45 - 70 shell..........

[Mike from MI]

Can anyone date this shell? The end says 45-70 U.S.G. W.R.A. Co
The 7 didn't show in pic.

 

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[dethklok97]

you can faintly see the 7 but idk sorry

 

[NGE]

W.R.A. stands for Winchester Repeating Arms Company....... Monty will I.D. it for ya...............NGE

 

[garbageman]

Check out this site. It is good for getting approximate dates on shells. -Garbageman

http://members.shaw.ca/cartridge-corner/shotgun.htm

 

[kenley]

The correct nomenclature is 45-70-405 government

 

[Monty]

Dang kenley, I've never seen it written up with the 405 on the end. I am assuming that would refer to a 405 grain lead bullet as used in the standard military cartridge? No, I can't tell you the era or date of manufacture of that case. If I had a chart I probably could but you could google it and get it faster than I could look it up. WRA is Winchester Repeating Arms, so it would have come out after the only single shot rifle era. (Logic)? I have a .45-70 but it uses any kind of bullet I choose to reload into it and the cases could be old or new depending on the condition to determine if it can be safely reloaded. Buff hunters usually cast their own bullets and reloaded most of their ammo. The 70 in .45-70 refers to 70 grains of black powder that I suppose was pretty much a standard load at one time. The historiy of the location it was found would tell you a lot about age possibly? Monty

 

[kenley]

I thought it was; 45-90-500?

 

[Monty]

I don't know if a .45-70 would hold 90 Grains of black powder? Well, probably FFF would do it, but usually the heavier the bullet , the lighter the charge because of pressure and recoil. But the .45-70 was one of many big bore cartridges built on a "basic" case. They cut it off, made the mouth wider, necked it down and did all kinds of altrations the basic case. But in the black powder era they couldn't get much velocity so they had to depend on bullet weight for killing power. The biggest one I recall in common use was the .50-90 and I am sure there was bigger when the first Safaris were being set out in Africa, but I am speaking of U.S cartridges. I think Sharps was the company that originated the first big bores for buff, but not positive.

 

[kenley]

Couldn't figure out how to link this .
www.chuckhawks.com/buffalo_cartridges.htm
hope it works.
It list 45-82,45-85,45-90,45-125.

 

[silverswede]

Heres a couple more. The picture with the length demonstrated shows 2 4082's and the other is a Peters 45.90 note the cartriges are all the same length. Don't know the bullet grain in the 45.90, but the old Winchester 45.90 we had around when I was a kid would work with 45.90's, 45.70's, 40.82's and even 2 1/2" 410's. Probably because the barrel was so shot out the bullet would tumble and leave a side view hole in a target. Sorry for the fuzzy pic's.

 

[Charlie P. (NY)]

For those interested here's a pretty good run-down of the "buffalo cartridges" from the .45-70 era.

http://www.chuckhawks.com/buffalo_cartridges.htm

The .45-70 (and .50-90) were U.S. service cartridges. The .45-82, .45-85, .45-90, .45-125, .50-100, .50-105, and .50-110 were Winchester cartridges; while there were also the .40-90 Sharps (Straight and Bottleneck), .50-115 Bullard, .50-140 Sharps and several other "buffalo" cartridges.


PS - a friend of mine has a scoped .45-70 single-shot pistol (a T/C Contender) he uses for whitetail deer. Has a two-foot muzzle flash and is a nasty beastie, but does work.

 

[Ramitt]

I prefer 45-70 in revolver form

 

[ivan salis]

winchester repeating arms headstamp (WRA) was used after 1866* the name change occured after they invented model 1866 winchester modeled after the henry 44 cal lever (repeating) rifle * --

that round is clearly stamped --45-70 -- USG -- (united states govt -"miltary" ammo) thus its a military round--( thus either a 45-70 -405 or 45-70-500 which were the standard militay loadings )--for the 45-70 TRAPDOOR SPRINGFEILD -- model 1873 * it was a single shot blackpowder "cartridge" weapon -- that basically was "out dated" when issued -- the repeating rifle in the civil war had shown what the outcome would be when repeaters vs single shot rifles happened --- many military folks blamed custers loss to the indains in 1876 on the fact that the indains had repeating weapons while custers men had "single shot rifles" --which lead to the replacement of the trapdoor rifle by the bolt action 30 - 40 krag --both the trapdoor and krag weapons were still being used by the us military during the spanish american war (1899 - 1901) and the "puff" of smoke from our out dated "black powder" weapons gave away the location of the US shooters to the smokeless powder bolt action mauser armed spanish -- who despite being heavily out numbered caused heavy US losses -- soon to be president teddy roosevelt saw this and made getting a "proper" rifle for US Troops his #1 priority when he became president -- they used the mauser bolt action design and came up with the springfeild model 1903 -30 -06

 

[Monty]

Then came the 03A3 and even a few Enfields. The end. Monty