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Firearms Mid‑importance

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Military history: Technology / Weaponry / North America / United States

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Billy Dixon

Anyone think Billy Dixon's shot is close enough to relevant to be worth mentioning?

"Billy Dixon took a shot at a mounted Kiowa warrior, knocking him off of his horse at a distance that was later confirmed by a surveyor to be 1538 yards, or a full nine-tenths of a mile!"

It was believed to be a .50-70 or .50-90 (the .45-70 was only a year old at that point), but as the Sandy Hook tests show, the .45-70-500 stacks up pretty well against the bigger cartridges. His record stood for the better part of a century, it's only being beat with the new .50 BMG rifles. scot 04:40, 26 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Nice job!

This is a great article! There is a slight POV issue in the part that claims that shooters of the west were better judges of range and trajectory. That is kind of hard to substantiate. RPellessier | Talk 15:05, 27 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hard to substantiate, maybe, but there is still a good, though circular, argument to be made. Back then, the .45-70 was a small bore, high velocity cartridge, and pretty flat shooting compared to the contemporary .50 caliber cartridges, and the .58 caliber rifled musket that preceded it. Since it was among the flattest shooting cartridges available, it was (???) required that shooters become good judges of range. Drop was less of an issue with properly calibrated tangent and tang sights; if you knew the range, they would handle the drop compensation for you. Maybe that argument is worth putting in the article? scot 14:33, 30 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That's funny. As trajectories get flatter, old shooters can always complain that the new guys have it too easy. I think that should be mentioned in the article somehow. The older cartridges must have been atrociously short-ranged beasts. So at one time, the .45-70 was considered flat! (Shouldn't 'less' go in the place of (???) above? Sorry for editing your statement.) RPellessier | Talk 01:57, 31 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The sentence you marked was correct to begin with; what I meant was that since the .45-70 was a flat shooting cartridge compared to its contemporaries, any shooter wanting to hit at long range had to be a good judge of range, because being off by even a few dozen yards at long range could mean the difference between a hit and a miss. However, if you can judge the range well, or have known range markers, you can hit things at incredible distances with the .45-70, and the massive bullet (by today's standards) will do an amazing amount of damage--see the Sany Hook test article to read what a .45-70-500 will do at a range of 2 miles. Billy Dixon's shot is a perfect example of what a good shooter with an accurate range assesment could do. The Kiowa was riding along a ridge line, so he was at a precise, known distance from the fort. The tang sights on those old Sharps rifles had were precision instruments, with calibrated marks and vernier adjustments (see here for a reproduction), and those old black powder cartridges were quite consistent, due to the constant burn rate of quality black powder and the compressed charges they used. The big, heavy bullets had high sectional densities, which helped offset the long time of flight and kept the wind drift down. All Dixon had to do was dial his sights to the correct elevation for the ridgeline, add a bit of "Kentucky windage" to account for the wind (if there was any that day), and shoot. Since a Sharps rifle is quite capable of 1 MOA accuracy (which is why good reproductions are still in high demand) that gives you a 15" probably hit circle at 1500 yards. Not a certain hit, but with a bit of luck and a lot of skill, he pulled it off.

I'm going to try to update the article based on this discussion, and see if I can get things straight. I might see if I can track down some long range ballistics info I can use, to put the range limitations in context, by showing how the drop changes with range, and link to maximum point blank range to explain why the .45-70 is considered both a short range cartridge and a long range cartridge, depending on the skill and equipment of the shooter. scot 15:02, 31 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Data for update

According to http://www.researchpress.co.uk/targets/ballistics/sandyhook02.htm, the .45-70-405 at 1500 yards required 5d20'4" of elevation, or about 320' of holdover. 1' is 1.05 inches at 100 yards, so 320' * 15 hundred yards * 1.05 inches equals 5040 inches, or 140 yards of holdover...holy s**t that's a lot of holdover. Double check the math; arctan(1500/140)= 5.332, or 5d19'56" of angle, so 140 yards is correct.

http://www.shootingtimes.com/ballistics/45_70_cowboy.html has ballistics chart for a .45-70-405 Cowboy load, so a BP load or equivalent. With a 200 yard zero, the ballistics chart looks like this:

yds inches
100 +11.5
200 0
300 -41.1
400 -116.5
500 -230.1

So a 200 yard ain't gonna cut it for a max point blank range on a deer, that 11.5" hump puts you right over the back of the deer. scot 15:51, 31 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Better zeroed chart for .45-70-405 Cowboy load at http://www.pmcammo.com/cowboy-ballistics.php

yds inches
50 2.47
100 0.00
150 -8.56
200 -23.86

So 100 yard zero looks like it might give a good MPBR for a 6" diameter, muzzle out to about 120ish yards. scot 21:21, 31 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Dug out my internal ballistics software and plugged in the .45-70-405 data based on the Sandy Hook trials and a .308 long range load, and got the following:

The scale exagerates the slope a bit--the .45-70 is actually traveling downwards at about a 20 degree angle when it hits--but the .308 is only doing about a 3.6 degree angle. To hit a 6' high target with the .308 you're going to need to get the range within +- 50 feet, while doing that with the .45-70 would require +- 8 feet... scot 22:21, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Here's a link to an article on the .50-70-425, adopted in 1866 as a trapdoor conversion of the Springfield percussion rifle: http://www.shootmagazine.com/articles/firearms/50-70_govt.htm Gen. Custer was making shots out to ovd 630 yards, with an average shot at an antelope being 250 yards. And this is a prime example of a cartridge to which the .45-70-405 was "flat shooting". scot 15:19, 2 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Old West

In the history section, there is a very suspect bit about the greater skill of Old West riflemen. This sounds like runaway romanticism. Is there any support for leaving it in? --Adamrush 11:36, 3 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's not so much romanticism as a fact of life. The .45-70 was a flat shooting cartridge when it came out, and the early generation of cartridge rifles coming out around that time (the Springfield trapdoor rifles, the Sharps, the Remington rolling block) where and in fact still are quite accurate--quite a bit more than the typical percussion muzzleloader (Gun Test magazine did a review of two .50 caliber percussion rifles this month, both of which were averaging about 5" at 75 yards, the military specs for the 1873 called for 4" at 100 yards, and with care it will shoot MOA). The article on the .50-70 above, which is not as flat a shooter as the .45-70 due to the fatter, heavier bullet, mentions that Gen. Custer was hitting antelope at average distances of 250 yards, and took one at over 650 yards. There's also Billy Dixon's 1538 yard shot (that's 5d20' of elevation) at the Kiowa warrior--lucky, yes, but the Sandy Hook tests show that the military really was interested in those long shots.

Given the "rainbow" trajectory of those early cartridges, if you wanted to take a shot out beyond about 200 yards, you had to be a good judge of trajectory, or you woudn't make the shot--it was just a fact of life that if you wanted to be an accurate shot, you had to be an accurate judge of range. Modern cartridges have greatly relieved this burden--nowadays, with high mounted scopes (which does make a significant difference) and high velocity cartridges, you can get 6" diameter point blank ranges out to hundreds of yards, a feat demonstrably not possible with the .45-70-405.

In case you're not familiar with ballistics, perhaps an analogy might help. I could say that drivers in the early 1900's were more adept at double clutching. Finding a source that flat out states this might be hard, but you could point out that very few vehicles on the roads today have non-synchronized transmissions, so very few drivers need to know how to double clutch, while most early transmissions lacked synchronizers and thus required double-clutching. scot 04:06, 4 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting analogy, but not quite accurate. The difference is that every driver had to learn the double clutching. We don't have any indication that all or even most old-time shooters made long distance shots. In fact, there is a lot of historical indication that they typically shot a closer ranges than do contemporary hunters. Arthurrh 17:22, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Not every driver--the Ford Model T used a planetary gear system that didn't require a clutch at all. But analogy aside, you also have people like buffalo hunter William "Billy" Dixon who dropped a Kiowa off his horse along a ridge at 1538 yards distance during the 2nd Battle of Adobe Walls. You can be sure that he had paced off that distance beforehand, and knew what sort of elevation it would take to reach it. With black powder cartidges, it wasn't possible to "cheat" the long range shots by using a high velocity cartridge, they just weren't available. You either limited yourself to short range shots, probably under 100 yards, or you took the steps required to get accurate range measurements--in pre-rangefinder days, that meant pacing off distances to landmarks. If you shot at over 100 yards, either you were good at estimating ranges, or you missed a lot. Of course, there's also people like Dan Lilja who hunt at 1000 yards with an old military split-image rangefinder--he's kind of like the racecar drivers who double clutch through the turns to avoid knocking the back end loose... scot 18:25, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Absolutely, I'm not discounting that some old-time shooters were fantastic shots, like Billy Dixon, who by the way didn't aim at any particular Indian, but aimed at "The group of riders."^[1] and apparently had a pretty good understanding of the approximate range. What I'm saying is that to make a general statement that "old-time shooters knew yardage better" just doesn't have any basis. Like today, there were good shooters, average shooters, and bad shooters. As regards range on a .45-70, it doesn't take any serious range estimation to shoot a big-game target out to 250 yards. I am a pretty average judge of distance, but I know if the pig looks far, hold over a bit. ;-) This has served me well with an aperture sight on a Marlin Guide Gun. Arthurrh 18:53, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I guess the point I'm trying to make is to explain the dichotomy of the .45-70. It was a long-range, flat shooting cartridge by the standards of the time, that's why they went with the .45-70-405 over the .50-70-425 that was already in service. The later switch to the .45-70-500 was entirely a move to increase the long range effectiveness of the cartridge, at ranges well over 1000 yards. And by today's long point blank range standards, it's considered just a short range brush gun... Maybe the best way to show the "long range" attributes of the .45-70 would be to compare the ballistics of the .45-70-405 to the ballistics of the .50-70-425 and the rifled muskets of the Civil War. I have no clue where to start looking for the .50-70 and rifled musket data, how about you? scot 19:44, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That's a very good point that we can make in the article without the "It was no problem for old-time shooters who shot better than we do". The info that this was considered a long-range cartridge and is now considered not even medium but short-range is very helpful. Re load data for black powder cartridges such as the .45's and .50's, I do have it at home, I'll check it tonight. Good sources for it are: Accurate Smokeless Powders Loading Guide Number Two (Revised), Book by Accurate Arms Co, Wolfe Publishing, 2000 and Black Powder Handbook & Loading Manual, 2nd Edition; Book by Sam Fadala, Lyman Publications, 2001 UPC #011516971005 but I'm unlikely to have the rifled musket data, unless someone can mention a couple of particular guns and then maybe I can find something that way. Arthurrh 20:02, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Try Springfield Model 1861 and Pattern 1853 Enfield; those were the most common Civil War rifles, the Springfield by the Union, the Enfield by both sides. Both were .58ish caliber, with 40ish inch barrels, so ballistics should be virtually identical for a given bullet weight. The Springfield was later converted to breechloading format using the Alinn conversion (Springfield Model 1865) in .58-60-500 rimfire, then had the barrel relined and bored to .50 caliber to make the first .50-70-450 centerfire (Springfield Model 1866), which went through a couple of more revisions to finally end up with the Springfield Model 1873 in .45-70-405, which, though of new manufacture, were still using the same Alinn "Trapdoor" action used in the muzzleloading musket conversions. scot 21:33, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

PS-- from Pattern 1853 Enfield: The rifle's cartridges contained sixty eight grains of black powder, and the ball was typically a 530-grain Prichett or a Burton-Minié, which would be driven out at about 850-900 feet per second. If you can find a ballistic coefficient for the bullet, I can crunch the external ballistics. scot 21:39, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

PPS-- http://www.whitemuzzleloading.com/long_range_muzzleloading.htm has some ballistics charts for Minie balls; I should be able to reverse engineer the BC from the curves. In fact, my external ballistics software was stuff I wrote for the specific purpose of reverse engineering muzzle velocity and BC from a drop chart... scot 21:46, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, I'll look that up. I may be BC's as well for some of those balls. I'll check this evening. Arthurrh 23:51, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Here's what I found, let me know what else you need. BTW, I found a BC calculator at http://www.uslink.net/~tom1/calcbc/calcbc.htm#casts

.45-70-405 centerfire bp BC approx .303 max 60gr 1216 fps
.45-70-500 centerfire bp BC approx .365 max 60gr 1130 fps
.50-70-425 centerfire BC approx .163 70gr (max) 1448 fps

blackpowder patch and ball (70gr is near minimum load, closest to your 68gr, 140gr is max load)

Round ball bullet diam: .570 Wt: 276 gr SD: .121 BC: .080

24" barrel 70 gr bp 1263 fps, 24" barrel 140 gr bp 1708 fps
32" barrel 70 gr bp 1244 fps, 32" barrel 140 gr bp 1773 fps

conical diam: .570 wt: 530 gr SD: .227 BC: .180

24" barrel 70 gr bp 1021 fps, 24" barrel 140 gr bp 1426 fps
32" barrel 70 gr bp 1016 fps, 32" barrel 140 gr bp 1467 fps

Let me know what else you need. Arthurrh 05:46, 19 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

References

^ http://www.levergun.com/articles/bdixon.htm

Comparison 500 S&W Magnum and 45-70

Both articles contradict each other. The 500 S&W Magnums claims 3.5 kJ, the 45-70 shot through a 14-inch-Contender claims 2.7kJ. Yet the 45-70 is referred to as arguably the most potent caliber offered in the Contender frame, while it is also available in .500 S&W Magnum [1]. This might be, because the 45-70 article is older than the one about 500 S&W, but for even the 500 S&W article treats them as roughly equal. Maybe someone with more knowledge on powerful handgun calibers can elaborate, please? Tierlieb (talk) 12:51, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There are a number of issues that make this very complex, such as the definition of "most powerful". Going by muzzle energy available from the Contender, the nod really goes to JD Jones' calibers, which are based on the .444 Marlin. These have near-.45-70 case capacity, a slightly smaller head diameter, and a MUCH higher pressure. To equal the .444 Marlin bolt thrust, you'd have to load the .45-70 to 35,000 PSI, significantly over the SAAMI limit of 28,000 PSI. There are available commercial T/C loads for the .45-70 that exceed 2500 ft. lbs., which meets the .500 S&W energies available with an equivalent sectional density. The .460 S&W, which is a .45 caliber case slight longer than the .500 S&W, takes nearly the same bullets as the .45-70 (.452 vs. .458), and is a virtual twin to the .45-70 performance-wise. Even the guy at S&W who developed the .500 and .460 thinks the .460 is a better hunting cartridge (see here). The downside is that both the .460 and .500 develop top power with lighter bullets; the highly touted Double Tap 3000 ft lb .500 S&W load uses a 350 grain bullet, and the .460's "fastest big bore cartridge" 2300 fps load is an ultra-light 200 grain spitzer bullet. On the other hand, take Garrett's T/C level .45-70 load, which is 420 grains of flat point solid. It provides 2500 ft. lbs. of energy, with equal sectional density to the 500 grain .500 bullet, with a higher velocity for more penetration.

Of course, if you jump from the Contender to the T/C Encore, with it's much larger locking lug, you can just about double the bolt thrust. That allows things like the .416-06 JDJ, which leaves the .500 S&W sadly in the dust, with 400 grains at over 2000 fps, for 3700 ft lbs of energy... scot (talk) 19:14, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, that is a great answer, thank you! For me, "powerful" would have translated to energy in Joule. But penetration might also be a good point. So I understand why it is a complicated topic. Thanks again. Tierlieb (talk) 21:58, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Tag & Assess 2008

Article reassessed and graded as start class. Referencingand appropriate inline citation guidelines not met. --dashiellx (talk) 16:51, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Correction / Query

Sent to me via email:

"Note that while the nominal bullet diameter was .45 inches..., the bore was actually closer to .458 inches...."

The BORE is in fact .450 inches. It is the GROOVE diameter that was actually .458 inches. The NOMINAL (as in "name of the cartridge") bullet diameter may be ".45," as in ".45-70," but the actual bullet diameter is sized to the GROOVE diameter. This may sound a bit nit-picky, but those of us who reload our own spent cartridge cases understand the need for precise use of the language. This is true particularly if we are exchanging information with other shooters/reloaders.

Prodego ^talk 12:13, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

.45/70 Redirect?

It appears that .45/70 does not redirect to this article. Is there any reason why this shouldn't be added? It is a common spelling of the cartridge. Surv1v4l1st ^{(Talk|Contribs)} 02:53, 2 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No reason it shouldn't be there, so I added it. scot (talk) 18:04, 2 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Surv1v4l1st ^{(Talk|Contribs)} 14:34, 5 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Exaggerated statement = POV?

I'm not sure about this line:

The 45 caliber rifle was the principal arm of the US Army until 1893, long after European adoption of efficient repeaters using smokeless powder ammunition had made the American weapon obsolete as a military rifle.

Long after? The first 'modern' military repeater (w/ hi-vel smokeless round) was the Lebel- introduced 1886. The German Commission Rifle and Brit Lee-Metford (still black powder) followed in 1888, and the Mosin-Nagant in 1891. The Brits didn't adopt a cordite cartridge until 1891 nor nitrocellulose until 1894. So "long after" for the adoption of the M1892 Krag really overstates the case quite a bit.Solicitr (talk) 04:42, 28 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Maximum range

I can read: The heavier 500-grain (32 g) bullet produced significantly superior ballistics, and could reach ranges of 33,500 yards (31,200 m), which were beyond the maximum range of the .45-70-405. 33,500 yards?

I think 3,500 yards (3,200 m) are more realistic. -- hmaag (talk) 09:54, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]