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.45-70 cartridge history

Here ya go.

The .45-70 cartridge, also called the .45-70-405 cartridge, was introduced in 1873 by the USA Government’s Frankford, Arsenal (Frankford, Pennsylvania ) for use in the single-shot 1873 Springfield “trapdoor” rifle. The cartridge used a 45 caliber (.458” diameter), 405 grain lead bullet with 70 grains of blackpowder. These were the standard cartridge and rifle issued to US foot soldiers. Later, a .45-70-500 cartridge was available with a 500 grain lead bullet. Also, a less powerful .45-55-405 cartridge which was loaded with 55 grains of blackpowder was used in a carbine or short-barrel version of the Springfield. Another loading called the .45-75 Sharps Straight used 75 grains of blackpowder and was one of many cartridges for the Sharps single-shot rifle. Since the outside dimensions of all these cartridge were the same, they were interchangeable in any of the noted rifles and carbine. The .45-70 was later converted to modern smokeless powder and is still available today as a popular commercial cartridge.
 

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Actually it's the reverse....

Shorty said:
Also, one reason that the .45/70 was developed is because the .50/70, then standard, had an internal primer and could not be reloaded. The gov't wanted to save money by having a reloadable cartridge.
At the time of the adoption of the 45-70 the arsenals weren't concerned with reloading at all. There were numerous commercial cases made for the 50-70 for reloading. many officers prefered to keep there TD 50-70s or had Rolling Blocks (Custer being one) because they could still get government issue ammo but could also reload for hunting. The 45-70 was originally loaded by the arsenals with Benet inside priming through the late '70s.

Larry Gibson
 
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