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not into wildcat rounds...........
hillbille
Member Posts: 14,187 ✭✭✭✭
but was sorting some brass I got in a box deal with a lot of reloading stuff. in a gallon baggie of 270 brass was some 22-250 brass and one live round, it was 308 brass necked down to I would say 22 caliber? anyone have any idea what it might be, it seemed to be full length 308 case just necked down with a long 22 caliber bullet???? I am guessing it is 22 caliber as I didn't mick it just compared it by eyeball to the 22-250 cases........
Comments
22 Souper or 22 Cheetah?
22 Cheetah?
.22-243 Middlestead?
thanks bob and neo, I think you two hit the nail on the head, the brass is stamped 308, and after a short google search sounds like the cheeta round. strange there was only one round in the bag and no other 308's in the baggie. may have just been something that got thrown in the bag from this old fellows reloading bench. I bought two big boxes from a guy who said it was his father in laws and he didn't reload and wanted to get rid of it........
Billie - I'm w/you on wildcat stuff. I endeavored relentlessly to the point of obsession to get .375 Raptor to cycle reliably in both an AR and bolt platform. At the end of all of it I had to bail. If you aren't a reloader it is a longshot that you can get 2nd party ammo batches to match your gun's headspace round in/round out. I eventually sold it all off - guns, barrels and ammo.
I have always just stuck to the standard stuff and even waited a few years on any new varations before considering getting a gun to use it
Not that I will ever face such a problem in my life
but as a kid I remember dreaming about such hunts but also reading a article
Said if your going on a hunt especially in the boonies stick to popular and well established rounds its easy to find s box of 30-06 any where in the world (at that time)
Not taking your super duper hibird wis bang gun and ammo combo and having to find replacement ammo if yous gets lost or used up at that point all you have is a expensive club
I’ve seen the 308 case used for 7mm, 6.5mm, 6mm and believe I did read or hear about it being necked down to 22 caliber once. But I have often wondered why no one has ever tried necking it down to 25 caliber. Maybe they have and I just never heard about it.
ditch I got into this one year with my 8mm mauser! got to the cabin and only had 3 rounds in the box I grabbed. the two local shops didn't have any 8mm ammo so I had to drive back to town over hour away the night before season started.........
Three is all you really need. One to clear the barrel, one to get the range, and one to kill the deer!
The 25-08 or 25 souper has been around since the 50's. Workable as a varmit to medium size game animal cartridge. Similar to .257 bob
I have found that in a few of my .308 guns the Sellier&Bellot 110 grain varmint loads shoot almost as far and as flat as a .243 Win w/60ish grains.
Only one I participate in is 25/45 Sharps and it’s Sammi spec
I don't know anything about the 25/45 Sharps Rosie - but I will hit "Like" for that tag-line all day long!!
try a few rounds of this wildcat
Seems the inter-web is varied on a content rating for that stuff - saw a 4.9 and a 6.1 - and in either case that's a cat w/a few more stripes than average.
Waltermoe, I have a .25-308. Did at least one article on it. It's a delightful round. It matches almost exactly the case capacity and performance of the 250 Ackley - which old P.O. himself said was maybe his best creation. If the .308 had been around when he developed his 250, I'm sure it's what he would have used.
RockRaab, that’s interesting. I always thought that it might have been the lack of bullet selection in the 25 caliber selection of bullets compared to the even greater selection with other calibers that might have held it back on its development. If you don’t mind me asking, did you have it custom made with a particular bullet weight in mind?
This is where I can use some edification Walter. In general, seems the answer in many of these wildcat scenarios is, "because he could" - but I'm sure there is usually more context. When I just look at actual diameter - the established. 243 Win is 6.2mm and a true .250 bullet is 6.35mm, modest delta but not insignificant. With both having the same .308 parent case - seems that bullet weights and composition availability might have been what was driving the .25-08 effort - unless it was full-on DIY and the inventor was also casting their own.
I did not have a specific bullet in mind. What I actually wanted was a nice bolt 250 Savage, but couldn't find one for years. Had a spare Rem 788 in .308 in the safe, and did some research. Then thought, "What the heck..."
The 788 isn't the strongest action out there, so I never pushed my loads to the .25-308's full potential. Ended up with something with just a bit more oomph than a 250 and am delighted with it.
It will take a coyote apart with 85 Ballistic Tips, and is perfect on deer with 100s. Is it materially different than a .243? Not really. But anybody can have a 243. There's a certain mystique about quarter-bores.
You can now get a 6mm, a factory 6.5, and a 7 on the .308 case. The differences are incremental - and small. The .25 fits in there and fills only one niche: that of owning something something you can't buy.
Awsome explanation Rock. My main shooting buddy is a committed coyote hunter. He does alot w/just .223. I would add 5.56 but btw the two of us and alot of experiments w/the higher bullet weight, premium 5.56 ammo - i.e. Hornady Super-Performance, none of our guns like it. He also loves his 6.8 for coyote.
I am a committed. 308 guy and as mentioned prior, 110's out of most of my guns is very comparable performance to the .243 - I would embrace the analogous "light tackle" fishing philosophy to hunting/shooting, but not at the risk of wounded prey and all day trying to find it.
BTW, I used 7-08 brass to make my 25 Souper rounds, NEVER with .243. My reasoning was that if a round got lost, somebody might see the 7-08 headstamp and shoot it. That wouldn't cause any headaches - the bullet would rattle down the bore.
BUT, if I lost a .25-308 with a 243 headstamp... well...It MIGHT go in, but it sure would be sporty going out.
One of the OG publications, (Outdoor Life, G&A, etc.), used to stage common, practical round mixups and show the results. I.E. - I am sure I could get a .45acp or .45LC round to sit in front of the bolt in my Ruger American. 450 BM, but I wouldn't have the guts to close the bolt to see if it seated. And if it did - God only knows if you lit it up...
Speaking of mix ups - check this out
±++±+++++++++++++++++++++++++
Blown Up! PLEASE READ!
January 11, 2010
by Neal Bradford
Summary:
It takes an honest man to tell a story like this. Many of us have done, or have come close to doing, the very thing the author describes. "Short and simple: I should be dead, because there is no logical reason why anyone should be alive after blowing up a gun as I did. My wish is that by writing this story I can keep you alive by not making the same or a similar error."
This is what a bad reloadcan do. After I searched a 100-ft. radius, this is all I could find. I never found the bolt.
It happened almost two years ago, but I remember it all too well. In addition to my .357 Magnum revolver, I had four rifles for which I decided to reload ammunition: an old .32-40Winchester for which shells are not commonly available; a .38-55 for which I have to special-order the ammunition; a pre-‘64 M70 Winchester .30-06, which I had completely restored; and a new .300 WSM in a M700 Remington.
So, after much studying, I came home with a new RCBS kit, .300 WSM dies, primers, and only one kind of powder, H-4350.
After loading and shooting over 80 rounds of .300 WSM, I was enjoying the reduced cost per shell, but it was already mid-March and I had hundreds of hours of work to do on my farm in Washington state.
It was sometime in June of 2007 when my friend Patrick stopped to see me and brought some gifts to go with my reloading stuff. There was a case tumbler, a set of .30-06 loading dies, three or four smaller items, and a can of HS-6 pistol powder, even though I still did not yet have the dies to load for my .357 revolver. I put it all on the shelf and went back to work on the farm.
By August 1, with my normal work up to date, I decided to reload some more and improve my shooting accuracy before hunting season. This time I was loading for my restored M70 in .30-‘06. Since the book called for a low of 53 gr. and a high of 57 gr. of H-4350, I loaded some shells at 54 gr. That, I was sure would keep me well within the safe range.
On August 10 I drove 28 miles up into the mountains of Gifford Pinchot National Forest to a lonely spot where we had set up a safe firing range.
Now that my M70 had a new sissy pad, newly finished stock, new barrel, new bluing and new scope, I was ready to prove that the hours I had spent in refinishing it had not been in vain and that I could shoot a good tight group with that new barrel. I set up the shooting bench with sandbags and everything I needed. I wanted to know what the gun could do before I did any off-hand shooting.
When I touched off that first shell, all hell broke loose. My prized ‘pre-64 M70 Winchester, which my dad handed down to me, blew into hundreds of pieces. Small chips of the stock were raining down on my head. The barrel landed 34 feet from where I pulled the trigger. There was blood dripping from my right thumbnail. My face felt partially numb from the blast, so I touched it with my left hand and my palm came away covered with blood. I discovered later that only my safety glasses, which I wear all the time, saved my eyes. The lenses were covered with little chip marks from flying metal.
What went wrong? I had to know. So as quickly as possible I gathered up all the pieces that were close by and easy to find, threw them in the car and asked myself, “What next?”
I was alone and 28 miles from home with only one way to get there. I had to drive . . . at least until I found a Forest Service truck or a sheriff’s patrol car. I wiped the blood off my glasses so I could see and started down the mountains. As it turned out, I was only twelve miles from home when I met the first car of any kind, but by then I knew that I could make it to the house.
After three days of doctor visits, I loaded the gun and my metal detector into the car and drove back to the mountains. With the metal detector I searched a 100-foot radius from my firing position and never found the bolt or any other pieces of the gun.
On the way home, I stopped at the home of another friend, Keith, in nearby Amboy. I knew that he was a marksman in the Marines and now he both repaired guns and built custom rifles that are sold at auction at NRA banquets. I wanted to know if he and his expert friends could determine what went wrong.
The poor guy took one look at what was left of my gun and went white with the fear that one of his reloads caused the explosion. I had to assure him that it was not his reloads that I was shooting. It took a while, but after he calmed down, he took one of the remaining shells I had loaded with 54 gr. and gently removed the bullet from the case. Then he poured out the powder on a white paper, and with a bad-news expression said, “That’s pistol powder.” Pistol powder!
Keith then went to his supply room and returned with three canisters of powder. Upon comparison and talking to me he concluded that I had loaded 54 gr. of HS-6 into those .30-06 cases instead of 54 gr. of H-4350.
It was only then that I realized what I had done: in early April my wife had asked me to put my reloading powder in the safe because the grandkids were coming to visit. Then the gifts that Patrick had brought me, including the HS-6 for my .357 revolver, had gone onto the same shelf from which I removed my H-4350 – or what I thought was my H4350.
And finally, having played it safe and purchased only one type of rifle powder, I had reloaded for my M70 without checking my powder container and without a thought of that HS-6.
By the way: it takes only 9 gr. of HS-6 to load a .44 Magnum shell. Keith later informed me that although my ‘06 was designed to withstand a chamber pressure of 50,000 psi, he and his mathematical friends figured that my 54 gr. of HS-6 pushed that pressure up somewhere between 235,000 and 285,000 psi.
The bottom line? Slow down. Never assume you know what you have. When reloading, check each powder container and each measurement to prove that you are right.
No, I still don’t know why I’m alive after such an explosion only nine inches from my face. Maybe that Old Man Upstairs still has a job for me that I do not yet know about. As my friend Keith suggests, “Maybe that job was to write this story and keep someone else alive by not making a similar error.”
Believe it: yes you can. You can mix them up. I’ve seen it done.
I love my 243. With Barnes 85 grain tipped bullets it is beyond deadly on deer and anything smaller.
I have heard that the 243/06 is the bomb!! Way past the 243.
If I was 30-40 years younger I just might try and find out how good the 243/06 is!!
I'd advise against it. The regular .243 is known to be a bit touchy with certain bullet/powder combinations, creating pressure spikes. There comes a point in case capacity versus bore diameter where you simply can't funnel all that gas down the hole fast enough. Read that story posted above. That one was due to the wrong powder, but all powders burn faster and faster as pressure rises. Once you pass a tipping point, it's kabloooie.
When you hear that the 06/243 is "the bomb" it may not be a metaphor.
I know some of this stuff because I was a cartridge collector as a kid - not because I have any practical range experience w/some of the wonkyier one-offs. The .30-BMG idea has been around for a while and came to life as the .338 Talbot - a shortened, necked down .50 BMG case w/a .30 caliber bullet which turned out to have no practicality, so very quickly a .338 bullet. Even going heavier it was still frying barrels and was pretty much abandoned. The .300 Weatherby Mag may be about as close as anything had gotten, commercially, to .50 BMG case dimensions. As someone who suffers from more-is-betterism I totally appreciate the "quest" some of these wildcatters go on - but if they are lucky they wind up w/some scrapped projects and gear and not some range disaster.
I pieced together a 6.5/06 a few years back. For the reason Rocky stated above, I made brass from 270 Win. cases. Many people use 25/06 brass for this. I thought that would be unwise.
His, not mine...
I never built a wildcat Carthage combination of my own idea, however when the 223 WSSM came out I bought a Winchester mdl. 70 in that chambering. I looked at the idea of it as this might be an excellent modern day varmint cartridge. The biggest problem I found was as stated above, you’re burning a lot of powder, creating a lot a pressure and you’re working with a small bore diameter. This makes it very hard to regulate a consistent balance of pressure and velocity. Not to mention the incredible heat generated at the throat.
When I was able to find reloading information on this cartridge in the sixth edition of Hornady’s reloading manual, they said after 350 rounds there was significant barrel erosion. I called them and talked to one of their engineers at the time, and he said they noticed erosion after 150 rounds. Definitely a barrel burner.
But with all interests/hobbies experimenting and learning is what makes it enjoyable and worth while.
A gunsmith friend of mine once made up his version of the .30/40...
A 40mm Bofors anti-aircraft case necked to .30-caliber. Told folks it could hit the moon, but was good for only one shot per barrel.