The .45-70

rifle A rifle is a long-barreled firearm designed for accurate shooting, with a barrel that has a helical pattern of grooves ( rifling) cut into the bore wall. In keeping with their focus on accuracy, rifles are typically designed to be held with ...

cartridge Cartridge may refer to: Objects * Cartridge (firearms), a type of modern ammunition * ROM cartridge, a removable component in an electronic device * Cartridge (respirator), a type of filter used in respirators Other uses * Cartridge (surname), a ...

, also known as the .45-70 Government, was developed at the

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Springfield Armory The Springfield Armory, more formally known as the United States Armory and Arsenal at Springfield located in the city of Springfield, Massachusetts, was the primary center for the manufacture of United States military firearms from 1777 until ...

for use in the Springfield Model 1873, which is known to collectors as the "Trapdoor Springfield." The new cartridge was a replacement for the stop-gap

.50-70 Government The .50-70 Government (also called the .50-70 Musket and .50 Government) is a black powder cartridge adopted in 1866 for the Springfield Model 1866 trapdoor rifle. Description Derived from the .50-60-400 Joslyn, the cartridge was developed af ...

cartridge, which had been adopted in 1866, one year after the end of the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...

Nomenclature

The new cartridge was completely identified as the ''.45-70-405'', but was also referred to as the ".45 Government" cartridge in commercial catalogs. The nomenclature of the time was based on three properties of the cartridge: * .45: nominal diameter of bullet, measured in decimal inches, i.e., 0.458 inches (11.63 mm); * 70: weight of

black powder Gunpowder, also commonly known as black powder to distinguish it from modern smokeless powder, is the earliest known chemical explosive. It consists of a mixture of sulfur, carbon (in the form of charcoal) and potassium nitrate (saltpeter). Th ...

, measured in grains, i.e., 70 grains (4.56 g); * 405: weight of lead bullet, measured in grains, i.e., 405 grains (26.38 g). The minimum acceptable accuracy of the .45-70 from the 1873 Springfield was approximately at , however, the heavy, slow-moving bullet had a "rainbow" trajectory, the bullet dropping multiple yards (meters) at ranges greater than a few hundred yards (meters). A skilled shooter, firing at a known range, could consistently hit targets that were 6 × at —the Army standard target. It was a skill valuable mainly in mass or volley fire, since accurate aimed fire on a man-sized target was effective only to about . After the

Sandy Hook Sandy Hook is a barrier spit in Middletown Township, Monmouth County, New Jersey, United States. The barrier spit, approximately in length and varying from wide, is located at the north end of the Jersey Shore. It encloses the southern ...

tests of 1879, a new variation of the .45-70 cartridge was produced: the .45-70-500, which fired a heavier, 500 grain, (32.57 g) bullet. The heavier bullet produced significantly superior ballistics and could reach ranges of 3,350 yards (3,120 m), which were beyond the maximum range of the .45-70-405. While the effective range of the .45-70 on individual targets was limited to about 1,000 yards (915 m) with either load, the heavier bullet produced lethal injuries at . At those ranges, the bullets struck point-first at a roughly 30-degree angle, penetrating three 1-inch (2.5 cm) thick oak boards, and then traveled to a depth of eight inches (20 cm) into the sand of the beach. It was hoped the longer range of the .45-70-500 would allow effective volley fire at ranges beyond those normally expected of

infantry Infantry is a military specialization which engages in ground combat on foot. Infantry generally consists of light infantry, mountain infantry, motorized infantry & mechanized infantry, airborne infantry, air assault infantry, and marine i ...

fire.

Bullet diameter

While the nominal bore diameter was , the groove diameter was actually closer to . As was standard practice with many early commercially-produced U.S. cartridges, specially-constructed bullets were often "paper patched", or wrapped in a couple of layers of thin paper. This patch served to seal the bore and keep the soft lead bullet from coming in contact with the bore, preventing leading (see

internal ballistics Internal ballistics (also interior ballistics), a subfield of ballistics, is the study of the propulsion of a projectile. In guns, internal ballistics covers the time from the propellant's ignition until the projectile exits the gun barrel. The s ...

). Like the cloth or paper patches used in

muzzle-loading A muzzleloader is any firearm into which the projectile and the propellant charge is loaded from the muzzle of the gun (i.e., from the forward, open end of the gun's barrel). This is distinct from the modern (higher tech and harder to make) desig ...

firearms, the paper patch fell off soon after the bullet left the bore. Paper-patched bullets were made of soft lead, in diameter. When wrapped in two layers of thin cotton paper, this produced a final size of to match the bore. Paper patched bullets are still available, and some black-powder shooters still "roll their own" paper-patched bullets for hunting and competitive shooting. Arsenal loadings for the .45-70-405 and .45-70-500 government cartridges generally used groove diameter grease groove bullets of diameter.

History

The predecessor to the .45-70 was the .50-70-450 cartridge, adopted in 1866 and used until 1873 in a variety of rifles, many of them were percussion rifled muskets converted to

trapdoor A trapdoor is a sliding or hinged door in a floor or ceiling. It is traditionally small in size. It was invented to facilitate the hoisting of grain up through mills, however, its list of uses has grown over time. The trapdoor has played a pivot ...

action breechloaders. The conversion consisted of milling out the rear of the barrel for the trapdoor breechblock, and placing a .50 caliber "liner" barrel inside the .58 caliber barrel. The .50-70 was popular among hunters, as the bullet was larger than the .44 caliber and also hit harder (see

terminal ballistics Terminal ballistics (also known as wound ballistics) is a sub-field of ballistics concerned with the behavior and effects of a projectile when it hits and transfers its energy to a target. Bullet design (as well as the velocity of impact) larg ...

), but the military decided as early as 1866 that a .45 caliber bullet would provide increased range, penetration and accuracy. The .50-70 was nevertheless adopted as a temporary solution until a significantly improved rifle and cartridge could be developed. The result of the quest for a more accurate, flatter shooting .45 caliber cartridge and firearm was the Springfield trapdoor rifle. Like the .50-70, the .45-70 used a copper

center-fire file:357 Magnum 01.jpg, Two rounds of .357 Magnum, a centerfire cartridge; notice the circular primer in the center A centerfire cartridge is a firearm metallic cartridge whose primer (firearms), primer is located at the center of the base of its ...

case design. A reduced power loading was also adopted for use in the Trapdoor

carbine A carbine ( or ) is a long gun that has a barrel shortened from its original length. Most modern carbines are rifles that are compact versions of a longer rifle or are rifles chambered for less powerful cartridges. The smaller size and lighter ...

. This had a 55 grain (3.6 g) powder charge. Also issued was the .45-70 "Forager" round, which contained a thin wooden bullet filled with

birdshot A shotgun shell, shotshell or simply shell is a type of rimmed, cylindrical (straight-walled) cartridges used specifically in shotguns, and is typically loaded with numerous small, pellet-like spherical sub-projectiles called shot, fired throu ...

, intended for hunting

small game Game or quarry is any wild animal hunted for animal products (primarily meat), for recreation (" sporting"), or for trophies. The species of animals hunted as game varies in different parts of the world and by different local jurisdictions, thou ...

to supplement the soldiers' rations. This round in effect made the .45-70 rifle into a 49 gauge

shotgun A shotgun (also known as a scattergun, or historically as a fowling piece) is a long gun, long-barreled firearm designed to shoot a straight-walled cartridge (firearms), cartridge known as a shotshell, which usually discharges numerous small p ...

. The .45-caliber Springfield underwent a number of modifications over the years, the principal one being a strengthened

breech Breech may refer to: * Breech (firearms), the opening at the rear of a gun barrel where the cartridge is inserted in a breech-loading weapon * breech, the lower part of a pulley block * breech, the penetration of a boiler where exhaust gases leav ...

starting in 1884. A new, 500 grain (32 g) bullet was adopted in that year for use in the stronger arm. The M1873 and M1884 Springfield rifles were the principal small arms of the U.S. Army until 1893. The .45-70 round was also used in several

Gatling gun The Gatling gun is a rapid-firing multiple-barrel firearm invented in 1861 by Richard Jordan Gatling. It is an early machine gun and a forerunner of the modern electric motor-driven rotary cannon. The Gatling gun's operation centered on a cyc ...

models from 1873 until it was superseded by the

.30 Army The .30-40 Krag (also known as .30 U.S. and .30 Army) was a cartridge developed in the early 1890s to provide the U.S. armed forces with a smokeless powder cartridge suited for use with modern small-bore repeating rifles to be selected in the 1 ...

round beginning with the M1893 Gatling gun. Some .45-70 Gatling guns were used on U.S. Navy warships launched in the 1880s and 1890s. The Navy used the .45-70 caliber in several rifles: the M1873 and M1884 Springfield, the Model 1879 Lee Magazine Navy contract rifle, and the Remington-Lee, the last two being magazine-fed turnbolt repeating rifles. The Marine Corps used the M1873 and M1884 Springfield in .45-70 until 1897, when supplies of the new

M1895 Lee Navy The M1895 Lee Navy was a straight-pull, cam-action magazine rifle adopted in limited numbers by the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps in 1895 as a first-line infantry rifle.Walter, John, ''The Rifle Story: An Illustrated History from 1776 to the Presen ...

rifle in

6mm Lee Navy The 6mm Lee Navy (6×60mmSR), also known as the 6mm U.S.N.Hanson, Jim, ''The 6mm U.S.N. - Ahead Of Its Time'', ''Rifle Magazine'', Vol. 9, No. 1 (January–February 1977), pp. 38-41 or .236 Navy, is an obsolete American rifle cartridge. It was ...

, adopted two years before by the Navy, were finally made available. Realizing that single-shot black-powder rifles were rapidly becoming obsolete, the U.S. Army adopted the Norwegian-designed

caliber as the Springfield Model 1892 in 1893. However, the .45-70 continued in service with the National Guard, Navy, and Marine Corps until 1897. The .45-70 was last used in quantity during the

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, and was not completely purged from the inventory until well into the 20th century. Many surplus rifles were given to reservation Indians as subsistence hunting rifles and now carry Indian markings. The .45-70 cartridge is still used by the U.S. military today, in the form of the "cartridge, caliber .45, line throwing, M32," a blank cartridge which is used in a number of models of line throwing guns used by the Navy and

Coast Guard A coast guard or coastguard is a maritime security organization of a particular country. The term embraces wide range of responsibilities in different countries, from being a heavily armed military force with customs and security duties to ...

. Early models of these line throwing guns were made from modified Trapdoor and Sharps rifles, while later models are built on break-open

single-shot Single-shot firearms are firearms that hold only a single round of ammunition, and must be reloaded manually after every shot. The history of firearms began with single-shot designs, then multi-barreled designs appeared, and eventually many ce ...

rifle actions.

Sporting use

As is usual with military ammunition, the .45-70 was an immediate hit among sportsmen, and the .45-70 has survived to the present day. Today, the traditional 405-grain (26.2 g) load is considered adequate for any North American big game within its range limitations, including the great bears, and it does not destroy edible meat on smaller animals such as deer due to the bullet's low velocity. It is very good for

big-game hunting Big-game hunting is the hunting of large game animals for meat, commercially valuable by-products (such as horns/antlers, furs, tusks, bones, body fat/oil, or special organs and contents), trophy/taxidermy, or simply just for recreation ("s ...

in brush or heavy timber where the range is usually short. The .45-70, when loaded with the proper bullets at appropriate velocities, has been used to hunt the African " big-five." The .45-70 has been loaded and used to hunt everything from birds to elephants and the cartridge is still undergoing new development work. The trajectory of the bullets is very steep, which makes for a very short

point-blank range Point-blank range is any distance over which a certain firearm can hit a target without the need to compensate for bullet drop, and can be adjusted over a wide range of distances by sighting in the firearm. If the bullet leaves the barrel para ...

. This was not a significant problem at the time of introduction, as the .45-70 was a fairly flat-shooting cartridge for its time. Shooters of these early cartridges had to be keen judges of distance, wind and trajectory to make long shots; the

Sharps rifle Sharps rifles are a series of large-bore, single-shot, falling-block, breech-loading rifles, beginning with a design by Christian Sharps in 1848 and ceasing production in 1881. They were renowned for long-range accuracy. By 1874 the rifle wa ...

, in larger calibers such as .50-110, was used at ranges of . Most modern shooters use much higher velocity cartridges, relying on the long point-blank range, and rarely using

telescopic sight A telescopic sight, commonly called a scope informally, is an optical sighting device based on a refracting telescope. It is equipped with some form of a referencing pattern – known as a ''reticle'' – mounted in a focally appropriate po ...

s' elevation adjustments, calibrated iron sights, or hold-overs. Sights found on early cartridge hunting rifles were quite sophisticated, with a long sighting radius, wide range of elevation, and vernier adjustments to allow precise calibration of the sights for a given range. Even the military "creedmoor"-type rifle sights were calibrated and designed to handle extended ranges, flipping up to provide several degrees of elevation adjustment if needed. The .45-70 is a popular choice for black-powder cartridge shooting events, and replicas of most of the early rifles, including Trapdoor, Sharps, and Remington single-shot rifles, are often available. The .45-70 is a long-range caliber, and accurate use requires knowledge of windage and elevation by

minute of angle A minute of arc, arcminute (arcmin), arc minute, or minute arc, denoted by the symbol , is a unit of angular measurement equal to of one degree. Since one degree is of a turn (or complete rotation), one minute of arc is of a turn. The na ...

and a sense for estimating distance in these calculations. The .45-70 retains great popularity among American hunters, and is still offered by several commercial ammunition manufacturers. Even when loaded with modern smokeless powders, pressures are usually kept low for safety in antique rifles and their replicas. Various modern sporting rifles are chambered for the .45-70, and some of these benefit from judicious handloading of homemade ammunition with markedly higher pressure and ballistic performance. Others, which reproduce the original designs still take the original load, but are not strong enough for anything with higher pressures. In a rifle such as the

Siamese Mauser Facing the threat of Western colonial expansionism in Southeast Asia during the later part of the 19th century, King Rama V of Siam (now Thailand), sought new weapons as part of a modernization program to ensure the kingdom's independence. After ...

(commonly converted to fire .45-70 due to it being the only Mauser 98 derivative designed to feed rimmed cartridges, and the limited availability of ammunition for its original 8×50mmR chambering) or a

Ruger Sturm, Ruger & Company, Inc., better known by the shortened name Ruger, is an American firearm manufacturing company based in Southport, Connecticut, with production facilities also in Newport, New Hampshire; Mayodan, North Carolina; and Pr ...

No. 1 single-shot rifle, it can be handloaded to deliver good performance even on big African game. The .45-70 has also been used in

double rifle The double rifle, also known as a double-barreled rifle, is a rifle with two barrels mounted parallel to each other. Synonymous with big game hunting found primarily in Africa and India, the double rifle is a purely sporting weapon with no militar ...

s since the development of the

Colt 1878 rifle Colt(s) or COLT may refer to: *Colt (horse), an intact (uncastrated) male horse under four years of age People * Colt (given name) *Colt (surname) Places *Colt, Arkansas, United States *Colt, Louisiana, an unincorporated community, United States ...

and the more modern replicas, like the

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. In addition to its traditional use in rifles,

Thompson Center Arms Thompson/Center Arms was an American firearms company based in Springfield, Massachusetts. The company was best known for its line of interchangeable-barrel, single-shot pistols and rifles. Thompson/Center also manufactures muzzle-loading rifl ...

has offered a .45-70 barrel in both pistol and rifle lengths for their " Contender" single-shot pistol, one of the most potent calibers offered in the Contender frame. Even the shortest barrel, 14 inches, is capable of producing well over 2,500

ft·lbf The foot-pound force (symbol: ft⋅lbf, ft⋅lbf, or ft⋅lb ) is a unit of work or energy in the engineering and gravitational systems in United States customary and imperial units of measure. It is the energy transferred upon applying a fo ...

(2,700 J) of energy, double the power of most .44 Magnum loadings, and a

Taylor KO Factor The Taylor knock-out factor, also called Taylor KO factor or TKOF, is a formulaic mathematical approach for evaluating the stopping power of hunting Cartridge (firearms), cartridges, developed by John "Pondoro" Taylor in the middle of the 20th cent ...

as high as 40 with some loads. Recent .45-70 barrels are available with efficient

muzzle brake A muzzle brake or recoil compensator is a device connected to, or a feature integral to the construction of, the muzzle or barrel of a firearm or cannon that is intended to redirect a portion of propellant gases to counter recoil and unwanted ...

s that significantly reduce muzzle rise and also help attenuate the

recoil Recoil (often called knockback, kickback or simply kick) is the rearward thrust generated when a gun is being discharged. In technical terms, the recoil is a result of conservation of momentum, as according to Newton's third law the force requ ...

. The

Magnum Research BFR The Magnum Research BFR is a single-action revolver manufactured by Magnum Research. Modelled after the Colt Single Action Army, it is made from stainless steel and chambered for a number of very powerful pistol calibers, such as .500 S&W Magnum ...

is a heavier gun at approximately 4.5 pounds, helping it have much more manageable recoil.Hogdon
publishes load data for the .45-70 in pistols; one listed load shows a bullet at , generating over and a Taylor KO factor of just over 40. Only with the recent introduction of ultra-magnum revolver cartridges, such as the .500 S&W Magnum, have production handguns begun to eclipse the .45-70 Contender in the field of big-game-capable handguns.

References

External links