wildcat cartridge

hey guys iv been wanting to develope my own cartridge for a while now iv been toying with some ideas well i thought of it today i know what i want to do its a long shot and problably will be a long long time before i get to try it but here is my idea a 35-05 its a 30-06 necked up to a .358 dia one thing i found out while i was toying with it is im gonna have to trim them down some the to get the bullet in the case more its got a long neck lol but the basic idea is pretty simple i want to buy a single shot 30-06 have it bored and rifled at .358 and of coarse have the throat sized up to fit the neck of the cartridge i was playing with it today and i got one made up lol the dies would be simple to make just take a 30-06 die and drill out the sizing part to the correct size and use a 35 whelen or rem mag expading ball my 35 dies seated the bullet perfectly for data this would be the dangerous part not sure how to go about it but what im thinking is to take 30-06 data close to the same bullet weight and dummy it down thats not exacly rocket sceince so if i was to do this i would use an pull string firing system vice the gun down and pull the trigger from 15 yards away! here are a few pics!

resized to 358

230 grain bullet seated

beside 35 rem and 30-06
if any one has a 30-06 to spare donations are excepted lol j/k! so what are yalls thoughts

wouldn't that be a 35 whelen?
But hey while you at it blow the shoulder out and make it AI

Reload3006 wrote:wouldn't that be a 35 whelen?
But hey while you at it blow the shoulder out and make it AI

I was just thinkin' that. Here's some history on it http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.35_Whelen

You can still change it up a bit to make it your own. Such as in the shoulder and OAL.

well didnt know that back to square one thanks guys guess i should have done more research lol

how about taken a new look at thangs as in the 300 blackout.

id like to take 223 brass and neck it up to .257

Cool stuff....I love the cartridge converting stuff.

One note: I have noticed cartridge length shrinkage after fire forming when necking up a cartridge to a larger caliber.

After Resizing/converting and trimming a cartridge to length...it will look almost exactly the same as a factory case...but once fire formed it will loose some length due to the case walls and shoulder filling out to match the chamber dimensions. Sometimes it will stretch back closer to what it was originally trimmed to after resizing again, some times they don't...

So don't trim too much off the neck after converting the case....leave as much as possible that won't interfere with chambering the cartridge and then trim to specs after fire forming and resizing.

I dont think that there are any wildcats that havent been tried with the 06 case. And i love them all wish my piggy bank would allow me to go there. I have always wanted a (.243-06 or 6mm-06) may as well make that an AI while I am at it. I can imagine that the 06 case would allow you to really make that little .243 bullet scream.

There are some really wild 7.62x39 wildcats out there the PPC series of wild cats. I particularly like the 22ppc some day maybe i will get there. The new 6.5mm Grendel and Creedmore are pretty Kewl too.

the next thing on my idea list and i have to give fredline some credit to he pmed me the idea but i was thinking about it is necking a 308 up to 358 he gave me the courage to say something about it! i was researching it so i didnt look stupid again lol

Hey dart....If you want to squeeze a few extra gains of powder in the case to drive that 358 bullet a little faster, you could try necking up 284 cases. The base is the same size as a 308/30-06 but the body is wider. These are the cases the 450 bushmaster was designed from.



Here is some info on 358-284 wildcats...


Comparing the case capacity of a 308win which is 55.8gr to the 68.8gr of the 358-284 wildcat...thats a huge difference for being almost the same length case.


Other calibers using 284 cases...



Sorry to butt in....but I just had to throw that out there to give you a few more things to think about,LOL

I would like a .233 take a .223 case neck it up to a .233 then it would a 23 cal . are there any .23cal rounds out there??

I shoot a lot of wildcats so this is a thread I am going to enjoy.

I have an old Mexican Mauser 98 that got sent to Shilen to become a .25-06 AI. I considered the .25-284 which I am surprised Hawcer did not mention.

I have another Mexican Mauser 98 that I want to have Shilen or someone make into .338-06 AI.

I am in the process of looking for another Mauser 98 action to become the base for a .17 Remington rifle.

I had an old Springfield 03A in .35 Brown-Whelen that got sold when I got the .338-06 AI. While I like the .35 cal as can be shown by my collection of .35 Rem, .357 Herret, .357 Rem max, .358 JDJ, the .338 has much better BC of bullets.

The .35 is good for short range thumper and my .35 Brown-Whelen was my choice chasing moose in the scrub brush of the Alaskan bush. Problem was most of the shots we had at moose was the southern end retreating rapidly past 100 yards.

While I was able to drop a young cow, and the .35 Brown-Whelen did fine, the .35 cal lacks the high BC bullets of the .338 cal.

While I made the shot fine and it did matter if I had been packing a .35 or a .338, the .338 does give you a little more reach if you need it.

Someday I would like to have another .35 Brown-Whelen. I regret having to sell that rifle as it was a fine weapon. I am loathe to sell any weapon once it is in my grubby hands.

As most of you dear readers are aware I suffer a serious addiction to T/C single shots and the .35 cal is my favorite in that weapon with a .35 Rem, .357 Rem max and a .30 Bower-Alaskan being my favorites for the Contender.

Other favorite wildcat calibers for the Contender are .300 Whisper-R (using .357 Rem max brass rather than .221 Fireball) and .32-20 (.308 bore).

While the .32-20 is not technically a wildcat it is a rare and unusual caliber that most consider obsolete. However it is a fine coyote gun and along with the single shot T/C Contender .223 barrel, gets used the most for prarie rat and other vermin eradication.

I am waiting on delivery of a SS 15" .309 JDJ barrel for my Encore pistol.

Another favorite Contender barrel is a Super 14" blue barrel that was originally in 7mm TCU (AKA 7-223 Rem) but got bored out to 7mm International Rimmed.

Based of the .30-30 Win cartridge, the 7mm IR is basically a 7-30 Waters with a longer throat and neck. It holds a tad less powder than the 7-30 Waters and a fair bit less than the 7-08 and the 7mm Bench Rest.

I have been trying to find drawings for the 7mm IR cause I would love to know the trim length I am supposed to be using. I have been guessing and using a 7-30 Waters length trimmer.

Maybe Hawcer can find the drawings for a 7mm IR?

Wildcatting is fun and while I will never make my own cartridge when there are so many fun ones out there, I enjoy the discussion and the work with them.

For someone wanting to learn more about Wildcatting get PO Ackley's Handbook for Shooters & Reloaders both volumes if you can. They are filled with an amazing amount of information.

I learned there is little new in the world of shooting. Some of the ideas I had and thought were "new," PO was playing with back in the early 1950's.

Below is two of my T/C Contenders. The left one is the .223 Rem, the right one is the .32-20 (.308 bore) with a stainless steel JP Tactical muzzle break.

thanks guys hey hawcer tham data sheets are awsome do you have software for that or did you find that online eithor way its really cool! hey scorge thanks bro just wondering iv seen it several times but what does AI mean??

AI = Ackley Improved

Mostly means a cartridge with the Ackley designed 40 degree shoulder like the .30 Bower-Alaskan, .338-06 AI, and .309 JDJ.

My very loved .25-06 AI with its steep 40 degree shoulders can give the .257 Weatherby a run for its money, though it is a tad overbore.

I have been using powders in the .25-06 AI like Retumbo, H1000, and H4831SC but I am still working up loads. The hand lapped 28" Shilen Palma-weight barrel is awesome even it does weigh nearly 4.5 pounds.

My .25-06 AI will shoot half inch groups at 100 yards all day with a screwball-behind-the-rifle induced 4th flyer. I have been getting near 2" groups at 300 yards and it seems the bullets are finally stabilizing past 170 yards as groups actually are better at 200 and 300 yards than 100.

I had the Mex Mauser 98 fitted with a magnum-length magazine and the barrel is long throated so I can seat the 100 gr Barnes TSX bullets out farther to avoid eating powder capacity.

oh ok yea iv heard of that just couldnt put two and two together lol thanks

No prob, I like talking about wildcats.

The pickiest wildcat I have is the .22 Cheetah Mk1 in the Encore. It is the most time-consuming wildcat as I have to aneal the necks, form and turn the necks and then fireform the brass.

Takes the most work and time but does give me a round with near or better ballistics than either the .220 Swift, .225 Winchester or .22-250 AI.

If I had to do it over again, I would have started with a custom barrel in either a 1-8 twist or 1-7 if I could get it. Then I would have gone with the .22-250 AI non-tight neck and called it good.

Although I have been looking at a .22-284 wild cat but I wonder how short throat life will be? Maybe start with a .22-250 AI and slowly work out to .22-284 as the throat erodes.

You noticed the pot at the end of the rainbow scorge ...the 284 case is excellent for use in a tired old bore based on a 308 case, once it gets a new finish reaming.

Dart....check out ammoguide.com It's full of more info than you'll ever need, and more wildats than are found roaming free in Northa America....that's where the diagrams came from.

I don't recall many wildcats based on the 50 BMG. Perhaps a BMG bottlenecked down to .224. That sound interesting.

There was a .22 round called the Eargslpitter Loudenboomer which was the .460 Weatherby knecked down to 224 IIRC.

I have never seen the ammoguide.com site before now. Looks like it will be very helpful when dealing with my gunsmith and my growing collection of wildcats.

It is the first place that I have seen chamber drawings for my loved 7mm IR. I finally have my trim length and some idea of what a load could be. Shame there are no 7mm IR loads on the site - maybe as I work some up I will post them.

a 50 bmg necked down would be wicked but ive seen a vid a few years back on a 50 with 2 sabots 50 to 30 with a 30 to 22 sabot inside it. It had insane velocities but the little 22 blew up as it exited the muzzle they did have a few bullets hold together but they where FMJs and 70+ grains

A little off topic but that would be cool in a muzzle loader to shoot at squirrels and such a 22 cal muzzle loader hum I may have to try that thanks fredline your just full of great ideas

EdgarEg wrote:I don't recall many wildcats based on the 50 BMG. Perhaps a BMG bottlenecked down to .224. That sound interesting.

been done

http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2009/09/08/50-bmg-necked-down-to-22/

EdgarEg wrote:I don't recall many wildcats based on the 50 BMG. Perhaps a BMG bottlenecked down to .224. That sound interesting.

10,000 fps !!!!!!!!!!!

Has anyone thought 'bout taking a 500S&W and neck it down to .452 ?