Due to some life issues, my 32-40 is out of the game for a bit, and I can't fix it yet, so I'm going to be using my silhouette rifle in the schutzen game for the meantime. I have a breech seated, re/decapper, and made a case scraper.

I am thinking black powder as I have a good amount on hand, and am debating a duplex load with 4227. I have never loaded duplex, and certainly never used one case with BP. Any tips?

I am thinking of taking 7gr of 4227 in pre-charged vials to the range, then using a drop tube to fill the case, then finger seating a .060 wad on top. I have a Lyman round nose and buffalo arms money mold, both around 400gr. After firing I'll decap, scrape, and reload.

Does this sound about right?

A life issue and a broken 32-40. A real melon twister there...      
Wife got mad and accused you of loving your 32-40 more than her so she took it out on your rifle. Poured glue down the barrel? Broke the stock?

Mine threw an earthen wear pitcher through the glass panes in my gun cabinet. Damaged a couple fine target rifles. She was a single mother the next day. 45-70 is to large for Schuetzen. I have a Ballard Pacific 45-70 that is not to bad to shoot OH with a 300 grain bullet and 45 gr BP. Never tried it from the bench.

What happened JHand?  People with nothing better to do want to know.   

I bought this Ballard Scheutzen Junior back in May at the CGCA show. No forearm then, and it has a 34" half octagon .45-70 barrel. I made a forearm and have been working up smokeless loads using an old Lyman 292 grain bullet.
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I felt the 292 grain bullet would be as easy on my shoulder as my 315 grain .38-55 bullet in my Schoyen Ballard. I think it's actually even easier on the shooter than the .38-55 is.
If I was to use a .45-70 for Scheutzen and wanted reduced recoil I'd work up smokeless loads, not BP. Having to fill the case is going to cause almost any load or bullet weight to be more recoil than reduced smokeless charges.
I considered doing a barrels swap on this Ballard first, but after working up lighter loads I've decided to leave it as is.

Shot my 1886 45-70 in a lever gun silhouette match twice recently with same load as you are thinking about , 7gr 4227 and 70gr 1 1/2 swiss compressed .060 with .060 wad on top and 390gr pbrn lyman finger seated lightly touching rifling. 1480 fps velocity, about 100 fps faster than straight black. I wouldnt do this load in a weak action. Haven't tried zero compression. Couldn't get lighter bullets to shoot and it really liked heavier bullets. I'm glad it's a month between matches. It shoots an honest 1 1/2 moa. Think it might do better if wiped between shots but time doesn't permit. It has a shotgun butt plate and isn't terrible on recoil til the day after. Rifle is only 11 lbs with lead added to magazine tube. I assume your rifle is closer to the scoped weight limit at 15 lbs. Should do well off bench. Let us know.

YMMV
HG

An advantage with BP is annoyance. Shooters near you may be annoyed at the smoke and loud noise and stink you make, especially if they're old three position small bore shooters. 
At a match at Hamilton MT not long ago I was positioned in the center of the firing line while using BP in my 38-55. Almost every time I fired someone would complain about the noise or the stink of BP. The rules are any safe load so the comments and people holding their noses and acting like they were barfing didn't bother me. I remember thinking their concentration was broken.

The match was 100 shots OH at 200 yards. BP can be perty dang accurate as I won the match. My last two targets scored 211 and 220. Oh the memories.... 

frnkeore wrote on Sep 23^rd, 2025 at 4:21am:


This is pretty much my load for our "buffalo and Indian" match, I use 12gr of unique with pillow ticking fill and a Lyman bullet fixed. It's good enough for those targets (won our last match), I'll have to try it on paper. Didn't think it was quite enough for a 1 1/2" bull

These are my results in working up my Unique load.

10.0 gr BSed, 409 gr bullet, 5 shot groups.

F150 primers
971 fps, SD 6.9, 100 yd group, ES 19, .84 group, 4 in .48

F210 primers
965 fps, SD 6.0, ES 20, 1.02 group

I tried a filler but, it had the largest group.

I had a better way to annoy the shooters beside me.  I used to wear noise cancelling headphones while listening to classical music.  I unconsciously would whistle to the music.  It drove one shooter crazy 'cause he didn't know where it was coming from.  Right Wes?