springfield 45-70 trap door

6.7 LOADING THE SPRINGFIELD 45-70 THE EASY WAY   I bought my first 45/70 rifle, a Springfield model 1884, from Ralph Laffoly at his gun shop in Melrose Mass. in 1963. On this rifle the cleaning rod was the bayonet; the bayonet could be extended ahead of the muzzle and was held by a catch mechanism. This rifle was in nice condition, with a bright and shiny bore; and cost $40. Mr. Laffoly threw in a box of ammunition after I paid, which was his way with the younger shooters. I was casting and reloading for the 30/06 at that time, and bought a Lyman 457191 305 grain mold to make bullets; but couldn't come up with the cash for the reloading dies, shell holder and sizing dies for a while. I cast bullets and lubricated them by hand or pan lubed them, and developed a way to reload at the range. Here are some photos to help explain this reloading method: A ground-to-size ice pick, whacked with a stick, removed the primer Here's the ice pick. It is a lot sharper than the picture shows, and will decap cases easily when whacked with a stick. However, time marches on.           Here's a 45-70 case with the Lee de-capping rod and base, and a mallet to operate them. Much better than the ice pick.               The hammer on a trap door Springfield is just the right size for belling the case mouth; a necessary step in reloading low velocity loads. Unless the case mouth is belled, the gas will come around the case and dent the case and get it all dirty. Belling the case mouth seals the case mouth against the chamber and keeps that blow-by from happening. There should be a bit of drag on the empty belled case is chambered, not too much to make the case hard to chamber, just enough so you can feel it drag. A short bit of time and anyone can get the feel for this. It never hurts to bell the case mouth.    Today I would use a set of Lee powder scoops, see the picture. Select a load starting around 10 grains and never more than 14 grains of Unique.                       Start a primer in the primer pocket with the thumb, then put the case in the chamber and close the door, and the primer is seated.                       the primer seated in the primer pocket. The primer is seated a little above the head of the case. I think that this means that the rifle headspace is slightly excessive or that case rims are thinner than they used to be. In any case, the slightly protruding primer never gave me a problem; however I caution the reader to NEVER use a case primed this way in any gun other than the one used to prime the case. NEVER! This because maybe, just maybe, the primer might go off prematurely in another gun. Use the case in the gun that you seated the primer with.          After the case mouth is belled, throw a charge of powder in the case. In the past I used a home-made dipper made from a pistol cartridge case with a piece of 14 gauge copper wire soldered on for a handle.                   Put a thumb sized piece of toilet paper in the charged case and push it down on the powder with a stick or a pencil to keep the powder in place when loading.   Put a bullet in the chamber, push it in with a plugged case and close the door on the plugged case to breech-seat the bullet.   The plugged case shown is filled with epoxy. Plugged cases filled with lead alloy or with a piece of dowel also work well.               Take the plugged case out, put the primed and charged case in the chamber and the rifle was ready to fire.   So that's it, the easiest reloading I've ever done, with the absolute minimum of tools and expense.           (Thanks to Steve Adair for the pictures showing a trapdoor Springfield.)   I made a new front sight from a penny so that I could file it to the correct height, and this rifle was alarmingly accurate at 100 yards with the fully adjustable Buffington rear sight.