So I guess the .444 marlin is better then the .45-70, it has a better ballistic coefficient, bullets are plentyful in .429 from 200-325gr? now. The .03 difference between the bullets wont make a hill of beans difference. It should shoot flatter since it is a smaller diameter bullet.
Its amazing how peoples reasoning changes when some one creates a bigger cartridge with everything that made thier cartidge so much better than a smaller one. :-D
The .444 wasnt anywhere near as good as the .45-70 to so many people on the reasoning that the .45-70 had a larger bullet (diameter and grains) Now someone has designed a cartridge that fires a bullet that is .05 bigger and according to the other post about 200 gr. heavier, but the .45-70 is still better some how? :wink:
I couldn't help but notice your age. I sure don't want this to come off as some old codger givin' the business to some young whippersnapper, but the truth is you ain't old enough to begin to realize just how great the 45-70 actually is.
It should have died like most of it's black powder breathin' brethern of the latte 1800's. It wasn't really even a great cartridge back then. The 50 Sharps was certainly more powerful as was the 50-70 Government that came first. That upstart 30 WCF, along with the slightly younger 303 Savage killed off all those famous cartridges we hear about these days, with the exception of the 45-70. Only WW2 stopped factory production of the cartridge. In a way, it could be argued that the 444 gave the 45-70 a new lease on life. Somewhere between 1963 and 1965 Marlin brought out the 444. At that point no one was chambering the 45-70, but with that intro came a whole bunch of interest in the old war horse, and the clamor was such that Marlin did a redesign on the 336 frame and chambered the 45-70 in it. The rest is you might say history, but it would be in complete. A few of us were still shooting Trapdoors. One of these was in fact my first centerfire rifle. My Dad had been given one and not being one to spend money on unnessicary things, that became the big rifle we shot. (that was 1970ish) But lots of others were doing the same too. I don't recall now who brought out the next 45-70 rifle but I do know that H&R did make a run of Trapdoors, both full length muskets and carbines. Somewhere in this time frame Ken Waters did some research on 45-70 heavy loads, nothing new really, as Elmer Keith had been loading the 45-70 with large charges of 3031 for many years, but it is likely that Waters work was the keystone of the revival of the 45-70 as a heavy loaded/heavy game rifle, By the mid eighties Browning was making a reproduction of the famous Winchester High Wall and had also done a run of the same rifle as the B78, in both cases the 45-70 was chambered in an octagonal barrel with irons sights version. I had one of the later High Wall models, a fine rifle indeed. Of course the BPCR sillywet shooting got off the ground near this point in time and revived a whole genre of black powder cartridges and rifles for them.
My little history is spotty at best, and doesn't relate all I've seen or read or experienced with the 45-70 cartridge. I'm certainly an admirer of it, I've watched as it ahs outlived some very good cartridges and watched as it has become a central force in a revival of a very fascinating part of our firearms history and heritage.
When all the smoke has cleared, there will be 5 cartridges that will outlive all the others, the 30-30, the 30-06, the 45 ACP, the 45 Colt and the 45-70. A man so equipped is prepared to kill anything on earth, prepared to defend home and country, and prepared to stand among his ancestors with the finest firearms and cartridges the world has known.
The 500 SW is a johnnie-come-lately. It is ballistically interesting, but I doubt that ballistically interesting will propel the cartridge to true greatness.
