What makes a cartridge a wild cat

Proprietary?
Dakota, JDJ, Beouwolf, Firebird, Firehawk, Several hundred custom gun makers have their own list. I have two myself that RCBS wont make dies for anyone else on those specs.
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Very rarely, have I seen people refer to any of those as wildcats. Even when they do, it seems to be driven by the fact that the general audience for the statement probably wouldn't understand the difference between "proprietary" and "wildcat"; so the simpler term "wildcat" was chosen to avoid an explanation.
 
It's pretty hard to get proprietary rights when a case is formed like for the 300 Wby from 300H&H case. it was same with 6ppc from 220 sako
Russian case but the right to the ppc name were owned and sold to Dakota which is now owned by Rem.
 
generally wildcat is a cartridge developed in some guys garage and requires home manufactured ammo, custom reloading dies and custom built guns because nobody makes guns in that caliber and nobody makes the ammo.

about 5 years ago 300 blackout was still considered a wildcat, now there are a half dozen manufacturers making guns in that caliber and I believe that there is now factory ammo so it is no longer a wildcat.
 
Another example of a wildcat becoming a standard is the 6.5x308. For many years it was a wildcat until Remington decided to chamber it in their rifles and give it a new designation........260 Remington.
 
How do you size brass to a new cartridge ? If there are no dies , where do you start ? Heck there's no barrels or chambers either .

Does anybody put a .224 in a 308 case ? or a .204
 
Just because you don't know how doesn't mean it can't be done.

To size brass to a cartridge that has never existed, there are special case forming dies made. Want a 22 caliber cartridge? There is a die that will form a 22 cal neck on any cartridge case. Want a 40 degree shoulder? There is a die for that as well. Want a straight case wall? Ditto. Tapered case wall? different die. Smaller head size? Base stripping dies will do that. And what's more, these die sets are made and sold by the same die makers that make your run-of-the-mill 243 or 30-06 dies.

Once you have a case or a drawing of a case, a machinist can make a reamer, and then you can cut a chamber in the barrel of your choice. Send a case or drawing of a case to any of the big-name reloading die companies, and they will make you reloading dies, forming dies, trim dies, etc.

All in all, it's not very hard to be a wildcatter, you just have to have imagination, creativity, and an inquisitive nature.
 
I enjoyed wildcatting and it's not for everyone and what stops most from doing it is the cost.

If you have to start buying reamer's/gauges,form dies then have sizing dies made it can get expensive and if your not a gunsmith add those cost, it adds up fast.

I got my start with the Ackley's most gunsmith have reamer's and dies are reasonable price vs something like for my 6BR shorten talldog. Other problems you run into and me not being a gunsmith is finding one to do the work.
 
I enjoyed wildcatting more in the past than I do now. It has pretty much gotten to the point now that anything you can dream of has already been made. The .375 Ruger offered some opportunities early on, but now it has been necked to everything imaginable. To me, the cartridge is truly a wildcat if you cant call RCBS and order dies for it. In my book, if you send RCBS fired brass and they custom the dies, it might be a wildcat. If you call them and tell them I want dies for cartridge X that Jim Tom built last year and you supplied dies for, then its not really a wild cat.
 
To me, the cartridge is truly a wildcat if you cant call RCBS and order dies for it. In my book, if you send RCBS fired brass and they custom the dies, it might be a wildcat. If you call them and tell them I want dies for cartridge X that Jim Tom built last year and you supplied dies for, then its not really a wild cat.
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I don't know if they have gone back to doing it, but a couple years back I checked, and RCBS was out of the custom die business. They had a stock of dies in calibers on their custom list, and if they had one, you could buy it, but if they were out, so were you. You'd have to go to another die maker.

SO, I have to wonder, if nobody makes (or ever did make) factory ammo, (which is what makes it a wildcat in my book), but somebody has had dies made (and of course a chambering reamer), so the specs are out there, and more can be made, if that's not a wildcat, what is it?

The .22.250 and the .25-06 are classic examples of wildcats, existing and popular for decades only as custom made guns and reloading dies. Remington finally "legitimized" them in the 60s, making them a factory standard round, and rifles for them. Chamber/case dimensions could be found in a few variations (taper, shoulder angle, neck length) depending on who's version of the wildcat you got. Remington adopted the most common (popular) versions as their standard.
 
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A wildcat (Bobcat, Lynx, etc) lives alone in the wild; A housecat (Siamese, Persian, whatever) lives in a home, with full life support.

Ergo, a wildcat cartridge also lives alone in the world - w/o formal support.

A proprietary cartridge is, by definition, one that is made by someone expressly for their products and unlike any other, similar cartridge.

A factory cartridge is just that - a standardized cartridge, made by a factory, usually in a multitude of loads/amounts.



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This is copied from RCBS 2010 catalog

RCBS no longer produces unique, one-of-a-kind, custom dies or custom bullet moulds. RCBS still offers approximately 650 special order die sets and 350 case form sets in this special order catalog. RCBS offers more than 1,000 other calibers, reloading die sets and case form sets which are not listed in this catalog. For more information, email rcbs.tech@atk.com or call 1 (800) 533-5000
 
I do not remember exactly when I ordered my last set from them, but I has not been awful long ago. I have several sets of their custom dies. Its been several years since I sent them an actual set of fired brass, but it has not been that long that I ordered dies to those specs.
 
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