Where to buy a hunting rifle?

Phil......shotgun and good sights......????.......
That would not be my cut on it.

Shotgun is inherently inaccurate.
You should limit your shots to 75 yards and under.
For these ranges any kind of iron sight is swell.

You will find that the supplied "bead" front sight (only..!!..) will deliver good-enough accuracy out to 35-45-yards.   Try it.  Windage is no problem.  It's the "elevation" that you have to hold-off for, but at 40 yards you can hold about 4-inches "over" and you won't fall more than 3-inchs under.

If you want a better sight:   Peep is good.   Iron V is good.

Inexpensive single-shot New England Firearms Co. shotguns weigh only 5.4 pounds and are frequently seen as being perfect for "kids" or "wives."  

They ARE EMPHATICALLY NOT A KID'S OR WIFE'S GUN...!!!!....That light gun in 12-Gage will:  EXACTLY   hit a person's shoulder hard enough that with a ordinary cotton shirt, ten shots will break the skin....yup, I promise:....break the skin.   Big black & blue patches are a certainty.   

I don't know how a 5.4-pound gun would feel in 20-gage.

Twelve-gage "high velocity loads" work best in a gun "on the heavy end"......8-pounds or so.

Shotgun shells (even in 20-gage) come in "lo-base", "hi-base" and "trap loads."
Consider introducing your wife to shotgun recoil with trap loads, and then use your findings to venture up thru lo-base and hi-base.

Backcountry:   If you are running a 45-70 at 2200 fps and 400-gr bullet, you are developing breech pressure in the 50,000+++ psi region.   Commercial loads won't touch those levels.  The "classic 45-70 actions" will not take them.   A commercially loaded 45-70 cartridge with 400 grain bullet will move at maybe 1640 fps and breech pressure will be right under 40,000 psi.    So I know you are reloading your own, and watching carefully for primer flattening, primer push-back, sticking cases and any changes in the "fit" of the rifle-action as it opens and closes.

Judd Smith
1589 Campus Drive
Berkeley, CA   94708
[email protected]
510 548 1769
      (Phil....I'm going up to Oregon for a week of whitewater on the coastal streams.  Be back about March 17)

Great question. I spoke before I jumped. Thanks Mike. I don't know!

Pretty sure it is Gun Shops in Reno won't sell to you if you have a CA DL

oooppps My Bad?

Backcountry:   If you are running a 45-70 at 2200 fps and 400-gr bullet, you are developing breech pressure in the 50,000+++ psi region.   Commercial loads won't touch those levels.  The "classic 45-70 actions" will not take them.   A commercially loaded 45-70 cartridge with 400 grain bullet will move at maybe 1640 fps and breech pressure will be right under 40,000 psi.    So I know you are reloading your own, and watching carefully for primer flattening, primer push-back, sticking cases and any changes in the "fit" of the rifle-action as it opens and closes.

You're right, and I'm not... poor proof reading... upon checking my data sheets, the hottest 405 grain loads I have shot run right at 2,000 fps, generating ~ 40,000 C.U.P. (copper units of pressure... not PSI).  The 2,200 fps load is with a 325 grain grain cast boolit.  Those velocities are using a 24" barrel... whereas my daily-driver Marlin Guide gun has just a wee 16 inch barrel, so velocities will be nominally lower, in the range of 400 fps less.  Regardless, both of those loads pack a serious wallop and will shatter four cinder blocks stacked back-to-back, and take out your fillings (if you have any)... not pleasant at all to shoot... so I don't regularly. 

My pet load for shooting condors (Oh, did I type that? I mean for shooting in the stupid condor range) are the Barnes TSX flat nose over 48.5 grains of AA1680 (yields ~ 1800 fps).  For factory ammo, the Hornady LeveRevolution delrin tipped 325 grain bullets are hard to beat in terms of accuracy.  Peep sights (Brockman's tritium!) at 50 yards yields a single raged hole and at 100 yards my eyes allow 3 inch groups.

Backcountry----I've always sort of taken  CUP to be roughly equal to PSI.  I understand how (and why) CUP evolved, but I figured that when the standard was being developed the engineers were aiming at rough parity with PSI.   

D'u know anything specific about that?

I see that you are a kindred soul.   I like large-caliber bullets also.   Nothing walks away from a .45 or .50 cal bullet-hole.    I used to own a Ruger No.-1, the falling-block single-shot in .458 Winchester.    Now, nobody in his right mind would willingly shoot a .458 Win at casual targets, and I didn't.   I loaded the machine down into 45-70 category and the reason I bought it was exactly:  to have a 45-70 that I could load up any damned way I wanted.   You know, from zero-to-infinity.

Then I sold it and went back to blackpowder and my Lyman great plains hunter rifle in .50-cal with 1:32 twist.   Oh let me tell you, that Lyman is ONE PRETTY RIFLE...!!!...BEAUTIFUL walnut stock...non-garish trim.  I can't handle std. iron sights anymore but I do fine with the Lyman peep, which is designed FOR that rifle.   I do love that gun and with the faster twist you get a VERY good compromise that allows you to go back and forth between patched-ball and connical bullets with no reduction in accuracy.

But I'd like to pick your brain some.    Some time ago I conducted a fairly detailed series of "cast-bullet-tests" in 30-06 where, with a series of four Lyman Mold bullet designs ranging in weight from 180-grains up to 220 grains (with and without gas-checks) I shot; at 100-yards for groups......the variable was powder charge/velocity.   I took 'em from 1400 fps through 2,000 fps.    Above 1800 fps accuracy began to go south and  then went to zero.  At 2000 fps and up some bullets never reached the target and those that did were keyholing through the paper.    Naturally I had increased the bullet-hardness to (estimated) BHN 12 or 15 with alloyed-in tin and antimony.

Clearly the lead bullets were stripping in the rifling.   The gun was an 03-A3...and I don't know WHAT the twist of that weapon is....maybe 1:15???....

Long bullets (200-grain & up) were the first to keyhole.  Shorter bullets did better but not much.

If you are getting satisfactory results with your 45-70 at 2200 fps....what's the twist on that gun?   As you have worked up in charge, have you noticed any degraded accuracy?

The Barnes copper-jackets would fly just fine.   The (ugly) people in Sacramento are shaping up to do a lead-bullet-ban statewide.   I guess I'll have to educate myself what is best to feed my muzzle-loader.

(I shoot my .50-cal muzzleloader with pure-lead only.   The bullets pancake to at least .75 cal upon hitting ANYTHING......I mean.....    p o o r    COYOTE...!!!...)

Judd