My 45-70 Buffalo Classic has not given me the accuracy that I would have expected. So far, I've owned the rifle for 2 years now, and have not seen groups any better than 4" @ 100 yards; and even then there were flyers almost every 5 shots and most other shots were random and looked more like a shotgun pattern.
This has given me an interesting project to get this rifle to shoot accurate. Here are the details on what I've done so far:
- Shooting 300 and 405 grain cast bullets. .459 diameter.
- Powders used... IMR 3031, 777 black substitute, and Hodgdon Universal (similar to Unique) for light loads. Note: no grains are being listed to keep this thread safe; but the loads used varied from starting to middle power loads of 1200-1600 fps.
- Changed out the rear sight and put on a quality lyman target knob adjustible rear sight.
Now to the interesting part: The final straw on this rifle was when a bullet lodged in the barrel. The load was IMR 3031 and was near the starting load, but not the bottom. I had to hammer the bullet out with a wood dowel. It was very difficult to get the bullet out too. Afterwards, I set the rifle and stuck bullet aside for about a half year after and did nothing with it.
Recently, I came back to working on the Buffalo Classic and decided to measure that stuck bullet to find out what it slugged to in the barrel. It measured .456 exactly !!! This has led me to believe I have a very tight barrel on my classic and need to shoot a smaller cast bullet; like .457. I also found out that Lee makes a bullet sizer kit that fits on a single stage press (used for folks who cast their own bullets). It lets you resize cast bullets and lube them too with alox. The kit is available in .457.
This kit is on the way and I hope to be able to test it out in the coming weeks. Anyone else have experiences with a tight barrel and matching the correct cast bullet? I’ve also heard that you should be .001 larger, but .003 seems to be pushing it in my situation.
This has given me an interesting project to get this rifle to shoot accurate. Here are the details on what I've done so far:
- Shooting 300 and 405 grain cast bullets. .459 diameter.
- Powders used... IMR 3031, 777 black substitute, and Hodgdon Universal (similar to Unique) for light loads. Note: no grains are being listed to keep this thread safe; but the loads used varied from starting to middle power loads of 1200-1600 fps.
- Changed out the rear sight and put on a quality lyman target knob adjustible rear sight.
Now to the interesting part: The final straw on this rifle was when a bullet lodged in the barrel. The load was IMR 3031 and was near the starting load, but not the bottom. I had to hammer the bullet out with a wood dowel. It was very difficult to get the bullet out too. Afterwards, I set the rifle and stuck bullet aside for about a half year after and did nothing with it.
Recently, I came back to working on the Buffalo Classic and decided to measure that stuck bullet to find out what it slugged to in the barrel. It measured .456 exactly !!! This has led me to believe I have a very tight barrel on my classic and need to shoot a smaller cast bullet; like .457. I also found out that Lee makes a bullet sizer kit that fits on a single stage press (used for folks who cast their own bullets). It lets you resize cast bullets and lube them too with alox. The kit is available in .457.
This kit is on the way and I hope to be able to test it out in the coming weeks. Anyone else have experiences with a tight barrel and matching the correct cast bullet? I’ve also heard that you should be .001 larger, but .003 seems to be pushing it in my situation.
