Rossi R95 45-70 Stainless Laminate Review

“The next time someone tells me that high fence isn’t real hunting, I’m going to tell them to shove their opinion where the sun doesn’t shine,” I muttered under my breath as I crawled on all fours through three foot tall grass. I was back in South Africa, near Thabazimbi, on the second day of chasing a wily red hartebeest all over a hell’s half-acre. The hartebeest could clearly tell he was being hunted and continuously would give us the slip. In fact, the entire first day we hunted him, I never even laid eyes on the old antelope, we just followed his tracks up and down a hill for 9 hours.

Dragging through the grass next to me was my Rossi R95 in 45-70.

Two days before I found myself crawling through tick infested grass, I had used my Rossi R95 45-70 to crush a the really nice trophy blesbok you see above. But even that’s getting ahead of myself, because this rifle’s review actually starts in 2025, when I was cooling my heels in an “Undisclosed location in Southwest Asia.” That’s what the USAF refers to deployed locations as despite the fact that it’s pretty easy to figure out which base is which, especially when PA is posting photos of the flight line, but whatever, that’s a different rant.

Anyway, I’m stuck in the Middle East and I’m thinking about hunting. I had gone to Africa in 2024 and knew that I had a return trip in the works. But I hadn’t really been in love with the rifle I took. Yes, the Taurus Expedition in 308 is a great rifle, but after shooting a zebra and chasing it for what felt like forever, I wanted a projectile that would hammer things right where they stood. Read about my zebra chase here:

Taurus Expedition 308 Vs A Zebra

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Feb 23

I wasn’t worried until the sun went down. Even then, I didn’t start to worry until our tracker had been gone for longer than 30 minutes and hadn’t answered his radio. I looked down at the dead zebra, barely visible under the starlight, and called him an asshole under my breath.

Anyway, I settled on a 45-70 lever gun, because my boss had recently taken one to Africa had killed a Cape buffalo with it, along with some other species. Once I got back to the States I ordered the Rossi R95 45-70 stainless laminate model. I went with stainless laminate because that stainless finish is great for resisting environmental wear, and also because it looks rad as hell. I’m a big fan of having guns with good aesthetics.

Here’s the nitty-gritty on the rifle:

• Weight: 6.8 lbs unloaded

• Barrel length: 18 inches

• Barrel material: cold hammer-forged stainless steel

• Capacity: 5 rounds

• Rear sight: windage and elevation adjustable peep sight

• Front sight: brass bead

• Trigger pull: 3 lbs

The Rossi also comes from the factory with a large loop lever that has a nice paracord wrap on it, a 3/4ths length picatinny rail, and lastly a very nice recoil pad that definitely helps eat up some of that 45-70 recoil.

My initial plan was to use it on a North Carolina bear hunt in December of 2025, which I suppose I technically did, even though I sat in a blind and stared at the same spot in the woods for five days and didn’t see a single bear. That’s hunting I suppose.

Prior to the hunt I set the rifle up with an Aimpoint Micro T2 and zeroed it with Hornady 410gr subsonic ammo. The Hornady rounds were making an average 950 FPS out of the rifle, and at 50 yards shot a 1.95 inch group. Not the best group I’ve ever shot, but given the crazy SD on the Hornady subs I was perfectly happy with it. I really like these rounds because they basically have no recoil, but unfortunately they also have the exterior ballistics of a rainbow. Seriously, with a 50 yard zero the round is 8 inches low at 100 yards, and 27 inches low at 150 yards. If you switch it up and zero at 75 yards which is what I did, you’re about an inch and a half high at 50, 4 inches low at 100, and 21 inches low at 150. To me, that makes this a 100 yard and in cartridge, which was fine for the bear hunt.

Of course, I didn’t see any bears, so I never got to find out how well that ammo would do on them.

In between my busted bear hunt and taking the rifle to Africa, I messed around a bunch with the optics I had on the gun. I briefly removed the Aimpoint and installed a Burris Scout scope on it, which had nothing to do with me watching Wind River the night before I made that installation. I also removed the iron sights entirely. I discovered that when using a weapon mounted light, the light would bounce back off the front iron in low light and completely obscure the target.

The Burris gave me the magnification I needed to actually shoot groups with the rifle, and it really came alive. I only shot three more brands of ammo because 45-70 is quite expensive. We already know how the subsonic ammo shot, so here’s a quick breakdown on the rest.

• Zero distance: 100 yards

• Hornady LEVERevolution 325gr Flex Tip: average 5 shot group size was 1.88 inches at 100 yards with a very consistent MV average 1957. Getting sub 2 MOA out of a lever gun is really good with any ammo.

• Federal Hammerdown 300gr JSP: average 5 shot group was 2.33 inches. Just a hair above 2 MOA, but still really accurate. This load fed extremely well and had a muzzle velocity that was nearly identical to what’s printed on the box.

• Barnes 300gr TSX: This was the least accurate, coming in with an average group size of 3.2 inches. It also had what I felt like was the least pleasant recoil, a sharp snap on the shoulder instead of the shove I got with the Federal and Hornady. It’s a shame because I love Barnes bullets and wanted to take this to Africa.

Ultimate, I selected the Federal Hammerdown load based on its accuracy, recoil impulse, and consistent feeding.

Oh, and I switched optic setups again. I found with the long-eye relief scope I’d get my head down and spend just a tick of a second hunting for the right eye relief, which isn’t something I wanted to do when I was hunting. I swapped the Aimpoint back on, and this time added a 3x magnifier for if I needed to push the gun to its max range. With the 3x magnifier I felt comfortable making shots out to 200 yards assuming I had good clear shooting lanes.

So there I was, crawling through the grass after spending 9 hours the previous day not seeing the hartebeest once. Day 2 we had caught a glimpse of him and then he vanished into thick brush. Every time we’d get close, he spook and run off deeper into the brush. After a couple of hours of playing hide and seek, we were finally in a good position to move in. Unfortunately, this was the crawling part.

I felt deep sympathy for my PH during the initial 80 yard crawl. I was wearing 5.11 Coalition pants, ankle high boots, and most critically gloves. He was wearing the standard issue PH shorts and no gloves, and I could see the grass and thorns were doing a number on him, not to mention the ticks.

We slowly stood up and Tiaan (my PH) got me on the hartebeest. I could see the tops of his horns reflecting the sunlight at us, and could clearly see his beady little eyes through the 3x magnifier. I ranged him - 150 yards. I could make the shot but I didn’t have a clean lane. He was standing behind a tree quartering towards us, with the trunk obscuring the target area between his shoulder and chest. Back to crawling. We closed in another 30 yards, setting up between two trees. I had a clear shot.

I pushed the manual safety off. One of the features I like about the R95 is the crossbolt manual safety. When I’m actively stalking on foot, I’ll have a round in the chamber, hammer back, but safety on. To fire I just click the safety off and send it.

The rifle’s report seemed muffled to me, despite not wearing hearing protection. I felt the recoil push, then ran the lever chambering another round as the hartebeest crumpled. We closed the remaining 120 yards quickly, keeping the gun up. Red hartebeest aren’t known to be dangerous, but I’m also not taking chances with a potential wounded animal that’s sporting giant horns.

He was down. The first shot had gone into the gap, hitting the heart and traveling down the left side of his body. The skinners eventually recovered the bullet from the gut pile. It had penetrated nearly three feet and mushroomed perfectly.

I put an insurance round into him to ease his passage into the afterlife. I’m a huge believer in not letting these animals suffer unduly, so even if the initial shot would be fatal, if we can speed that process along I will 100% of the time. I may joke that 45-70 is expensive, but in the grand scheme of things, bullets are cheap.

As I sit at my desk in South Carolina writing this, thinking back on my experience over the last year with the R95 in 45-70 and of course in Africa, I’m completely enamored with this rifle. The appearance is a great starting point, because it’s just nice to look at. But the performance is what really gets it for me. Everything I shot with that 300gr Hammerdown bullet died right there on the spot with no drama.

It really is the perfect brush-buster rifle. The Aimpoint T2 plus 3x magnifier was awesome for all the shots I encountered on this specific trip to Africa, however with that being said, I do think that if I switched over to an LPVO I’d be able to squeeze another 100-150 yards out of the gun. A 150 yard zero with that Hammerdown load gives me 5 inches of drop at 200 yards and puts me 2 inches high at 50. A little 1-6x that I could dial for elevation would make this a 300 yard gun all day long.

Bottom line? I love this rifle. Is that because I’ve hunted Africa with it? Partially. Is it also because it’s a straightforward no-frills killing rifle that you can get for right around a grand? That too. If you’re looking to get into the 45-70 game (and you should) then you should check out the Rossi R95.