Description and Rules for the Management of the Springfield Rifle, Carbine, and Army Revolvers, Caliber 45.

It was a replacement for the stop-gap .50-70 Government cartridge, which had been adopted in 1866, one year after the end of the American Civil War, and is known by collectors as the "Trapdoor Springfield".

See: .45-70 at Two Miles: The Sandy Hook Tests of 1879), a new variation of the .45-70 cartridge was produced: the .45-70-500, which fired a heavier, 500-grain (32 g) bullet.

While the effective range of the .45-70 on individual targets was limited to about 1,000 yd (910 m) with either load, the heavier bullet produced lethal injuries at 3,500 yards (3,200 m).

When wrapped in two layers of thin cotton paper, this produced a final size of .458 inches (11.6 mm) to match the bore.

The result of the quest for a more accurate, flatter shooting .45 caliber cartridge and firearm was the Springfield trapdoor rifle.

Also issued was the .45-70 "Forager" round, which contained a thin wooden bullet filled with birdshot, intended for hunting small game to supplement the soldiers' rations.

[citation needed] The .45-caliber Springfield underwent a number of modifications over the years, the principal one being a strengthened breech starting in 1884.

Realizing that single-shot black-powder rifles were rapidly becoming obsolete, the U.S. Army adopted the Norwegian-designed .30-40 Krag caliber as the Springfield Model 1892 in 1893.

Today, the traditional 405-grain (26.2 g) load is considered adequate for any North American big game within its range limitations, including larger carnivores such as brown bear and polar bear, and it does not destroy edible meat on smaller herbivores such as pronghorn and deer, due to the bullet's low velocity.

Shooters of these early cartridges had to be keen judges of distance, wind and trajectory to make long shots; the Sharps rifle, in larger calibers such as .50-110 Winchester, was used at ranges of 1,000 yards (910 m).

[23] Even the military "creedmoor"-type rifle sights were calibrated and designed to handle extended ranges, flipping up to provide several degrees of elevation adjustment if needed.

The .45-70 is a long-range caliber, and accurate use requires knowledge of windage and elevation by minute of angle and a sense for estimating distance in these calculations.

Even when loaded with modern smokeless powders, pressures are usually kept low for safety in antique rifles and their replicas.

Various modern sporting rifles are chambered for the .45-70, and some of these benefit from judicious handloading of homemade ammunition with markedly higher pressure and ballistic performance.

The Magnum Research BFR is a heavier gun at approximately 4.5 pounds (2.0 kg), helping it have much more manageable recoil.