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xsheadspace,
You are right on the money, that is an Atlas lathe, the only one I owned at the time. It is not much compaired to other lathes but it does fairly well on the simple things, if I don't push it too hard. It is an "Old Man's" lathe, but that's O.K., I am an old man. I try not to get in too much of a hurry when machining anything. I have since purchased another Atlas just to do barrel conturing. They work O.K. for me if I keep my head about me. I did shell out a forward and revese box awhile back because I forgot to unclamp the saddle after doing a facing operation. When I engaged the leadscrew the next time, it protested for a second and then shelled out in dramatic fashion! That cost me a little over $100.00, but it was my own fault and I will have to learn to pay closer attention. I very seldom have to lock the saddle down and when I do it again, you can bet I will release it right afterwards!
As I said, they are not much compaired to some other lathes but I am glad to have it. When I did my first conversion, I didn't have either a lathe or a milling machine and had to hire my buddies to do some of the work for me on their machines. It didn't take long for me to decide that I NEEDED my own lathe and mill.
The loads we used to regulate this were at the top end of the bottom catagory, for trapdoors, or maybe just a little more. I'm sure the Ruger COULD stand more, but why bother. This gun with the 300 grain H.P. loads moving at around 1500 FPS has shot through virtually everything that has been hit with it. No one has gotten a shot at Moose or Elk with it, yet, but it is only a matter of time. I have an open request in to all my buddies that if they ever recover a slug from a game animal, I would like to see a picture of it at least, to determine how the slug expanded. No one has sent me one yet, but I am hopeful.
I hear a lot of talk about what the 45-70 won't do, so here's a little known fact for you guys out there. The only Elephant ever killed in my home state of Iowa, was shot and killed with a 45/70 Trapdoor Springfield by an old veteran after several people had tried to down it with more modern guns. It was a female circus elephant that went on a rampage and got loose and torn up a bunch of the circus. They laid her to rest right where she fell and our statewide newspaper did a big article about it at the time. I don't know what the load was for sure, but I would be willing to bet that it was the old 405 grain service load for the trapdoor. Back then, that was all that was available to shoot.

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