Raimey,
I can only offer guesses:
the rifle was made and bought with black powder in mind, and proofed accordingly. Around that time, say between 1890 and 1910, there was rapid change in ballistics - nitro powder, jacketed bullets, small calibers, repeating rifles - but also plenty of hunters who did not trust these modern things and wanted to stick to theit trusty smokepoles... Lots of heated debate going on in hunting and shooting journals, maybe worse than today.
So in my eyes it is possible that the rifle's owner at that time was not interested in nitro powder - no need to specify extra proof.
By 1909, he or the next owner changed his mind, and as a good citizen (and maybe still somewhat worried about the destructive risks of nitro powder) he showed up at the proof house...
My feeling is this was originally chambered in some .450 Express variant (Ger proposed this already, 11,5x60R Express), and only altered to .45-70 after it reached the US, after 1945.
Nevertheless, the .45-70 was known and even chambered on special order, so this possibility cannot be excluded - see next post!
Fuhrmann
Last edited by fuhrmann; 09/28/16 05:01 AM.
