Cartridge collecting

alaskabushman

New member
I'm still pretty new to this forum but have been collecting cartridges for several years. I'm sure there are some older threads on the subject but rather than dig up a dead thread I'll just make a new one. Since I am pushing 140 different cartridges I'll begin by posting pictures of some different cartridge families or categories. To start with and see how interisted people are in this I'll begin with the 30-06 family (what I have of it) Enjoy!
 

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I LOVE rimfires. From the .22 Short vintage 1856 to the new Winchester .17 Super magnum I love them all. They are fun little gems of copper that provide endless enjoyment and often fill the pot more efficiently than their powder sucking earsplitting centerfire brethren. These are the rimfires in my cartridge collection.
 

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The .30 Remington Story:

Back in 1895 the world’s first commercial smokeless cartridge was introduced, the .30 WCF; soon to be called the 30-30. Instantly popular and long outliving its contemporaries it has survived two world wars and many economic crises. Many attempts have been made to “improve” this classic. One such attempt was the .30 Remington (the .25 Remington was released at the same time). Introduced in 1906 and designed to be a rimless version of the 30-30 it succeeded and was a popular for a long time, finally falling into obsolescence in the late 80’s when factory ammunition was discontinued.

This is not the end of the .30 Rem however; in 1983 in the wake of the infamous Miami shootout the FBI was seeking a more powerful cartridge with which to arm their agents. After some experimentation they took a look at the powerful 10mm championed by Jeff Cooper. After only a short while they noticed that many agents really didn’t like the stout recoil and loud bark of the new round. So a new venture was afoot and in 1990 the answer surfaced…the .40 S&W. Simply a shortened version of the 10mm its was slightly less powerful but still effective and designed from the beginning for law enforcement. The FBI liked the new cartridge and adopted it.

The ink had hardly dried on the FBI’s new contract for pistols and ammo when another .30 Rem grandchild was born. In 1994 the sizzling new .357 SIG was announced. A .40 S&W case had been necked down to hold a 9mm (.355 caliber) bullet and in doing so created a monster. The .357 Sig can replicate the classic .357 (.357 caliber) Magnum ballistics with certain bullet weights (but only because it’s a high pressure cartridge, unlike the .357 Mag). I am sure that the new rounds was called the .357 Sig and not the “9mm Sig” in order to play off the established popularity of the powerful revolver round. This spicy little number has found a home with many police departments and is often used for concealed carry. After all this activity the .30 Remington had to wait a few years before being used again, this time as an actual rifle cartridge.

In the world of AR rifles those who are unhappy with the 5.56 or .223 power capabilities are always seeking a bigger piece of brass to feed their hungry guns. If you move up the size to .308 however you now have a heavy AR-10 instead of the light and responsive AR-15…what to do…what to do…oh wait! I know! The .30 Remington is right between the .223 and .308 in case diameter lets use that! That’s what some spec ops guys said when they got together between 2002 and 2004 in the development of the 6.8 Special Purpose Cartridge (SPC). Turns out they too wanted a bridge between the 5.56 and the 7.62 in a AR platform and they created a nice little round that does just that. Why 6.8? Well the 6.5mm bullet is a magical bullet that has a ballistic coefficient that was blessed by the gods, and consequently any gun firing this bullet might as well be shooting lasers. Unfortunately the 7mm kills slightly better(that is if 6.5mm dead is any less deader than 7mm dead...). So they split the difference and called it 6.8 which handily is the same diameter as the .270 Winchester which has a wonderful track record and is responsible for countless dead deer all over the U.S. of A.

So next time you shoot your modern guns firing young cartridges just remember the old .30 Remington and thank it for letting us cut up, shorten, neck down and do all sorts of horrible things to its body; Because without it, the FBI would have had to choose between the 9mm or the .45, (we KNOW that neither of those actually work), the military would still be stuck with the 5.56 (oh wait THEY ARE) and we couldn't get our jollies by plinking with the 10mm or .357 Sig.

Actually…thank the 30-30…Winchester really DID get it right the first time.
 

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Nice collection you have going there. On the .30-06 family you need more than the .35 Whelen. You're missing the other wildcats like 6mm-06, 8mm-06, .375 Whelen, and .400 Whelen in addition to the .35 Whelen. You could even throw a 9.3X62 in there if you wanted even though it isn't quite the same as the 06 case.
 
Cartridge collecting is a great hobby! Lots of variety and choice for specialization. You can amass a decent collection at a relatively low cost. Lots of room for study and new discoveries. Nobody gets too scared at a box of mixed old .22 ammo. Fascinating ties to history and technology.
Everyone should collect ammo. Join the organizations and attend any area shows.
 
Just as a fine point of clarification...

The .270 Winchester was not based on the .30-06. It was based on the older .30-03 cartridge.
 
I really like that "ought 6" collection, very nice. The 338 looks to have an original Winchester Silvertip in it, oh the memories that brings back.

Thanks for sharing.
 
you need more than the .35 Whelen. You're missing the other wildcats like 6mm-06, 8mm-06, .375 Whelen, and .400 Whelen in addition to the .35 Whelen.

Very true, but I didnt have room on the picture to list all those. :D Wildcats to me are low priority, I focus more on the factory rounds. If I run into a wildcat I do snatch it up. I have a .300 Gibbs and .338 Gibbs I technically could have added into the 30-06 family but didnt.

The .270 Winchester was not based on the .30-06. It was based on the older .30-03 cartridge.

You are correct. Again I labeled this as the 30-06 family, not the 30-06 offspring. :) If I had a 30-03 in my collection I probably would have included it in the lineup as the granddaddy of all 30-06 related rounds. Technically the 30-03 came from the 8mm mauser case. Besides, what fun is it to take a picture of just the .270?

Cool side factoid, the 30-06 pictured in the lineup has a headstamp that says ".30 GI 1906".
 
A lineup of my magnum rifle cartridges. Not pictures is the Winchester Short Magnum line which i'll post later as a cartridge family. Note that almost all of them are belted. I didnt include some cartridges that technically are magnums (even though they aren't so-called) like the .300 Gibbs or the .284 Winchester.
 

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I know what you were doing. :)

Every time something like this comes up, I try to sow the seeds of truth as most people assume that the .270 and .280 were simple offshoots of the .30-06.

That's led to some interesting discussions here.

"Technically the 30-03 came from the 8mm mauser case."

I've always considered the 8mm Mauser the .30's grandfather, with the 7mm as the father, because it was US experience on the receiving end of that cartridge that set in motion development of the .30-01, the .30-03, and the .30-06.

"the 30-06 pictured in the lineup has a headstamp that says ".30 GI 1906"

That's an old Winchester or possibly Western headstamp, but it looks like that round is a military ball load.
 
You mention in the rimfire picture that you need a .26 Remington rimfire...

In over 30 years of collecting cartridges I've never come across any references to that cartridge.
 
You mention in the rimfire picture that you need a .26 Remington rimfire...

That was two things...a typo and a bad choice to add. At the time I was trying to think of more rimfires and it popped into my head. What I was thinking of was the .267 Remington Rimfire which did exist, but more as an experimental cartridge. It and the .25 stevens are very close. Much like the .22 Remington auto rimfire and the .22 Winchester Auto rimfire.
 
Good collection, give it a few more years and it will take up the house !

I know one collector with 3 large flat map cabinets, the kind from an engineering office. Each has several drawers, lined with cloth, and wood trim pieces for dividing the cartridges into groupings. Must be 2 or 3 thousand different cartridges in there.
 
Awww, that's just a little collection. ;)
I think I have over 1000 in just 7.62x25 alone! If any of these "arsenal" laws ever pass I'm truly screwed!
 
"Since your a veteran collector whats your most unique cartridge in your collection?"

Couple of qualifiers...

.32 Moore teatfire, the early flat teat

.54 Gallagher Carbine cartridge

A bunch of the British African cartridges...
 
Sodbuster said:
To annoy Elmer.

As a reader of Jack O'Connor, that made me chuckle immensly and got quite an odd look from my sister.

Mike, thanks for mentioning the .30-01, have never heard of it and now I have to find one.

I like to collect spent military brass from different weapons, and as a subset of that, different 5.56mm brass headstamps.

I found that helped pass the time in the big sandbox.

Got some cool German and French 5.56mm brass and, what I think to be original Soviet manufacture. 7.62x39 and 5.45mm

Could never find any spent 7.62x54R and was informed that attempting to bring home live ammo would result in wanted attention from the CID/BATFE

Neat collection, bushman.
 
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