Loads in old Sierra manual....

[TenTea]

I've had some great fun (in a good way) and memorable range days by following EK's pet loads for .45-70 from the 1960's, as contained in the NRA Handloading Guide of that era.

These were Marlin 1895 loads and not Trapdoor Springfield loads!

Anecdotally, modern guides are not even close to these recommendations, due to liability concerns I suppose.
The powder is the same: IMR3031, iirc.

I'm not a *magnum guy* but those loads put a huge smile on my face and I may have giggled a little.

 

[rwsmith]

I'm going to try those......

Instead of "dangerous", I would use the word "foolish", since we know better today.

I'm going to put them through my 686 and pretend it's my old model 10. I'm pretty glad I didn't go beyond 6.4 grains in my K frame. 7.5 gr. seems crazy. The 6.4 gr or a little higher would probably make a great defense only round.

 

[John R]

Back in the late 60's is when I got into reloading and shooting handguns.
The louder the bang and the harder the gun kicked the better, today not so much.

Now I just enjoy shooting and reloading, nice pleasant loads.
Once in a while I like to shoot big boomers in the 44 mag though.