Shiloh’s No. 111 that accommo-
dates a variety of inserts. At the
rear is a No. 101 mid-range Soule-
style sight with both windage and
elevation adjustments in minutes
of angle. The No. 101 is produced
by Montana Vintage Arms in Bel-
grade, Montana.
Kirk claims to possibly be the
first hunter to take big game with
Shiloh’s new ’77. With one shot
each he dropped a Montana mule
deer buck and a pronghorn buck.
The former was shot at 209 yards
and the latter at 210 yards. As
might be expected, the 405-grain
.45-70 bullets exited both animals.
The deer was laying down when
shot, stood up for a few seconds
and then collapsed. The antelope
dropped in its tracks. His load was
25 grains of Accurate 5744 under
a 405-grain bullet from Lyman
mould No. 457193. Velocity was
about 1,300 fps.
Due to a very long winter with
far more snow than usual, I was
not able to shoot Kirk’s new ’77
until immediately prior to writing
this. In fact, we had a narrow win-
dow in the weather during which
we could get to my “shooting
shack.” Traveling to my 200- and
300-yard targets wasn’t feasi-
ble, so shooting was done at 100
yards. Two days after shooting
some groups on paper, it started
snowing again.
My friend isn’t a black-powder
handloader, so our group shoot-
ing was with his smokeless load,
Black Hills .45-70 Cowboy fac-
tory loads and three of my black-
powder handloads. Two of my
contributions were meant for
BPCR Silhouette competition, but
the third was developed to dupli-
cate the ballistics of the U.S. gov-
ernment’s .45-55 reduced recoil
carbine load. It used the same
2.10-inch case of the standard .45-
70 with the same bullet, but the
powder charge was reduced to 55
grains of black powder.
The accompanying table lists
each load tried; however, it pleased
me greatly that the black-powder
propelled bullets clustered signi-
ficantly tighter than those pushed
by smokeless powders. My stan-dard procedure for testing black-
powder handloads is to start
with a clean barrel, fire a fouling
shot and then five for group. We
swabbed the barrel with a wet
patch followed by a dry one be-
fore firing the next group. Not only
does this method reveal a rifle’s ca-
pabilities, it also shows where that
first shot from a clean barrel goes.
That’s important for a rifle to be
used on game.
The best five-shot group Kirk
fired was 1.75 inches and mine
was 1.63 inches. Those came us-
ing my competition handloads
with 560-grain bullets. The lighter
black-powder load grouped 2.50
inches, and all smokeless pow-
der groups ran from 2.50 to 3.50
inches. Interestingly and pleas-
ingly, the first shot fired was 2
inches above group center. With
some load development, I’m sure
a black-powder combination could
be found that would put five shots
in a ragged hole at 100 yards. I’ve
seen it done with other Shilohs.
Kirk’s Model 1877 was serial
No. 30. While I was writing this,
another friend dropped by the
house with his brand-new Shiloh
’77. It was number 80. I expect
just about everyone who treasures
their Model 1874 Shiloh will find
the new one very attractive.July-August 2019 http://www.riflemagazine.com 51
Mike shot this five-shot, 1.38-inch group with the 560-grain Creedmoor bullet.
Note the first shot from a clean barrel landed 2 inches high.
RMike’s friend Kirk Stovall used his new Shiloh Model 1877 .45-70 to shoot this
antelope at 210 yards.© 2019 Photo Courtesy Kirk Stovall