.

The wife's BLR, rebarreled by Bill Leeper from .308 to .358 years ago, wears a 24" barrel. Bill offered to leave it "long" and if she/we didn't like it, then he would cut it back. I compared the feel and handling of it side to side to an unmodified BLR, and I actually preferred the slightly barrel heavy feel of the 24" bbl. That might be just me, because I have a few Husquvarna Husky's in the safe, some with the original short 20.5" bbl and a couple that Bill rebarreled at 24". I like the slight barrel heavy feel on those as well.

As for my wife, she's a hunter and shooter from way back, but a rifle is a rifle is a rifle to her; the tool to do the job. It's over and under shotguns that get her interest in lines, feel, etc. She says it's because you carry a hunting rifle slung over your shoulder for days and days all year and then shoot it once or twice, but you carry a shotgun in your hands behind the dogs hunting birds and shoot a lot. Anyways, her opinion on the two different BLR barrel lengths was she had no preference whatsoever. So the BLR retained the original 24" barrel length Bill left it at as she didn't care and I preferred it.

We hunt in some pretty thick alder jungles in some of the places we hunt (and where the grumbly bears live, thus the fondness for .35 caliber rifles). just don't find an extra 4" (or 6") of metal tube is a hindrance in either carrying or shooting in that cover. If you're doing dynamic shooting between multiple targets, fast shooting at grouse in heavy cover, etc., then I think most people will find they have more success with shorter bbls. But not for the essentially static shooting that is the case in probably 99% of shooting at big game.

And while many people don't think the .358 Winchester is a "ballistic marvel", it depends on whether you want to stick with the anemic offerings of factory ammunition or handload for it. If you are going to be in heavy brush always, then you're probably thinking of really heavy bullets to hopefully reduce deflection if the bullet hits some brush on the way to the critter you're shooting at, and ballistics really doesn't matter. I load the old original Barnes (I think - I bought a whole bunch of these when the store I bought my 358 Norma Magnum from way back offered me a deal as they weren't selling) 250 grain round nose for both her .358 Win and my rifle when we're in the heavy stuff. POI is not exactly POA with those bullets, but at close range in the alders, if you're worried about that, you probably look for fly shyte in your pepper.

The everyday load for the wife's .358 Win is the Barnes 180 grainer. It will easily ballistically match a bullet of the same weight out of a 30/06 to a little over 300 yards - and nobody says the 30/06 is "just a woods rifle", or that the 180 grain bullet in the 30/06 is too light for elk, moose, bears, etc. I understand some people say they have issues with Barnes' performance, but I've been hunting with them in some applications from before even the X-bullet was first announced, and transitioned from the Nosler Partition to Barnes for all my big game shortly after that. Deer, elk, moose, two goats, antelope... always performed as advertised.

BTW, my wife shoots hundreds of commercially cast .358 158 gr. SWC pistol bullets every year over a little bit of Red Dot for about 950 fps - likes to "heavy up" for those big bull gophers. She'd rather shoot them with her BLR than her CIL/Anschutz Model 190 - go figger. I got sick of cranking them out for her, and she finally turned into a reloader.

For your amusement, this is an old article by Paco Kelly regarding the possibilities with the .358 Winchester. He's been a rabid experimenter and gun writer since before the Web existed.
http://leverguns.com/articles/paco/358_wcf.htm

Another one I stumbled over while looking for that one for you.
http://gunblast.com/Browning-BLR358.htm

What do you intend to hunt with your 358?
 
hey Rick, thank you kindly for your informative anecdote! the .358 Win is the plan...but first/foremost will be to get the .45-70 barrel. there is something about rimmed straight cartridges that appeals to me. as for stories about the .358 being the best bush caliber because it doesn't deflect as badly as others...apparently that's hogwash. I haven't read the report, but it has been referred to several times in the 50th Lyman reloading manual about how a bunch of the guys there spent a lot of time and money and disproved that theory. everything deflects the same, doesn't matter bullet weight, size or profile, everything suffer equally. they were quite pleased to debunk that 'wife's tail'.

looking forward to reading those two articles! :)
 
I would not say a .358 Win is particularly special as "brush bucker", but I don't think there's much question that heavy bullets are going to deflect less than light bullets - all else being equal.

I would cast a very suspicious eye towards anyone who claims everything deflects the same. If somebody questions that, grab a .223 and some 12 gauge slugs, go fund some thick alders, put some targets behind a bunch of that brush, and fire a few dozen rounds from each. My brothers and I did that once just because we had nothing else to do, and there's a lot of randomness because each bullet that does hit brush doesn't hit exactly the same, thicknesses of branches and different angles, etc. But it does make a difference. And during 30 years in the military, I've fired and seen LOTS of bullets fired through brush on austere live fire ranges, 5.56 vs 7.62 - even though there's not really a heavy bullet in that comparison. And I'm pretty sure high school physics says the greater the momentum of the object, the more it takes to move it's vector of movement.

But I'll readily agree there isn't much difference as far as resistance to deflection goes between a Barnes 168 grain out of my 30 Newton, and the Barnes 250 grain out of either the 358 Win or 358 Norma magnum.

We load heavy in our .35s not because I'm thinking of "bucking brush", but because ballistics don't matter when bugling elk in those alder patches, and if we do run into a grumbly bear at rock throwing distances moving along those game trails through the brush, I prefer heavier over lighter if it comes down to a face to face dispute. May not make a difference, but it certainly won't hurt.

You didn't say what you were hunting, but if I decided on a 358 Winchester for myself and we didn't live here in Grizzly Central, I would probably start load development with the Barnes 200 grain bullet. My wife weighs 125 lbs with her boots on, so I try to reduce the recoil as much as possible so I've stayed with the 180 grain bullets - given expansion ratio, all else being equal as far as rifle and charge weight, muzzle velocity, etc, it will have less recoil than a 30/06 using the same weight bullet. But when you look at loading data versus the theoretical ballistics difference between the 180 and 200 grain bullets, the 200 grain bullet is real hunting world almost the same ballistics path with a bit more energy.

A lot of the discussion is mostly theoretical anyways (but that's why there's a gun nuts forum in the first place). A reputable bullet that groups well, and quibbling about the difference between 180 and 200 grain bullets is mostly just that - quibbling. In most calibers, these days there's so much high quality factory hunting ammunition available that you don't really need to handload unless you want to shoot your hunting rifles a lot. But the factory loads for the 358 Win are laughingly anemic (or at least were the last time I looked).
 
If you have read about the houston warehouse ie.(secrets-of-the-houston-warehouse) 21-3/4 in is the length they said was the best length
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.45-70 and .358 Winchester? are you shooting Cast bullets ???

for the .358 a 12 twist or a 13 or 14 twist would be better
 
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Bullets deflect. Even 400 gr 458 cal. Bullets. I lost a bear because of it. Shape and velocity have more influance than weight or diameter but all bullets can be deflected. Even 500 gr solids deflect wildly in my tests with wooden doweling
 
just having some fun said:
If you have read about the houston warehouse ie.(secrets-of-the-houston-warehouse) 21-3/4 in is the length they said was the best length
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Yeah, I have read that. Ever wonder how Diemaco/Colt Canada ended up with that slightly odd length on their .223 caliber carbine uppers? How many rounds they fired to figure that specific length out?

A heavy benchrest barrel is not the same as that on a military carbine, which is not the same as the barrels of most hunting rifles. Diameters, profiles, etc.
 
brybenn said:
Bullets deflect. Even 400 gr 458 cal. Bullets. I lost a bear because of it. Shape and velocity have more influance than weight or diameter but all bullets can be deflected. Even 500 gr solids deflect wildly in my tests with wooden doweling
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I tend to meat with my boolits, though alder tipping and arbutus trimmin' is fun with big lead as long as ye have a hill or gully fer a backstop. Ye may have lost the bear for numerous reasons, but if you set yourself up for the critter when it enters yer zone then bonk it when it's unaware of yer presence, a fookin' 22 LR will do the trick in close.;)

Had 3 nice bucks inside of ten ft. of me today whilst reducing alder trimmings to dump off and coulda taken either one with me bolo, but the moron neighbors in my
area would have crapped themselves & I'd end up on socialist media or TV. Fook that, I'll wait till it's dark as the buggers are always here.:ninja:
 
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