L E in 45-70 Govt

[newcastle]

Anyone have any experience with these? Found a nice wee one and caved and bought it. A nice buffalo gun if ever I feel like laying waste to the plains. Converted by Gibbs / Navy arms but I don't know when - any ideas?

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[Bruce_in_Oz]

There have been a few such projects over the years. One small quibble is that a Lee-Enfield bolthead is nominally 0.585" and the .45-70 rim diameter is 0.608".

Another interesting cartridge for the adventurous is the .444 Marlin which has a rim and case diameter much closer to .303 dimensions.

None of these cartridges feeds well out of an unmodified .303 mag, though. The easiest fix is to solder a couple of internal ribs inside the rear of the .303 mag. box to produce a single column mag. of sorts. And then you will just about be able to stuff five of those fat rounds in. Then again, if your target "game" hasn't expired after 5 well-placed .444s, you are probably in the wrong place with nowhere near enough rifle.

On a historical note: remember that the progenitor of the family, the Remington-Lee, was chambered in .45-70 and similar-sized cartridges like .43 Spanish.

[newcastle]

It seems to have a new magazine which I believe is single stack and looks rather nice. Never seen a .444 cartridge but it sounds big enough to hurt the shoulder a bit

[seabot2]

I have a No.4 Mk2 converted to 45/70. My only regret is that I chose the wrong twist barrel to put on it. For the loads I shoot, a 1 in 18" would have been better. I have a 1 in 14" on this gun. The magazine is unmodified, but I need to thumb the cartridges to make it feed right.

[newcastle]

wow that looks really nice actually. What grain bullet do you use? I wonder what twist there is on these commercial ones from Navy / Gibbs

[seabot2]

Newcastle: My favorite 45/70 loads uses 405gr cast lead bullets with a smokeless powder charge of around 14gr Unique. Works well for target shooting in all my other 45/70 rifles that has a 1 in 18" twist rate. This gun doesn't do well with it . Turns out it does like 300gr cast bullets with the same powder charge.