45-90 rifle dies

[oldbear1950]

Can 45-90 rifle dies load 45-70 cartridges?
Just wondered.

[44 AMP]

Never tried it, but probably not. You'd have to check the .45-90 specs ( I don't have them handy right now) the .45-70 is considered a "straight" case, but its not, it tapers from .480" at the mouth to .505" at the base. I think the 45-90 is about the same, but can't say for sure, it is longer, so the amount of taper (and possibly base size could be different).

The expander die will probably have enough adjustment in the stem to do .45-70, but may not. Same for the seating stem. But the crimping shoulder of the .45-90 die will be too far up to do the shorter .45-70 brass.

The other way around, using .45-70 dies to load .45-90 brass will almost certainly work, by backing out the dies to account for the extra .45-90 case length. Although you won't be able to full length resize the longer brass, you should be able to neck size, flare, seat and crimp with .45-70 dies adjusted for the longer brass.

[1972RedNeck]

The sizing die will not work for both.

[Unclenick]

45-90 Winchester is about the same as a 45-70 stretched out in length by 0.3", so you might get away with it in some chambers. 45-90 Sharps, though, uses a .451" bullet instead of the .458" and .459" used in 45-70 Govt., so they won't be sized adequately by 45-70 Government dies.

[Jim Watson]

I think that if you use a .451" bullet in a .45x2 4/10" Sharps, it will be paper patched, which is a whole new game.
I think the whole .45 XX lineup in modern rifles is in .458" barrels made by the mile and cut off by the yard.

I borrowed a .45-90 sizing die to even out .45-70 brass before necking it down to .33 WCF and .40-65.

[Unclenick]

You are probably right for modern manufactured variants. I have one reference (QuickLOAD's database) that puts the groove diameter at 0.457 for the 45-90 Winchester with 2.4" case, and at 0.451 for the 45-90 Sharps Straight with a 2.75" case. On the other hand, the late Mike Venturino's book on black powder cartridges shows the 45-90 Win dimensions, but only distinguishes it from the 45-90 Winchester by the bullet weight and the different rifling pitch in the Winchester rifles chambered for it. But in the Lyman Cast Bullet Handbook, 4th Edition, which Venturino largely authored he has the 45-90 Winchester and no mention of 45-90 Sharps. I seem to recall the history of the Sharps company included some cartridge design(s?) that failed to reach popularity in their first incarnation, and the original 45-90 may have been one of these. Venturino comments that the commercial loads of 45-90 Winchester never contained less than 100 grains of powder, accomplished by shallow seating of the 550-grain bullet, whereas the same 2.4" case with a fully seated bullet only has room for 80 grains of powder. He thinks this is fine, as it was designed and sold as a target shooting cartridge and is over-powered for that purpose until you get past 500 yards.

The dimensions I had have a slight variation. Venturino shows all the cartridges from 45-70 to 45-120 with the same 0.480" neck diameter at the mouth, so the modern versions are certainly all for the 0.458 groove diameter. At 0.2" forward of the head, the 45-70 is shown as 0.504", and all the others at 0.506". The 0.002" difference is less than the normal SAAMI tolerance of -0.008", so the isn't a difference that would affect chambering or shooting, if you over-resized the larger cases by that much.

[Jim Watson]

Venturino comments that the commercial loads of 45-90 Winchester never contained less than 100 grains of powder, accomplished by shallow seating of the 550-grain bullet, whereas the same 2.4" case with a fully seated bullet only has room for 80 grains of powder. He thinks this is fine, as it was designed and sold as a target shooting cartridge and is over-powered for that purpose until you get past 500 yards.

That is backwards. The .45-90 Winchester was loaded .45-90-300 for the 1886 repeater. There is such a thing as a .45-80 but it is the same case with a heavier bullet and less powder space to feed through the lever action.
Sharps usually referred to their cartridges by case length because they offered different loads. The 2.1” was typically a .45-75 from Sharps vs .45-70 Government or Winchester.

[Unclenick]

Not backwards, but improperly cut up. I meant to say the 300-grain bullet for the 45-90 Winchester was loaded with 100-grains of powder as an express round, initially for the Winchester low wall, IIRC. But the 80-grain charge under the 550-grain bullet in the same case was the Sharps target-shooting cartridge during the same period.

I wonder if you load a 405-grain 45-70 bullet if you don't come out with room about right for a 90-grain charge.

[Jim Watson]

CotW says Winchester loaded the 2.4” case as .45-90-300, .45-85-350, and .45-82-405 for 1886 lever action. Of course they would chamber the Single Shot for anything they made, .22 Short on up.

Any of the big 45s would surely have been in a “Highwall”, wouldn’t it?

[Unclenick]

Yes, I am just not having any luck saying what's in my head in this thread. I had just been looking at the current production low wall in 22 Hornet, so that came off my fingers rather than the high wall. I should probably consider stopping posting in this thread.

OK. I got the book out. Here's what Venturino actually wrote:

Originally Posted by [sic}

"Originally the Sharps .45 caliber using a 2.4-inch cartridge case was developed solely for long range target shooting. This cartridge has come in modern times to be called the .45-90. However, in the 1870s this case was never factory loaded with less than 100 grains of black powder. Extra case capacity was proved by shallowly seating the 550-grain paper patched bullet. For today's shooters using modern brass with bullets seated normally, the .45-90 will seldom accommodate more than 80 grains of black powder...

"This single shot cartridge and loading should not be confused with the .45-90 Winchester. The latter was an express loading, and although the two cases were similar, Winchester barrels were cut with a slower rifling twist rate to better stabilize 300-grain bullets."

Mike Venturino, RIP

So, the difference appears to be primarily in the Sharps or Winchester label being attached to the cartridge. Winchester would have been loading the latter, of course. The brass we get now as .45-90 is all .45-90 Winchester, AFAIK, and it appears that modern-made Sharps rifle designs in "45-90" are being chambered for .45-90 Winchester, as that's the brass that's available. What differences there may have been in the original Sharps 2.4" brass and the .45-90 Winchester brass, I don't know. We need a cartridge historian to sort it out.