Tag Archives: 45-70

Sure, you know .45-70, but do you know .45-70 Auto from an AR platform?

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The good old black powder .45-70 Government was developed at the U.S. Army’s for use in the “Trapdoor” Springfield Model 1873 and has been a go-to round for going on 150~ years in both rifles and Gatling guns. Although the military moved on to smokeless powder after the Spanish American War in 1898, where the .30 Government in its various forms was adopted, the .45-70 was still in use by the military as the M32 blank round for line throwing rifles in the Navy and Coast Guard well through WWII and the full-rated pill with its big lead bullet has been popular with hunters and long-range target shooters since the days of Buffalo Bill.

Now, Colorado’s Phoenix Weaponry has a custom AR-10 platform that has been greatly modified to fire a similarly tweaked .45-70 round in semi-auto. The smokeless powder (48 grains of IMR 4198) loaded cartridge uses a 325-grain Hornady FTX bullet on a rebated rimmed case– the whole thing dubbed .45-70 Auto– to bring impressive performance from the AR platform of the same name.

The PW .45-70 Auto, a smokeless-loaded rebated rimmed .45-70 Government

45-70 Auto (325 gr) next to a .458 SOCOM (350 gr) and .45 ACP (230 gr)

PW gets 6 rounds of .45-70 Auto into a 10-shot Magpul AR10 mag and they advertise sub-MOA performance out of the platform.

More in my column at Guns.com

Burglar Bear: 0, Homeowner with Marlin: 1

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When Victor Peters found a 400-pound black bear tearing through his sunroom in a search for food Wednesday night, the mild-mannered retired park ranger wanted things to work out amicably for both sides. However, when the bear decided otherwise, Peters had his Marlin 1895 there to help even the odds.

The story began the day before when Peters, 64, of Lady Lake, Florida came out to discover that a 35-pound bag of dog food for his Rhodesian Ridgeback, ironically named Bear, had been destroyed, a hole made in the wall of his sunroom, and the windows destroyed. A recent transplant to the state from Michigan where he had spent 30 years as a wildlife officer and park ranger, he quickly figured out that the culprit was likely a very different type of bear rather than his canine companion.

After calls to local authorities, who advised him to take any dog food and trash inside and to be vigilant, Peters broke out his Marlin 1895 big bore in .45.70 that he used to hunt feral hog in the state and loaded it– just in case. This later turned out to be a good idea.

Victor-Peters-png

Read the rest in my column at Marlin Forum