Wildcat cartridge making.

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Jason M

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Hey everyone. I'm new to the forum and I've posted a few times in other parts of THR.

I have begun kicking around the idea of creating my own wildcat round. The specifics of which have not been decided upon yet, but I do know some general things I will need. Firstly, I am fairly certain the parent casing will be .30-06. Where can I obtain reforming dies? Can Redding supply something like that if I have a specification they can work to? The neck resizing would be greater than a millimeter smaller, so it may take a few progressively smaller dies to obtain the neck I'd want.

How about chamber reamers...what companies out there make these to a customer specification?

I think using the .30-06 case as a parent is a good idea because I can use virtually any action already used for .30-06 so the bolt face will work with the round.

I do not have the money to drop on this project all at once, but I plan on doing it over time. Creating my own round seems very interesting and probably quite fun.

Thanks,

Jason
 
Respectfully Jason -

You may be headed for trouble.

You should be able to answer your own questions before you consider wildcatting. And you WILL need a big pocket full of money to get the job done.

That said, Redding and RCBS can both help with wildcat tooling.

Be careful!
Scott
 
Remember, if you change caliber, you'll have to change barrels. So figure a few hundred bucks there.

Just about every possible wildcat that can be made from the .30-06 has been made -- from over .40 caliber down to .22.
 
You're almost certainly not going to be able to come up with something new, especially based on the .30-06.

Even if you did, you would be spending a lot of money for no gain at all.
 
buy P.O. Ackley's " Handbook for Reloaders and Shooters (there are two volumes)" first before you start. I doubt very seriously if you will come up with something that hasn't already been tried along with all of the problems and benefits of each.
 
I doubt very seriously if you will come up with something that hasn't already been tried along with all of the problems and benefits of each.
Click to expand...

You're almost certainly not going to be able to come up with something new, especially based on the .30-06.
Click to expand...

Just about every possible wildcat that can be made from the .30-06 has been made -- from over .40 caliber down to .22.
Click to expand...
+1

Anything you can possibly come up with has been done at least twice, but most likely 10 - 15 times already.

rcmodel
 
You all seem to assume I want to market this sort of thing? I could care less about that. It is going to be a personal hobby with no plans to attempt a marketing of the finished product. It's for my own personal enjoyment.

I can answer my own questions about this stuff, but I wanted to get some feedback from anyone who has attempted making a wildcat cartridge. So far I do not think I've gotten any experienced responses.

A few hundred dollars for a new barrel is no big deal, by the way. I am probably going to get a barrel made for a .243 Winchester I want to put together. A $300 action and a $300 handcrafted barrel makes a gun for about $600 that beats the pants off any $600 rifle you will buy in a store.

-Jason
 
The only wildcat I own is the .35 Brown-Whelen, the most radical form of the Whelen.

It's fun to play with wildcats, but expensive -- a new barrel, a custom reamer, a custom set of reloading dies. And after all that, you'd better spring for an Oehler Ballistic Laboratory -- because you need to develop a load for your creation, and without a pressure measuring capability, that can be downright dangerous.
 
'The Handloader's Manual of Cartridge Conversions' by John J. Donnelly & Bryce Townsley and a decent pile of $$.
 
So far I do not think I've gotten any experienced responses.
Click to expand...
Well, think what you want to think.
I built my first rifle in 1962, and my first wildcat a year later.

Course, I didn't design it myself.
It was a 22-250, about four years before Remington made it a commercial cartridge. And later, a 25-06 three years before it went commercial.

Good luck with your project though.
Since I didn't design the 22-250 or the 25-06 myself, I won't bother you anymore with my inexperianced responses!

rcmodel
 
It's practically impossible to come up with an original wildcat based on the 30-06 case. About all you can do is take an existing cartridge and change the shoulder angle to something goofy. The 30-06 case has been necked up and down from .22 to .400 caliber and EVERYTHING in between.


I am probably going to get a barrel made for a .243 Winchester I want to put together. A $300 action and a $300 handcrafted barrel makes a gun for about $600 that beats the pants off any $600 rifle you will buy in a store.
Click to expand...

Where do you buy a handcrafted bbl for $300 I'll take 7

Where can I obtain reforming dies? Can Redding supply something like that if I have a specification they can work to?
Click to expand...

Hornady will custom ream you a set of dies BUT it ain't cheap at over $100 for a set

http://accurateshooter.wordpress.com/2007/07/26/hornady-offers-custom-dies/
 
RCMODEL,

Quote:
I doubt very seriously if you will come up with something that hasn't already been tried along with all of the problems and benefits of each.

Quote:
You're almost certainly not going to be able to come up with something new, especially based on the .30-06.

Quote:
Just about every possible wildcat that can be made from the .30-06 has been made -- from over .40 caliber down to .22.

+1

Anything you can possibly come up with has been done at least twice, but most likely 10 - 15 times already.

rcmodel
Click to expand...

There is absolutely nothing experienced about that post you made...unless nay-saying is your experience. Why didn't you start by telling me you built rifle in non-common calibers before? Had I known that, I may have asked you some follow questions regardling caliber creation rather than saying I got no experienced responses. I left my mind-reading hat at the house.

KROCHUS,

It's practically impossible to come up with an original wildcat based on the 30-06 case. About all you can do is take an existing cartridge and change the shoulder angle to something goofy. The 30-06 case has been necked up and down from .22 to .400 caliber and EVERYTHING in between.



Quote:
I am probably going to get a barrel made for a .243 Winchester I want to put together. A $300 action and a $300 handcrafted barrel makes a gun for about $600 that beats the pants off any $600 rifle you will buy in a store.

Where do you buy a handcrafted bbl for $300 I'll take 7


Quote:
Where can I obtain reforming dies? Can Redding supply something like that if I have a specification they can work to?

Hornady will custom ream you a set of dies BUT it ain't cheap at over $100 for a set
Click to expand...

"Hand crafted" may be a stretch, but "custom" is not. You can get a custom spec barrel in any length up to about 30" for $300-$400 delivered to your door. And you can pay upwards of $100 for Redding dies in normal calibers, too.

I know it will be expensive. That is why I want to try this project over time. I can;t put $3000 into a rifle right now--especially not a custom caliber.

-Jason
 
"Hand crafted" may be a stretch, but "custom" is not. You can get a custom spec barrel in any length up to about 30" for $300-$400 delivered to your door.
Click to expand...

Kinda like my Shilen pre fit fully chambered Savage 26" stainless bull bbl chambered for 7.62x39mm but built on a .308 1-15" twist bore. $330 shipped with about a 12 week lead time,

26" is the longest they'll do without paying considerably more $$$$$$

That's true -- but add in the cost of having it chambered and fitted to your action.
Click to expand...

That's why you use a Savage
 
Or any other action that barrel makers commonly make a barrel for.
Click to expand...

It's a whole lot simpler to swap out barrels in a Savage than in any other common bolt gun.

You can do it in your garage for pocket change.

There is absolutely nothing experienced about that post you made...unless nay-saying is your experience.
Click to expand...

It doesn't take much experience to realize that every possible wildcat that could be made from the .30-06 has been made- and an AI version of every single on of those, as well!

There really isn't much to do here. For someone claiming to be looking for experience, you sure don't seem to be listening to it.

The only wildcat I've loaded is 6.5-06 for a while, btw. I discovered a good while back that most of the useful wildcats have long since been domesticated, and the wildcats that are popular tend to have very limited uses... hence why the factories don't adopt them. .260 turned out to be very nearly the same thing as 6.5-06, so I stopped fooling around with it and switched it back to .30-06.

I don't quite see the allure of owning a rifle which has a cartridge differing by a few thousandths dimensionally just so you can say that you made the cartridge yourself, especially when there are already so many .30-06 variations.

If I were going to come up with a wildcat, I would at least make it something a little more off the wall and perhaps unusual. Maybe look at the RUMs and old elephant gun cartridges... nope, every one of those has been modified too!
 
Or any other action that barrel makers commonly make a barrel for. A number of makers thread barrels for Winchester M70 actions or Remington 700 actions.
Click to expand...

as far as I know nobody offers a fully chambered drop in replacement bbl for anything other than a Savage. When your remchester bbl arrives you pay a gunsmith another $200 to $300 to finish ream the headspace and install it and wait 6months for it to get done.

On a savage you use your $24 barrel nut wrench and do it yourself in 20 minutes on the kitchen table
 
Trying not to be a naysayer - my main objection to wildcats is laziness, I have been through the drill of making ammo for one wildcat and a couple of obsoletes that had just as well been wildcats and just don't see the point.

But...
Do you have or do you plan to acquire the equipment and skills to do the work yourself? Seems like it would be more interesting to turn, chamber and fit your own barrel, etc. than to just send an order and a large check off to a gunsmith.
You can even make your own loading dies; PT&G makes die reamers and Bald Eagle makes die blanks.

Do you plan a standard caliber - .224, .243, .257, .264, .277, .284? Getting a barrel made to an odd caliber will raise the ante considerably, both in money and time waiting for delivery. Not to mention bullets. There is a thread here devoted to the advantages of .236 over .224 or .243, for example. The designer has set himself a lot of extra work for a small calculated advantage.

As to reamer suppliers:

Pacific Tools and Gauge
PO Box 2549 - 598 Ave C, White City, Oregon 97503
(Dave L. Kiff or Kathleen) Tel - (541) 826-5808 Fax - (541) 826-5304 e-mail [email protected]

Hugh Henriksen Toll Company, INC (used by Kelbly's)
Hugh Henriksen - 8515 Wagner Creek Road, Talent, OR 97540
Talent, Oregon 97540
[email protected] Tel - (541)535-2309

JGS Precision Tool Mfg. LLC - Email - [email protected] Website - www.jgstools.com

Dave Manson, Dave Manson Precision Reamers. phone (810) 953-0732, fax (810) 953-0735, email [email protected]

Donald L. Barrett, Jr., Clymer Manufacturing, phone (248) 853-5555 fax (243) 853-1530, e-mail [email protected]
 
I said I wouldn't say any more, but I will.

Here is good info on having wildcat chamber reamers made up for new case designs.

http://www.clymertool.com/wildcat/index.html

The set of finish & rougher reamers, and custom headspace guages will run several hundered dollars. The gunsmith will have to have all of them to chamber & headspace a barrel blank for any brand of action.

The good news is, the rougher reamer can be sent to the die manufacture and used to cut the sizing & seating dies, so they don't have to grind another expensive custom reamer for them.

rcmodel
 
That's why you use a Savage
Click to expand...
It is indeed easier to switch barrels on a Savage -- for standard cartridges.

But no matter what action you use, you still have to chamber the barrel -- which means having custom reamers made. And you still have to have a headspace gauge to set headspace -- which means having a custom headspace gauge.
 
I had the wildcat bug myself.
So, I had a 6.5-.300WSM gunsmith-built with a Montana Rifleman bbl, Timney trigger, Rem. 700 "Classic" stock on a 700 action pillar bedded and glass bedded with a Nikon Monarch 4.5-16.5x40AO scope in Leupold rings and bases. MR had the reamers on hand, Huntington's (RCBS) had dies on the shelf.
It's a cutie, but it won't do anything a 6.5 Rem Mag or .264 Win Mag won't do.

If you can think something up based on an existing case, I'd bet somebody has already done it.

Don't just listen to Vern Humphrey and rcmodel. Please make the effort to fully UNDERSTAND what they are telling you. They know most barrel makers have an excellent selection of wildcat calibers of which they have reamers for or can rent them, and will cut the chamber in the new barrel with profile and finish of your choice. RCBS, Redding, Forester and others have reamers to produce the dies, too. These guys (and many others here on THR) are VERY experienced. You would do well to heed their advice. Under NO circumstances should a new hobbyist or layman attempt to perform the work you seem to desire. IMHO a qualified gunsmith that has experience doing this type of work should be employed. You are attempting to mess around in an area where very experienced shooters and hobbyists tread very carefully and very deliberately. Loading data for wildcats is very sparing and the proper methodology and equipment is a must. Anything less could be very dangerous.

Bottom line: It's great having something few others have. Working up loads and keeping meticulous records is a must and fun, too. If you have a lot of time and a willingness to spend twice as much as your best HONEST estimate, by all means go forth and do it!

Oh! And will I do another wildcat project? Probably not. But then, I am only 53 and have a lot of shooting years left. I hope. :D

JM2C.

Poper
 
I appreciate the further advice I have gotten on the matter.

I am not sure how much of the work I would/will be able to do myself. I don't exactly have access to even a sparsely equipped machine shop, so that would have to be sought out. A Craftsman drill press is hardly the equipment to ream a chamber with! :eek:

As for custom barrels; yes, in odd calibers they would have to be specially chambered, but for the .243 I want to put together, they will come already chambered for .243.

And it hadn't dawned on me about the Savage action. I'll have to look in to that. The last thing I want to have to do is wait 6 months for a gunsmith to attach a barrel to a Remington or Winchester action.
 
My Grandfather was big into wilcat chamberings and built them on Mauser bolt actions. I have Never seen anything scatter a P-dog like a .22 Newton! 30-06 necked down to .22 using home swaged bullets from .22 rimfire shells with lead rod in them. You couldnt reproduce those slpats if you were shooting 1 quart Ketchup bottles with a .50! I have a couple of his rifles although no data to load for them. One is a .300 Win mag necked to .270 (my fathers hunting rifle) I need to chrony these to see how they compare to modern Commercial calibers/loads
Maybe try .338 Lapua necked to .17?:what:
 
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