GUNS Magazine Collar Buttons For The .45-70 Gentleman

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The single-shot Springfield 1873 rifle was already obsolete when the Army issued it with a 33″ barrel to the infantry and a 22″ barrel to the cavalry. The .45-70-405 cartridge it used, however, had been exhaustively researched and was a marvelous new cartridge with superb performance. Unfortunately, it was housed in a troublesome, non-reloadable soft copper case until the Army switched to reloadable brass cases in 1882 and began manufacturing and issuing their own reloading kits in 1883.

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A Better Mousetrap

Former Army Sergeant John Barlow understood what sort of tools shooters really needed and had already patented his own first reloading tool in 1882. In 1884 he patented the Ideal bullet mold design we all know today. He launched the Ideal Manufacturing Company to sell his bullet molds and reloading tools and soon became a supplier to the gun makers. A shrewd bullet designer, many of his designs are still in production.

Barlow knew the Army’s .45-70 reduced-powder cavalry loading was still too much of a good thing for training and practice. In his very first catalog (1891) he offered molds to the public for three lighter-weight bullets for small game and target practice with the .45-70. They were a flat base 210-gr. round nosed bullet, a hollow base 185-gr. version of the same bullet and a 140-gr. round ball. Army bullets used an alloy of 16 parts lead and one part tin to harden them for use in the Springfield 1873, which had a fast (at the time) 1 in 22″ barrel twist.

Barlow’s lightweight designs were very popular due to their reduced recoil, but the 1873 1:22″ rifling twist was really too tight for its tenuous grasp on the round ball, and accuracy suffered. In his 1896 Ideal Hand Book No. 7, Barlow offered a radical lightweight bullet design for the .45-70 — it weighed the same as the round ball but offered two wide driving bands to better hold the rifling. It sported a huge grease groove in the middle to lighten it and a bluntly pointed short conical nose.

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Collar Button bullets (from left): Two 1891 original 210-gr. lightweight Barlow designs,
a round nose and roundball; the 1896 Collar Button; the Rapine 460130, the 2010 MP
460 CB and the 2015 NOE 460-186-CB.

Sartorial Inspiration

Looking at the studs used to attach men’s collars to the neckbands of the shirts of the era, it’s easy to see where his inspiration came from and why he nicknamed his new wasp-waisted wonder the “Collar Button” bullet. Its mold acquired the number 457130 in the 1897 Ideal Hand Book No. 9.

In 1910 Barlow retired and sold his Ideal company to Marlin with whom he had worked closely. During World War I, Marlin sold the company to Phineas Talcott, who sold it to the Lyman family in 1925.

The collar button design lasted through about 1955 or so, with a brief re-run of 100 two-cavity molds in 1999. Unfortunately, the 210-gr. bullet, assigned the number 457127 in 1897 and the hollow base version 457128, also disappeared from the Lyman/Ideal listings around 1955-56 never to be seen again. So did another wonderful lightweight target bullet for the .45-70, the Himmelwright-inspired 193-gr. 457401.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch in Pennsylvania (so to speak), the Rapine Bullet Mold Mfg. Co. was eating Lyman’s lunch with their own slightly-larger-diameter collar button bullet, the sharply pointed number 460130. So was NEI Hand Tools with their own collar button design #332C, described as a .458-150-PB. Unfortunately NEI founder Walt Melander passed in 2002 and his company has since gone out of business. Ellsworth Rapine retired in early 2010 and closed his company. No more collar button bullet molds?

Fortunately, MP Molds came to the rescue in 2010 with a four-cavity mold for a similar bullet of the same weight. They proved so popular with big-bore air rifle shooters Lyman put their own two-cavity 457130 collar button mold back in their catalog in 2015. If you don’t want to cast your own, you can buy them ready-made from the Western Bullet Co.

To really frost the cake for us .45-70 lovers, NOE Bullet Molds introduced their 460-186-CB mold in 2015. It has the same overall length as the Lyman and MP collar buttons but with a much shallower lube groove. The result is a 186-gr. bullet nicely splitting the difference between the vanished and oft-lamented 210-gr. 457127 and 193-gr. 457401 bullets, and the 147-gr. 457130.

On The Casting Bench

Bullets simply pour out of the five-cavity aluminum version of this mold I bought, with very few rejects. The NOE bullet performs so marvelously downrange, there’s little reason to mourn those discontinued Ideal molds any more. Western Bullet also offers 460-186-CBs, sized .458 and lubed.

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Reproduction Catalogs by Cornell Publications www.cornellpubs.com Their reproductions of old gun-related catalogs,
manuals and other publications are a treasurehouse of information for the shooting fraternity!
We'd be much the poorer for information if it weren't for them.

Rolling Your Own

In 1897 both Marlin and Winchester began offering reduced-power loads but otherwise, shooting the .45-70 collar buttons has always been a load-your-own proposition. It’s really easy, though. Simply use small doses of fast burning pistol powder. Lyman’s loading data furnished with their collar button mold recommends more powder and higher velocities (1,600-2,000 fps) than I have found to be optimum in my rifles.

I have used the original collar button design and its modern variations in single shot 32″ H&R Buffalo Classic and 26″ Shikari rifles, and also in 18″ Marlin 1895GS and 24″ 1895XLR lever actions. In all cases, best results for me have come from using 12-14 grains of Trail Boss, 10-12 grains of Red Dot or Clays, 9-11 grains of Bullseye and 13-15 grains of Unique, using Winchester Large Rifle primers. These keep velocities in the 1,350-1,550 fps range. Any faster and groups really open up with my wheel weight bullets. I’m confident a few other fast burning pistol powders could perform equally well but with four good choices already in hand, I didn’t feel the need to go further.

Targets like these show the .45-70 can be a very satisfying plinker. The NOE 460-186-CB
bullet cast from wheel weights was used with 14 grains of Trail Boss.

Your Mileage May Vary

I can’t give you the perfect load since each rifle has its preferences. With the powders I used, their position in those huge cases proved to make very little difference with the WLR primers, so don’t sweat it. Just do not use fillers or substitute slower burning powders.

The small flats on the noses of the modern MP and NOE collar buttons are intended to make them safe to use in the magazine tubes of lever actions. The pointed nose shape of the Lyman, NEI and Rapine bullet designs pretty much make them a two-shot proposition for lever guns.

There are two easy ways to keep the magazine tube spring from shoving the bullets deeper into the case. One is to simply roll crimp the case mouth into the lube groove just under the top driving band, if your rifle has sufficient freebore ahead of the chamber to allow it. The original specs for the .45-70 called for zero leade in the barrel, with the rifling beginning at the very end of the chamber, so this may not work for you. The original collar button bullet was intended to be seated with the top of the front driving band flush with the case mouth.

There are a variety of options to prevent tubular magazine springs from pushing
collar buttons deeper into the case, ranging from custom case crimping dies to
allowing the rifle to seat the bullet if it has enough freebore.

A Different Tack

If your barrel has no freebore, there’s another way. Lube your bullets with Lee Liquid Alox or LSS Liquid Xlox and leave them unsized, as cast. Seating them will expand the case necks enough to leave a bit of a ledge under them, preventing the tube spring pressure from pressing them deeper. Lee can also custom-make a factory crimp die to create a cannelure in your cases below the bullets to prevent them from being pushed deeper.

From their very first lever action in 1881, Marlins were deliberately designed to be able to feed cartridges as short as empty cases. This enables you to simply seat even the sharpest pointed bullets flush with the case mouth and safely stuff the magazine tube full. With the heavier NOE collar buttons seated this way, velocities increased only 50-100 fps, depending on the powder used.

So, slow down a bit, and enjoy life more. Loads using collar button bullets over a small amount of fast burning pistol powder make it fun to pull the trigger on those big ol’ brass cigars. Make some, and go have some.

www.westernbullet.com

www.noebulletmolds.com

www.mp-molds.com

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