
Sadly, Spence Wolf’s life was cut short by cancer in September 1993.

45-70 Springfield Rifle And Carbine.” The first edition of the book was printed in 1991. At the end of the journey, Spence and Pat Wolf left for us their affection for the “Old Warrior” and an invaluable resource, “Loading Cartridges for the Original. But learning how to recreate the original arsenal loadings would send Spence and Pat Wolf on a journey lasting three years, while consuming many pounds of black powder, lead and tin in 15 original. Spence surmised that the key to accuracy is finding how to craft the ammunition as it had been created in the past. He purchased 25 or 30 rounds of the old ammunition to play with in the “Old Warrior.” To his astonishment, with the UMC ammunition he put five shots in a group measuring three inches at 100 yards! The old rifle really would shoot after all. 45-70 UMC, military contract black powder ammunition loaded for the Springfield rifle. At a gun show Spence came across some original. Believing that whatever accuracy the Old Warrior had once possessed had faded with the passing of the cavalry, Spence put the rifle away and went on with other projects. Next, Spence tried loading the cartridges with smokeless powder but the groups did not improve. He was aware of the history of these old rifles and accuracy to which they had been fired in the past, so when his rifle and the loads that he had assembled scattered bullets all over the place he was sorely disappointed.

His results were dismal with groups measuring around five feet at 100 yards. Spence acquired some 500-grain lead bullets, seated them into cartridges loaded with black powder and headed for the range. Also, like most of us, that’s about all he knew. 45-70 Springfield Trapdoor rifle, which he proudly referred to as the “Old Warrior.” Like most of us, Spence had some knowledge of Trapdoors and knew that his newly acquired rifle, equipped with the Buffington sight, was designed for shooting 500-grain bullets atop 70 grains of black powder. In 1975, Spence Wolf purchased his first.

45-70 Government, as well as the new Model 1873 Springfield rifle to fire this powerful cartridge. 45-70-405 service cartridge that became known as the. In 1873, the Army Ordnance Board adopted the new. To those who shoot rifles from the late 1800s, though, Trapdoor is the nickname of the models of the. Spence and Pat Wolf – 1990.an image of a secret passageway.
