[Jeff Higgins]

Well, I got her out to the range today for some load testing, and just to get a general feel for her. I think I decided before I even went that this was going to be pretty much a black powder shooter, but I brought my one smokeless load anyway, just for good measure.

Unfortunately, my one smokeless load that I keep around is my "Marlin load", for the 1895. 410-ish grain bullet from the RCBS mold over 50.0 grains of H322 for about 1,920 fps. Ouch. It's bad enough in the Marlin, with its rubber but pad and maybe a bit more weight, but holy smokes was it ever unpleasant in this new Extra Light with its checkered steel butt plate. I swear I left snot, slobber, and ear wax all over the stock every time I pulled the trigger. They shot very, very well in the Winchester, but I'm afraid these are going to remain "Marlin loads" from now on.

Much more pleasant, and equally accurate, were my loads with the 400 grain Lyman bullet over 7.0 grains of Reloder 7 and 55 grains of Goex FFg black powder. This is known as a "duplex" load, wherein we use a priming charge of smokeless under the black powder to make it burn cleaner. These do just under 1,400 fps and are far more pleasant to shoot.

More good news was I found I could fire about a dozen of these before the bore fouled out and started throwing fliers. A couple of damp (with water) patches through the bore and she was back to shooting again. Plenty good for hunting.

So, anyway, a fun, productive day at the range. The gun shoots well with a couple of my "standard" loads that my other .45-70's like, which is a good thing.