More Reloading for the .45-75WCF

[pinto beans]

Posted the first round of reloading and range testing for my new Uberti  76 in .45-75WCF a while back with the promise to follow up with the next round as it happened.  Like other folks life has happened here and the next phase of load testing got delayed.  I figured to put the interim to good use and order some more of the Lyman 457122 bullets in 330 grain from Montana Bullet Works.  During the process of getting the order in, I received a reply from Montana Bullet Works that due to family emergency they will be shut down until June of this year.  I was sorry to hear of this and send best wishes to these folks as they are really nice to deal with.  Come June I will see if they are back up and going yet.  In the meantime what to do?  I really didn't find another source of the Lyman 457122 bullets from cast bullet companies and with only a small supply from the initial batch an alternative was needed (I am not set up to cast my own).
All the reading I have done points to a 350 grain bullet being used in original .45-75 loadings.  As the 330 grain HP Lyman was not turning up anywhere else, a new offering from Meister Bullets caught my eye.  A .458 cast, two lube grove flat point in 350 grain looked to be a promising solution.  With this in mind I ordered 250 of these couple weeks back and they arrived last Friday.  This time I figured to get 250 and if they work I am in business, if not well into storage for another day's project.  I will attach some pictures and own up right here that I am terrible at taking pictures so forgive the bad quality.  You can see (maybe) that they measure right out to .458 on the mark.  When I got these in the fact that the crimping grove is forward of where it is on the Lyman bullets had me smiling but alas it was not to be, to keep the rounds at 2.250" the crimp is still ahead of the crimping grove.  Not a big deal, I just adjusted the seating die from scratch again to get an overall length of 2.250" for the loaded round with a decent crimp that holds the bullet but doesn't cut into the bullet lead.  Using Puff-Lon gives some support under the bullet (not much as this stuff is like cotton candy and will compress right down from an handful to a thimble full with no effort at all) and with a tight neck they turn out pretty good with no indication so far of being able to move in the magazine under recoil.  Time will tell in actual field testing as this is just my half-baked observations so far with the loaded rounds and running them through the rifle.  By the way, they feed into the magazine and work through the action, as my Daddy would say – 'slick as a peeled onion!!'.
Another couple pictures (maybe) show the new Meister loaded up and next to the Lyman HP load.  Both make really good looking rounds and they both function smooth in the rifle.  The load development is same as for the Lyman using Winchester Large Rifle primers, Accurate Arms 5744 smokeless powder and Puff-Lon ballistic filler/lubricant all in Rocky Mountain Cartridge .45-75WCF cases.  Still learning and figuring out on this new rifle but so far so good.
Now all I need is a little time to head to the farm and some decent weather.  So far both time and good weather are in short supply with neither occurring on the same day!!  Hopefully I ain't boring you all to tears with details and I will get the results shared out as I promised  - just not moving very fast these days.

[dusty texian]

I enjoy loadin and shootin the 45-75 wcf ,it is special.Winchester's first centerfire 45 bigbore.Back in it's time if you had a 1876 Winchester in 45-75 wcf ,loaded to the gill's . You had the most powerful  leveraction repeater to be had .It is still a powerful combonation today. Have seen it literally drop animals in their track's. Nothin Cooler to me. I for one never get tired of hearin from like minded Pard's talkin about their findings. Keep em commin ............Dusty.