*** Photo Added *** My first deer with my old Spencer 56-46

[injun john]

   Finally got a chance to take the Spencer Sporter rifle out to hunt.  Took a bit to get the custom mold, custom seating die and load data all together to have a load that gave the sort of accuracy I felt this old gun was capable of.  Boy will this old girl shoot now!

I know how  Two Flints

                           (Posted by Two Flints)

[injun john]

With a compression die I loaded 56 grains of swiss under a 337gr custom bullet @ .461 dia of my own design that I cast from a Lee custom bullet 6 cavity mold using a soft lead @1% tin.  This gun was chambered for the Spencer 56-46 XL I would presume by Christian Spencer in around 1866-68.  This load has been cornagraghed at 1322fps with a spread of 18fps. from this gun.
I do load some nitro powder loads for this gun in H4198 and A-1680 that run about the same velocity + or - around 25fps.
For those who might feel their pants trying to twist up at the mention of nitro powders, I'm on my 4 brick of primers now loading for this gun most of which have been nitro loads. I don't recommend that you do it but I probably will.  Now to find a bigger buck.

[Ibgreen]

Congratulations on the deer!  Makes me want to go and shoot another with mine!

[injun john]

I've used my 56-50 to take several deer ( between 11 and 14 if memory serves).  They act like I hit them with a truck every time.  Straight down hard.  This being my first deer with the 56-46 I was surprised at the difference in the deer's reaction.  More stiffen and flip over. That's actually the exit wound you see in the photo because of the way he went down.
I got him at a little bit under 100 yards. He was on the move at a brisk walk quartering way from me.
Need to shoot a few more deer with the 46 to see if similar hits result in the same.  It's around 150 + fps faster and a lighter bullet.
It definitely shoots flatter out to 400 yards which is as far as I've been able to use it due to the limits of my range.
Wish I has able to recover the bullet from the deer but have looked and so far, no luck. 
I have only recovered 3 bullets in fair condition at 400yrds that went a little high and through the treated 4x4 holding the steel target gong being stopped by the 2nd truck tire layer on the burm behind the target array.