Anybody using 5744? How about 405 Rem bullets?

[fanner50]

I am working on loads for my 45-120 BC. Tim didn't tell me that it would be temperamental. I tried a cast pointed 500 gr cast to .459 and it failed miserably. As a matter of fact my casting attempts have not been great and with my health being what it is I decided to sell all of my casting equipment and buy bullets from now on. I just purchased some 405 Rem bulk bullets to try my BC didn't like the big cast pointed design. I'm thinking it was the design of the bullet and lack of bearing surface or the shallow rifling??? What say you all? Anyone have similar problems with their BC's? What bullets work for you? I shoot the Hornady 350 RN over 45 gr of 4198 in my 45-70 carbine and get clover leaves at 100 yds. So far the 45-120 would not make a good close range elephant gun. Would love to hear all suggestions. For BPCR I have a big supply of Jim Shocky's gold and like it, but need a bullet that will shoot accurately. 
Thanks in advance - F50 aka Gary

[knight0334]

A lot of the problem with the 45-100 to 45-120's is there is too much unused space left in the case.   The powder placement isn't uniform within the casing at the time of ignition.    With blackpowder, the entire case is full and right up against the primer and things are generally consistent.   With a smokeless charge, the spark has to jump to find powder in such a big case and the powder is spread out in un-uniform quantities.

If you want to get better performance, you have to settle the powder to the primer and keep it there.   Or use a filler over the powder, accentually doing the same.   Or use an even courser grain powder that fills more of the case but also keeps pressures and velocities in their desired range.

[quickdtoo]

I haven't shot any pointy bullets, all have been flat nose, but I've not had accuracy issues in either of my BCs. The very first load thru the 45-120 after I got the proper front sight to hit close to POA at 100yds was a 1½" group with the XMR5744 start load and 405gr Rems, I've also shot some big bullets, 535gr Piledrivers at a little less than 1700fps with H4895 at 200yds, that group was 3½" with the first 2 shots right at 1", pretty good for my old eyes and hard sights, I'm sure with more practice and load refinement, I could do a lot better than that. The bad thing about H4895 is it's position sensitive, if I didn't tip the barrel up before shooting, I'd get a brief hangfire, even tho Hodgdon recommends no fillers, I think that powder needs some Pufflon or Dacron to keep the powder against the flash hole, never a problem with the 5744 tho in that respect.

One of the last trips to the range with the 45-70 BC was to compare velocities between the 22" and 32" 45-70 barrels, the BC barrel shot a nice one hole cloverlead at 100yds with the 350gr Hornday RN and H322.

Bernie shoots the Lee 500R bullet with gas checks added, it's a pointy bullet, he gets excellent accuracy out to 600 meters. I tried his trick of chamfering the base of a non-gas checked bullet with the Lee chamfer tool and installed several gas checks yesterday, it works like a charm just as he said.

Just for fun, I'm learning to use QuickLoad 3.4 that I just got, here's some calculated data for a hot 45-120 smokeless load in the BC 32" barrel, based on my 45-120 fired brass which holds 124.4gr water. The 2775fps is based on a Quick Load prediction for a max load of H4350 with a 102% fill and 98% burn, about as good as it gets at a max pressure of <50kpsi which is right at 500 S&W operating pressure. The velocity is within the operating parameters of the 350gr X bullet in a 458 Lott according to the Barnes #3, in fact in the 460 Whby, it's loaded to 3000fps. Exterior ballistics calculated with Sierra Inf 5.1

Tim

Trajectory for Barnes .458 dia. 350 gr. X at 2775 Feet per Second
At an Elevation Angle of: 0 degrees
Ballistic Coefficients of: 0.402 0.402 0.402 0.402 0.402
Velocity Boundaries (Feet per Second) of: 1960 1960 1960 1960
Wind Direction is: 0.0 o'clock and a Wind Velocity of: 0.0 Miles per hour
Wind Components are (Miles per Hour): DownRange: 0.0 Cross Range: 0.0 Vertical: 0.0
Altitude: 500 Feet with a Standard Atmospheric Model.
Temperature: 59 F
Data Printed in English Units
Range Velocity Energy Momentum Drop Bullet Path Wind Drift Time of Flight
(Yards) (Ft/Sec) (Ft/Lbs) (Lb-Sec) (inches) (inches) (inches) (Seconds)
0 2775.0 5983.6 4.31 0.0 -1.5 0.0 0.000000000
25 2718.9 5744.1 4.23 -0.14 0.13 0.0 0.027304499
50 2663.5 5512.6 4.14 -0.58 1.48 0.0 0.055174416
75 2608.9 5288.6 4.05 -1.32 2.51 0.0 0.083626047
100 2554.9 5071.9 3.97 -2.38 3.23 0.0 0.112676545
125 2501.5 4862.4 3.89 -3.78 3.61 0.0 0.142343627
150 2448.8 4659.4 3.81 -5.52 3.64 0.0 0.172646633
175 2396.6 4463.1 3.72 -7.63 3.32 0.0 0.203605887
200 2345.1 4273.3 3.64 -10.11 2.61 0.0 0.235241949
225 2294.3 4089.9 3.57 -12.98 1.51 0.0 0.267576101
250 2244.0 3912.7 3.49 -16.27 0.0 0.0 0.300630774
275 2194.3 3741.5 3.41 -20.0 -1.94 0.0 0.334429621
300 2145.3 3576.1 3.33 -24.17 -4.34 0.0 0.368997363
325 2096.9 3416.4 3.26 -28.81 -7.21 0.0 0.404359618
350 2049.1 3262.5 3.18 -33.95 -10.57 0.0 0.440542825
375 2001.9 3114.1 3.11 -39.61 -14.44 0.0 0.477574287
400 1955.4 2971.1 3.04 -45.8 -18.86 0.0 0.515482255
425 1909.6 2833.5 2.97 -52.57 -23.85 0.0 0.554295978
450 1864.4 2701.1 2.90 -59.93 -29.44 0.0 0.594045651
475 1820.0 2573.8 2.83 -67.92 -35.65 0.0 0.634762272
500 1776.3 2451.7 2.76 -76.56 -42.51 0.0 0.676477433

Tim

[Smokin Joe]

Fanner, have you tried IMR Trailboss powder? I've been using it in my 50 and it's great! Bulks up really well and no filler/wads required. As for the bullet selection, I'd be surprised if the Lyman 457125 500 gn sized to .459-.460 didn't perform.

http://www.westernbullet.com/cbip/b457125.html

[Smokin Joe]

P.S. Is your 120 the stock chamber, or has it been throated?

[Smokin Joe]

Here's some data from Accurate Powder. Even though the Speer 400 is listed, I'd use the start data for the Remington 405.

http://www.accuratearms.com/data/PerCaliber2Guide/Rifle/ObsoleteCartridges/45%20120%20Sharps%20Straight%20page%20365.pdf