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When something old becomes something new...
nononsense
Member Posts: 10,928 ✭✭✭✭
I've talked to Mic a couple of times over the last few years about this idea and it seems like he's always looking for the next "great idea" in firearms to insure his place in history.
Well, it appears that he has had to dip back into history in order to get his "new" idea going. In case you don't recognize the concept, Ackley's books have the references to the 7mm Express cartridge by Roy Gradle. When Roy retired, Ralph Payne took over the ideas and the riflesmithing as well as creating more cartridges for the line.
The website has some nice illustrations and lots of Mic's verbage which should generate some decent discussion. Pay close attention to the extent that Mic has gone to insure that "his" ideas can't be duplicated by others by merely changing a minor dimension. He has 'parametric patents' on the work which is the indicator that no one can make reamers or dies without paying Mic first.
Here is the website and a couple of illustrations:
http://www.superiorballistics.com/
Well, it appears that he has had to dip back into history in order to get his "new" idea going. In case you don't recognize the concept, Ackley's books have the references to the 7mm Express cartridge by Roy Gradle. When Roy retired, Ralph Payne took over the ideas and the riflesmithing as well as creating more cartridges for the line.
The website has some nice illustrations and lots of Mic's verbage which should generate some decent discussion. Pay close attention to the extent that Mic has gone to insure that "his" ideas can't be duplicated by others by merely changing a minor dimension. He has 'parametric patents' on the work which is the indicator that no one can make reamers or dies without paying Mic first.
Here is the website and a couple of illustrations:
http://www.superiorballistics.com/
Comments
So, if I understand you correctly, this guy Mic stole someone else's idea and work and is claiming it as his own?
BTW...what is your take on this cartridge design? Seems to me as if the steeper shoulders like the Ackley would do the same thing with regards to powder ignition.?.? I'd like to hear from someone who really knows something...IE: not myeself[^]
Lots of things have changed rather suddenly and there have been a bunch of details that I have been responsible for seeing to. I may not have the time, for a short while, to post like I have had in the past but my e-mail still works and I check it several times a day.
"...this guy Mic stole someone else's idea and work and is claiming it as his own?"
No, I would never say that someone stole another man's idea(s) especially on a public forum. I just presented the website and then suggested that you could compare the information on the website to another design. Unfortunately, I can't find a photograph of the Gradle designs so all I can offer right now is to check out the photographs in Ackley's books.
Cartridge design and fabrication is one of the areas that many of us get caught up in and it's fraught with pitfalls and problems with regard to "who did what to whom and when". Most of us don't go to the effort of getting 'parametric patents' because it's a pain to justify the expense for something that most of us just enjoy doing. Others however, see it as the road to their fame and fortune. So be it and good luck to them.
I worked with a Fluid Dynamics engineer a while back, on ideas similar to this one and others like the Weatherby's design, involving radius necks and shoulders in various combinations with angles and each other. There is the potential for improved efficiency with the radius design that Mic has chosen but the bigger problem is in case forming. I presume that's why he visited Norma and spent his time with their engineers and designers, he had problems with making the cases and wanted someone else to take over that portion of the process.
I suggest nothing other than to do some comparing. It just gives me a giggle, that's all.
Rifle Magazine made reference to the Gradle cartridges:
"While Winchester Ammunition states the new WSM cartridge is not based on any existing cartridge design, there is plenty of precedent for short, fat cartridges in recent memory. One of the first was the Gradle Express series that was based on the .348 WCF case with the rim turned down to a rimless design. Case capacity was slightly more for any given caliber than might be available from a wildcatted .404 Jeffery case, for example, that is cut back to 2.1 inches. Of course, there have been a variety of attempts to wildcat the .404 Jeffery case in long, medium and short versions over the years. One of the most popular was known as the G&A line. They were mostly big bores for African game, but they worked."
http://www.riflemagazine.com/magazine/article.cfm?magid=31&tocid=432
Eric,
Lots of things have changed rather suddenly and there have been a bunch of details that I have been responsible for seeing to. I may not have the time, for a short while, to post like I have had in the past but my e-mail still works and I check it several times a day.
"...this guy Mic stole someone else's idea and work and is claiming it as his own?"
No, I would never say that someone stole another man's idea(s) especially on a public forum. I just presented the website and then suggested that you could compare the information on the website to another design. Unfortunately, I can't find a photograph of the Gradle designs so all I can offer right now is to check out the photographs in Ackley's books.
Cartridge design and fabrication is one of the areas that many of us get caught up in and it's fraught with pitfalls and problems with regard to "who did what to whom and when". Most of us don't go to the effort of getting 'parametric patents' because it's a pain to justify the expense for something that most of us just enjoy doing. Others however, see it as the road to their fame and fortune. So be it and good luck to them.
I worked with a Fluid Dynamics engineer a while back, on ideas similar to this one and others like the Weatherby's design, involving radius necks and shoulders in various combinations with angles and each other. There is the potential for improved efficiency with the radius design that Mic has chosen but the bigger problem is in case forming. I presume that's why he visited Norma and spent his time with their engineers and designers, he had problems with making the cases and wanted someone else to take over that portion of the process.
I suggest nothing other than to do some comparing. It just gives me a giggle, that's all.
Rifle Magazine made reference to the Gradle cartridges:
"While Winchester Ammunition states the new WSM cartridge is not based on any existing cartridge design, there is plenty of precedent for short, fat cartridges in recent memory. One of the first was the Gradle Express series that was based on the .348 WCF case with the rim turned down to a rimless design. Case capacity was slightly more for any given caliber than might be available from a wildcatted .404 Jeffery case, for example, that is cut back to 2.1 inches. Of course, there have been a variety of attempts to wildcat the .404 Jeffery case in long, medium and short versions over the years. One of the most popular was known as the G&A line. They were mostly big bores for African game, but they worked."
http://www.riflemagazine.com/magazine/article.cfm?magid=31&tocid=432
Interesting that you mention the WSM's and the 404 Jefferys. My gunsmith has had wildcats almost identical to the WSM for years...way before Winchester came out with them. He uses the .404 for a lot of his wildcat designs. There is an article about some of John's wildcats in the Feb edition of Shooting Times. As for the facts of the radius case design...I believe I remember reading something about that in one of my Ackley books. I'm going to have to get it out and look it up.
hope all is well with you and yours!
The little case on top looks to be more the size of the WSSM's. Makes me wonder how they(Winchester) got the idea to go that route. So far as I can tell from other people who've worked with them the only one worthwhile is the 25 WSSM. But, if the shoulders were a radius...? Who knows.
It's pretty hard to come up with a really new idea when most every idea is an improvement, or not, of another idea. Throw in the gunwriters that have no idea, and there you go. We have what we have. As long as there is powder to burn wildcatters will always keep the mix interesting.
The process of burning smokeless powder in a case is not very efficient right from the start. It accomplishes our goal but the conversion of powder to plasma is relatively inefficient. Case design has always been a large part of the discussion regarding the improvement of the efficiency of burning powder.
Sometimes environmental variables dictate case design such as the H&H cases used in Africa and India. The design of the slope shouldered case aided in the control of pressure but necessitated the addition of the 'belt' in order to assure proper, safe and consistant headspace. It didn't do anything at all for efficiency but it kept the shooter safe.
Jumping ahead nearly 1/2 a century, P.O. Ackley and several others of his time, experimented almost constantly with shoulder angles and case side angles, trying to achieve a greater efficiency from the burning powder, and to a certain extent they succeeded. By changing the shape of the powder chamber with sharper angled shoulders and case sides, more of the powder was forced to burn inside the case, more completely, where it did the most good as far as creating the plasma to push the bullet down the barrel and out the muzzle.
Roy Weatherby started on his expedition to create a case design capable of yielding more energy, safely, and we got the double radius shoulder and the so-called 'freebore' to control the pressure.
This same period of time also brought out the radius shoulder case and longer necks from Roy Gradle and later, Ralph Payne. Having played with this for a time, I have to hand it to these men for even trying this idea simply from the standpoint that case forming is a huge PITA and prone to significant forming failures. But they were pushing the design based on achieving better efficiency and the ability to maintain safe operating pressures.
Which brings us to where McPherson has joined the crowd by utilizing the same or similar concepts of Gradle and Payne. The illustrations used on his website are terrific for being simple and easily understood so I've borrowed a couple more to allow us to understand what seemingly takes place in a cartridge case.
In my opinion, Mic has underplayed the activity of the primer as illustrated in his drawings, giving greater credence to his thoughts on case design. In actuality, and through experiments, this is more like what the primer jet effect looks like:
As a comparison, here are the illustrations that show what potentially takes place in standard cartridge cases as McPherson sees it:
OOPS - grammer correction...