Description
A-Zoom 45-70 Govt Snap Caps are machined aluminum dummy rounds sized to 45-70 Government, two to a pack. Most rifles chambered for it are lever guns, single shots or genuine antiques, and all three are categories where dry firing on an empty chamber is a bad habit with an expensive ending.
How A-Zoom 45-70 Govt Snap Caps Are Built
Each one is CNC machined from solid aluminum billet to full cartridge dimensions and hard anodized red. There is no separate case head and no plastic body, so nothing can shear off and leave a case body wedged in a chamber, which is a particularly unwelcome outcome in a tube-fed lever gun.
The primer end carries a proprietary polymer cushion rather than a live primer, rated by A-Zoom for more than three thousand strikes. It slows the firing pin the way a real primer does instead of letting it stop hard, which matters a great deal on original Trapdoor Springfields and older Marlins.
The red anodizing keeps A-Zoom 45-70 Govt Snap Caps clearly inert. A cartridge this large is easy to identify at a glance anyway, and the color removes any remaining doubt when you are working a lever in a room with live ammunition on the bench.
Where Two Rounds Earn Their Keep
Lever guns live and die on cartridge overall length. The 45-70 is loaded to wildly different lengths depending on whether it is trapdoor-level, Marlin-level or Ruger-only pressure, and a long-seated cast bullet will hang up on the carrier long before it reaches the chamber. Cycling A-Zoom 45-70 Govt Snap Caps through the action is how you learn the rifle handles a given length.
Single shot owners get a different benefit. Ruger No. 1 and H&R style actions want the extractor and ejector checked after any work, and confirming that with a dummy round beats doing it with a live cartridge in hand.
Handloaders find them handy for exactly the same reason. Comparing a machined dummy against your own loaded rounds is a quick sanity check on overall length and carrier fit, and cycling one through the rifle shows whether a heavy cast bullet is going to work before you build a batch of fifty.
- Caliber: 45-70 Government
- Quantity: 2 per pack
- Construction: CNC machined solid aluminum, hard anodized red
- Primer: proprietary polymer dead cap, rated 3,000+ dry fires
- Design: one piece, no case head to separate
- Uses: dry fire practice, lever and carrier cycling, extractor checks, action release
- Made in the USA
- Manufacturer item: PA12231 / UPC 666692122316
Field Notes
Antique and reproduction actions are the strongest argument here. Trapdoor firing pins are not something you order on a Tuesday, and A-Zoom 45-70 Govt Snap Caps cost almost nothing next to sourcing a replacement for a rifle that has been working since the 1880s.
They are also the right tool for practicing lever work. Running the action smoothly and quickly is a learned motion, and it should be learned with something in the chamber rather than by repeatedly dropping the hammer on nothing.
The polymer cushion wears out. When the face is visibly cratered and no longer rebounds, retire that round rather than continuing to strike a dead cushion.
Working on other classic chamberings? The line also covers 30-30 Winchester and 303 British. Construction details are published by A-Zoom.
For lever gun owners, single shot shooters and anyone caring for an original 45-70, A-Zoom 45-70 Govt Snap Caps are the sensible buy. MAG5 Firearms stocks them as manufacturer item PA12231 in the two pack.
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