I have the 1884 Version of the Trapdoor rifle w/bayonet. Excellent shape, good bore and no broogered up screw heads.
Like all my surplus USGI Rifles, I want to shoot them. I don't want to fool with black powder on this rifle so I elected to go the smokeless route.
Wife just recently bought this for me, I didn't have any 45-70 bullets casted up so I decided to try some 255 gr. pistol bullets.
Loaded up 32 grs of 5744 powder (designed for light loads) and tried the gun out.
At 50 yards with the lowest sight settings I had to have a tad of daylight below the 8 in steel target to hit it. But at 200 yards it was right on.
The max pressure for safe shooting smokeless powder in the trap door is 18,000PSI
According to Quick Load, the above load is right around 13,000, well below safe loading pressures. The round is about 1800 fps and fairly accurate.
No recoil, easy extraction, and easy on the brass. Even my wife (who cant handle any recoil hardly) finds it pleasant to shoot except she admits the rifle is a bit heavy for her in the offhand position.
I might give it a try deer hunting with this load next year. With all the rattlers I ran across while hunting this year, I might add the bayonet do I can deal with them at distance.
I also discovered, because of the light load, its fast loading and extracting the case. I'm gonna practice a bit and see if I can get off 10 rounds in 80 seconds. If so I might give it a try in the CMP GSM matches in the "other" military category.
Its about the same length w/bayonet as my Krag w/bayonet. I wonder how it would work in 3-gun matches.
Anyway these old war horses deserve to be fired to show us they still have it in them.