Wanted: Your favorite .45-70 mould

[451whitworth]

To my knowledge, which may be incomplete, the 1895 Marlins in 45-70 are Ballard rifling not Microgroove. My brother has 4 Marlins and only the mid-70s 336 in 30-30 has Micrgroove rifling. The 1894s in 44RM & 444 and his 45-70 all have Ballard rifling.

Marlin advertised that the 1895 45-70 had "modified Micro Groove" 8 groove rifling in the 1976 catalog. With the popularity of cowboy action shooting they went to "Ballard" 6 groove rifling sometime in the 90's. Marlin got a lot of accuracy complaints from cowboy shooters who bought their cast bullets from suppliers who only sold .458" or .459" sized bullets. Micro Groove groove diameters are usually a little larger than conventional rifle groove diameters and it was a common trope (though untrue) to say that Micro Groove rifling wouldn't shoot cast bullets worth a darn. The solution was to slug that bore and get a little larger than normal cast bullet. It was not unknown for 30-30 barrels to slug .310", 44 Mag barrels to be .431" or even larger, etc.

 

[PhilC]

Thanks for filling in the blanks!