1899 DH 16 /30

[Richard Flanders]

If I were really serious I'd have at least a .45-3-1/4"(120?). You can only use so much smokeless so going above a .45-70 is purely because you just like the looks of the longer cartridge and not because it has more power, at least using smokeless. I have to put a fair bit of filler and a card in behind the bullet to get consistent ignition at the velocities I'm aiming for. If you filled the case with smokeless you'd just blow the gun up and maybe break your shoulder in the process. It does have much more power if you use BP and pack it full for sure. The .45-90 was designed as an "express round" using 300gr bullets at higher velocity than the 400-500 gr bullets in the .45-70 going 1400fps +/-. I was pushing some 400gr cast bullets to almost 1700fps the other day, but it hurt to shoot them so I backed way off. I never intended to get them that fast. 1500-1550 is plenty. Strangely enough a load of 3031 that pushes a 300gr bullet at 1570 pushes a 400gr bullet up to as fast as 1695fps and with a much much cleaner burn. I also learned that Winchester WLR primers are significantly hotter than CCI-200's in the same load and up the velocities around 80fps. The only downside of shooting these large cast bullets is that you rarely recover one as they just go clean through whatever you point them at at just about any range. A good shoulder shot on a big moose with the 400gr will drop him like a ton of bricks where he stands and the hunt is over.

My dream moose gun is a long-bbl'd takedown 1886 lever gun in .50-110. I'm definitely a "big bullet" guy. They're out there but are pretty spendy.