anyone have a dimensional drawing for a .244 H&H?

[greyling22]

anybody have a dimensional drawing for a .244 H&H? I thought what I had come though the house was a .257 weatherby, but the bore is a little smaller than that. Looks to be about 6mm, but still has the giant belted case head of the .257 weatherby/300H&H, etc. I'm going to have to make a chamber case I guess, but I need some dimensions for compare it to. It also appears to have a bit more body taper to is than the 257

any other suggestion than the 244 h&H? (gun is a custom home built thing with no barrel markings, based on a mauser action from the 60's or 70's. It's sister mystery gun wound up being chambered in 257 roberts. Both came out of an old dead gunsmith's personal collection my uncle picked up)

 

[Red is Dead]

Could it be a .242 Belted Rimless Holland & Holland???

 

[greyling22]

I suppose. I haven't made a chamber cast yet, but looking down the chamber as best I can it looks like there is a more larger and more tapered shoulder, and more body taper than on a 242.

And without slugging the bore, I don't know if is is .240, .242, or even a .244. My calipers are awol right now, but the bore, by eyeball, is smaller than a 23, and larger than a 223. Closer to .25

 

[NCsmitty]

Here's a link to a list of British cartridges that shows the 244 H&H Magnum case dimensions, as well as many more for comparison.


http://stevespages.com/britsportrifcart.html



NCsmitty

 

[rcmodel]

It seems very unlikely to me an old American gunsmith would be chambering rifles in .257 Roberts, and any of the British belted mags, in the same time period.
Those British mag chamber reamers didn't just fall off the reamer tree back then.

And there would have been little interest in making, or selling more then one of them to pay for the reamer.

How about this?
http://stevespages.com/jpg/cd240weatherbymagnum.jpg

The new Weatherby mags were all the rage when they were coming out back then!!
The .240 came out in 1968.

Or even more possible, a one of a kind custom wildcat he designed.

There was a lot of that going on back then too with everyone with a lathe trying to outdo everyone else..

At any rate, you are tilting at windmills till you find out the actual bore diameter by slugging it.

And then a chamber cast, fo-sho!

rc

 

[greyling22]

NC, thanks for the link.

RC, agreed about slugging and casting. The problem with the 240 wby mag is that is has the wrong sized case head. A 257wby or 375 H&H case fits the bolt face perfectly, and a 240 is substantially smaller. If it truly is a pure custom, we will just rebarrel it. Might anyway, who wants a .244 H&H barrel burner in east tx anyway? (though Lord knows what you could rebarrel it to with a chamber that huge and a bore that small.)

 

[Offfhand]

Apparently the caliber in question is the .240 H&H, which is not all that rare or unusual. It is, or was, a popular cartridge for stalking stag in Scotland, where I first became familiar with it. For a while the caliber was popular in the US about the time the .243 Win and .244 Rem were becoming known,. Custom gunsmiths offered rifles for it (My first one was made by Griffin & Howe.) and was better known in the US as .240 Apex and was hand loaded to higher velocities than factory ammo. It is a belted round with '06 rim diameter. Think .240 Weatherby and you get the idea as the two cartridges are similar and in fact the .240 Weatherby is essentially a Weatherbyized version of the H&H parent case. I'm confident that .240 H&H rifles could be rechmberd to .240 Wby. and I suspect that some actually were. The .240 H&H ammo that came with my rifle was loaded by Norma but marked H&H.. Attached are quick photos of the cartridge, box, and trajectory data. Holland & Holland made both bolt and double rifles for this caliber.