Anybody ever hear of a .300 Elite?

I've aquired a rifle based on a 98 mauser action with a custom trigger, stock and a barrel marked .300 elite. It will feed, chamber and extract a .300 win mag or .300 weatherby but it's obviously neither of those. I say obviously because a friend was anxious to see if it was really a .300 win mag and fired one out of it. the brass fire formed a good .30" of the neck. The resulting piece of brass was somewhat longer than a .300 weatherby at the shoulder making the case 2.454" long from base to shoulder.

I've searched long and hard online with no luck, and none of the more knowledgable people locally have any idea what it is. I'll try to attach a photo. If it comes through it will show left to right a .300 win mag, .300 weatherby, and the fire formed .300 win mag fired through this rifle.

Looks like an ackley improved .300 H&H. Is there any indication who built the rifle?

No indication who built it, I wish I knew. I"ve never heard of an Ackley improved .300 H&H, but it's not a tapered case so it would likely have to be fire formed to be a straight wall case. It's got a lot of people scratching their heads, it would have to be a belted mag at least as long as a .300 H&H. I suppose blowing one of those out to a straight walled case would give you room to dump in more powder.

Next step (probably should have been the first) is to get a casting made of the chamber and then get busy trying to figure out where it started from.

30-378 Wby. would have been a logical guess given the belt and the type of shoulder. Maybe 30-378 improved??? Sure is a sharp drop at the shoulder. Almost has the length of a 404 jeff to the bend but this casing is much more narrow and has a belt. Hope we find out I'm curious.

300 H&H imp is a definite poss

looks too narrow for .30-378.

more measurements might help.

I'd suggest getting your local gunsmith to do a Cerrocast of the chamber and throat, so that you can use that to get accurate dimensions.

I would take the advice of the above and start with a chamber cast and go from there. You might have to go with h&h basic brass or you may be able to use 300 wby brass to make it with. You might have to anneal necks either way, looks like the shoulder is moved pretty far forward, even for the wby.

I have a read about fair amount of unusual cartridges, but never heard of that one.

captainkirk

Yep, a trip to the gunsmith is going to be the next step.

A few measurements from what I have until then: length of case to shoulder: 2.445", diameter just above belt: .511, diameter at shoulder: .495, diameter at neck: .339. Just going by an average neck length the total length of the cartridge should be about 2.86"

I'm definitely looking forward to finding out what this is.