Post by gws on Mar 16, 2015 21:37:31 GMT -5
As posted in Hacker's thread:
More:
I originally took it to my gunsmith, who didn't want a thing to do with it. He suggested I sell it and buy a Remington or Savage .243 and rebarrel it to the wildcat if I insisted on that caliber. His reasons: 1. This old 1951 FN commercial has no serial #; 2. It wouldn't feed the 08 case....period, 3. he already had a similar gun on his bench that was made by professionals in the 60's (a real gun safe queen) that was jeweled, polished mirror blue, $3000 stock, and it wouldn't feed the short fat 08 .243 case worth a .......!
So.....I went home and decided to make it a project of learning.....heck it was free for crying out loud.
Anyway after 4 months researching & working on it off an on the video below proves that short fat 08's can feed in a long Mauser action if you know the tricks. Finally, I learned and executed the tricks:
So done? Not exaaactly. I made an error in judgement. I assumed that since these cartridges.....
came with the rifle in its case, and the bore was indeed .22 caliber that they. .22-243 Win cartridges went with the gun........and you saw in the video that they feed like water into the chamber.....right?
Well, I was using a Stoney Point (Now Hornady) OAL gauge to find the lands (I made a "special case" for the tool) and while using the gauge I pushed the bullet out to the lands and it fell off the case!!!!. Not Good!
So I got some epoxy putty I had laying around, oiled up the chamber, and inserted a blob of putty to the end of a cartridge and pushed it in the chamber tight. You can't get a complete chamber mold that way but you can get a mold of the shoulder and neck. Result below:
Notice anything different about the chamber mold shoulder and the .22-243 Win case just above it? NUTS! What I have gentleman is NOT the 20 degree shouldered .22-243 Winchester, but the later incarnation, the .22-243 Middlested with a 30 degree shoulder and longer neck! I think the guy who left me this project to me was named Murphy! or Lucifer!
So I'm back to waiting......Graf & Sons were kind enough to exchange the expensive custom Redding Win version die set to the Middlested set.....yup they had exactly one left in stock! Should arrive in a few days, along with a pound of Cerrosafe chamber mold metal so I can cast a complete cast of the chamber including the distance to the lands.
I'm still a bit nervous as the lands still seem too deep. The 30 degree shoulder on the Middlested is pushed back toward the head to produce a longer neck compared to that of the 20 d. shoulder, making case volume slightly less. Since the 20 degree cases chamber without effort, that means the contact point with the chamber has to be at the shoulder to neck intersection. So fire-forming them in a Middlested chamber would just fill in the shoulder....making volume increase, not decrease, and the neck would remain short, right??? That would mean a very deep throat and a brass neck that doesn't make it to the end of the chamber in my way of thinking. Am I thinking right or will the neck grow that much!
Anyway this is what the Middlested version of the .22-243 looks like......as you can see, it is capable of fine accuracy in a good barrel and velocity is said to average about 100 fps faster than the Swift. Supposedly load data is nearly the same as a .223WSSM having the same case volume also.
Notice the size of the bullet above and the Win version below......Above the rifle had a 8" twist bull barrel.....mine is a #3 barrel with a 1-14" twist. The one above can shoot 80 grain bullets like that! Mine will stabilize 30 to 60 grain bullets. Makes me wonder about the barrel having a throat for the wrong twist....hope not. May mean a new barrel.
The .22-243 Win with its .243 Win 20 degree neck sure looks fine sitting in the magazine, don't it!!
Next week maybe more answers....and hopefully a good trip to the range with it!
The FN Mauser-based wildcat .22-243. (.243 Winchester neck down to .22 caliber) That project kind of fell in my lap.....it wasn't intentional. I'm attempting to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear so to say. Someone's project (who I don't even know) gone bad.
The magazine wouldn't feed anything. The blue needs repair. The stock is not well fitted. It has a cheap POJ scope. It all came free, but I've already bought Redding dies for it (around a $100 $150), and I've bought 4 magazine springs for it two followers, built a magazine spacer, and finally I found a new extractor that fits (once I removed a little metal where the case starts up into it, patiently taking a little off the edge, a thousandth at a time. The biggest effort was a necessary widening of the magazine and rails in the receiver.....that took a month because that also has to be done very slow so as not to ruin the rails and receiver. I've finally got it to feed 4 rounds. Not perfectly smooth for #4 and #2, but, perfect for #3 and #1. Just a liiiiitle more off the left rail near the front should do it for #4 and #2. This rifle was made for tapered Mauser cartridges not short fat (in the shoulder) .308 class cases. (I'm learning a lot!)
Read more: 2amunitions.boards.net/thread/459/coming-gunsmithing-projects#ixzz3UbQmzG9G
The magazine wouldn't feed anything. The blue needs repair. The stock is not well fitted. It has a cheap POJ scope. It all came free, but I've already bought Redding dies for it (around a $
Read more: 2amunitions.boards.net/thread/459/coming-gunsmithing-projects#ixzz3UbQmzG9G
More:
I originally took it to my gunsmith, who didn't want a thing to do with it. He suggested I sell it and buy a Remington or Savage .243 and rebarrel it to the wildcat if I insisted on that caliber. His reasons: 1. This old 1951 FN commercial has no serial #; 2. It wouldn't feed the 08 case....period, 3. he already had a similar gun on his bench that was made by professionals in the 60's (a real gun safe queen) that was jeweled, polished mirror blue, $3000 stock, and it wouldn't feed the short fat 08 .243 case worth a .......!
So.....I went home and decided to make it a project of learning.....heck it was free for crying out loud.
Anyway after 4 months researching & working on it off an on the video below proves that short fat 08's can feed in a long Mauser action if you know the tricks. Finally, I learned and executed the tricks:
So done? Not exaaactly. I made an error in judgement. I assumed that since these cartridges.....
came with the rifle in its case, and the bore was indeed .22 caliber that they. .22-243 Win cartridges went with the gun........and you saw in the video that they feed like water into the chamber.....right?
Well, I was using a Stoney Point (Now Hornady) OAL gauge to find the lands (I made a "special case" for the tool) and while using the gauge I pushed the bullet out to the lands and it fell off the case!!!!. Not Good!
So I got some epoxy putty I had laying around, oiled up the chamber, and inserted a blob of putty to the end of a cartridge and pushed it in the chamber tight. You can't get a complete chamber mold that way but you can get a mold of the shoulder and neck. Result below:
Notice anything different about the chamber mold shoulder and the .22-243 Win case just above it? NUTS! What I have gentleman is NOT the 20 degree shouldered .22-243 Winchester, but the later incarnation, the .22-243 Middlested with a 30 degree shoulder and longer neck! I think the guy who left me this project to me was named Murphy! or Lucifer!
So I'm back to waiting......Graf & Sons were kind enough to exchange the expensive custom Redding Win version die set to the Middlested set.....yup they had exactly one left in stock! Should arrive in a few days, along with a pound of Cerrosafe chamber mold metal so I can cast a complete cast of the chamber including the distance to the lands.
I'm still a bit nervous as the lands still seem too deep. The 30 degree shoulder on the Middlested is pushed back toward the head to produce a longer neck compared to that of the 20 d. shoulder, making case volume slightly less. Since the 20 degree cases chamber without effort, that means the contact point with the chamber has to be at the shoulder to neck intersection. So fire-forming them in a Middlested chamber would just fill in the shoulder....making volume increase, not decrease, and the neck would remain short, right??? That would mean a very deep throat and a brass neck that doesn't make it to the end of the chamber in my way of thinking. Am I thinking right or will the neck grow that much!
Anyway this is what the Middlested version of the .22-243 looks like......as you can see, it is capable of fine accuracy in a good barrel and velocity is said to average about 100 fps faster than the Swift. Supposedly load data is nearly the same as a .223WSSM having the same case volume also.
Notice the size of the bullet above and the Win version below......Above the rifle had a 8" twist bull barrel.....mine is a #3 barrel with a 1-14" twist. The one above can shoot 80 grain bullets like that! Mine will stabilize 30 to 60 grain bullets. Makes me wonder about the barrel having a throat for the wrong twist....hope not. May mean a new barrel.
The .22-243 Win with its .243 Win 20 degree neck sure looks fine sitting in the magazine, don't it!!
Next week maybe more answers....and hopefully a good trip to the range with it!
My daughter came from Missouri, my son and grand son, my wife and I had a nice dinner of grilled "porter house" pork chops, corn on the cobb, my son, G'son and I share 10/5. G'son is 4 minutes early though @ 10/4.
Pooh I hope you find to right house . 
