Many Guide Gun Questions:

[Keeper]

Just use a .460 weatherby you get the bullet diameter, weight and velocity. Seriously, I have been looking at getting a guide gun also and one advantage I see along with the 45/70 is lever action compared to bolts or side by sides. From my limited experience a lever action is easier to work under stressful conditions and the 45/70 holds 5 including the one in the pipe compaired to most bolts that carry 4 or 3 with one in the pipe. I think I might feel uncomfortable with one of the big side by sides. If you are experienced and a good shot, 1 should be enough but murphys law and mother nature seem to work well together and I would feel better with more shots that did not require me to break open my weapon and hope I can feed two fresh shells ect. Then again I have never been big game hunting although I hope to and my observations could be complete bullcrap. Sorry for rambling.

[This message has been edited by Keeper (edited February 03, 2000).]

 

[256M-S]

Actually, my 460 Wby holds 4 in the magazine and 1 in the chamber--it's an old Dumoulin Brevex action and not a Weatherby.

I think the point I was trying to make is that in the SE, the factory loads for the 45/70 work well enough for my purpose and I see no reason to try and make a Marlin 1895 into a mini-458. It seems to me that there are better calibres that offer more versatility if one needs something of almost 458 ballistics though if I lived where I could hunt the black timber effectively, I could certainly see the possibilities of a heavy loaded 45/70 for elk.

I toyed with the idea of taking the little truncated Marlin to Wyoming last year but I was readily convinced that the range factor would make my trusted old Winchester 375 a better choice.

As far as rapidity of fire, I think that really diminishes when the calibres increase in recoil and I suspect I certainly work a 458 bolt about as fast as I could a max loaded lever 45/70 though since I've never really used a max load in the 45/70 I couldn't swear to it.

As far as the doubles go, while I've always admired them, I'd basically feel more secure with one of my heavy magazines than a double in the rain forests of Cameroun, for example, where there is such a potential for muck and leaves to tie up the action of a finely fitted double. In more traditional brush, there's much to be said for the fast handling of the double, though the combination of cost and accuracy has finally, almost, made me content with my magazines.