Wildcats?

Most of my "wildcats" are no longer wildcats. They're still fairly uncommon, but most are now standardized. -- Such as 6x45mm and .35 Whelen.

I think the only two left unstandardized are .17-223 and .475 Tremor.

.475 Tremor is .458 SOCOM necked up to take advantage of .480 Ruger / .475 Linebaugh bullets (which are better suited to the achieved velocities than the .458" rifle bullets commonly available for the .458 SOCOM).


.17-223 is just that: .223 Rem necked down to .17 caliber while maintaining the same shoulder (23.5 degrees, I believe?)
It looks more ridiculous in person than in this photo:
Left to right: 6x45mm w/ 80 gr SP, .223 Rem w/ 69 gr HPBT, .17-223 w/ 17 gr Remington Accu-Tip, .17-223, and a case that folded during forming.
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How long does it take you to 'make' a wildcat round, from preparing whatever machinery you use to having the complete cartidge, if you were to make only one?
 
That depends upon the cartridge and end-goal in question.

.17-223, for example, is a very simple wildcat and reloading dies are available from most major brands. Barrels are also available from multiple companies. Even though it is a wildcat, there are fairly 'standard' versions of the cartridge.
Step one: Obtain .223 Rem or 5.56x45mm brass, and .17-223 dies.
Step two: Form and load cases.
Step three: Assemble, build, or buy a rifle to fire it in.
Start-to-finish, a person could be up and running in two days (paying for overnight shipping of an in-stock barrel and/or dies, and having everything else on hand).


.475 Tremor, on the other hand, requires a custom chamber reamer and custom dies.
In my case, the guy that designed the cartridge had a chamber reamer made and chambered 12 barrels. (4 months)
When the first order for dies was submitted to Hornady, there was a 9 month wait.
During that time, those of us working with the cartridge had to cobble together ways to get cases formed and loaded.
Most of us used a combination of parts from .480 Ruger and .500 S&W dies. -- A .480 Ruger expander screwed into a .500 S&W die body, for example. It worked, but not very well.
Start-to-finish (not counting initial drawings from 10 years prior), it took about 16 months before most of us had proper dies to reload the cartridge and be able to resize fired cases.


I have another wildcat planned that is a one-off. Think of it as 7.35x57mm (.299" bullet in a modified and necked down 8x57mm).
I will need to send a chamber drawing to a reamer company. (And wait.)
Then obtain a barrel. (Special order ... with a wait.)
Send a drawing off to a bullet mold maker, to have a mold made. (Short wait.)
Have the barrel profiled, cut, crowned, and chambered.
Have a machinist or gunsmith make a temporary case forming die with the cut off stub of the barrel. (This can later be used as a case gauge, if desired.)
Form some basic cases that can be fire-formed.
Cast, size, and lube some bullets.
Load via whatever means will work (such as using an 8x57mm or 7.7x58mm Jap seating die to seat bullets).
Fire the cartridges to obtain fire-formed brass from the chamber.
Send the fired brass and chamber drawing off to a die maker so they can make proper reloading dies. (~3-12 month wait.)
It will probably end up being about 18 months from sending off the first chamber drawing for the reamer, to being able to resize fired cases in a proper sizing die.

Of course, a person with the right tools available can make things happen much more quickly.
 
My only Wildcat experience is necking down a .243 Win. to .22. using Redding custom dies. It's called .22-243 Middlestead and nobody ever made a commercial rifle with it. Some call it .22 laser.:rolleyes:, although there's another wildcat .22-270 that more qualifies for that title.

This one is pretty quick tho. Pictured, is one of five snap-cap versions of it that I made to test the feeding modifications I had to make to a 1951 FN Mauser. .243Win doesn't feed well in one without mods. As the video below shows the mods worked well.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbsdBldk2zk
 
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A lot of those are “sort of” wildcats. Seems like all the neck-up, neck-down wildcats I’ve made over the years end up being production runs.

Technically it’s a wildcat if no ammunition is commercially produced. 6mm Creed WAS a wild cat. 6.5X47 Lapua is a kind of, because you can buy brass, but no cartridges. 6X47 Lapua is just knecked down.

I haven’t made a real one in years, but to me if you can just make it on a press with a couple of pulls it’s a sort of wildcat. If you’re fireforming and loading creme of wheat you’re a real wildcatter.

Honestly, they’re fun to build and mess with, but I find them too tedious for competition. Making 50 pieces of brass and getting them to run well is fun. Making 300 isn’t. The last 300 neck down wildcats I made I crunched 2. Over 99% is economical. The last fire forming wildcat I made I lost about 30% in the process, so it can get kind of expensive and frustrating. Back then we didn’t anneal. Making the brass softer helps a lot. I think my success rate has risen a lot because of annealing, but it could also be I’m older and wiser...
It’s probably annealing...
 
The .338-223 was created by a gentleman named Atchisson as a replacement round for rebarreled M1907 Winchesters (and a carbine of his own design). The outside diameter of the mouth of the .223 case, when the case is trimmed to match the length of the .351 Self Loading, is approx. the same diameter as the neck of the .338 Winchester.
 
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I haven’t made a real one in years, but to me if you can just make it on a press with a couple of pulls it’s a sort of wildcat. If you’re fireforming and loading creme of wheat you’re a real wildcatter.
Click to expand...
CoW is for hacks. ;)
Go full power, or go home. :D

The cartridges that I've worked with always fire-formed better, and had lower failure rates, when using standard loads. CoW just makes a mess with no real benefit.


I disagree with the generalized statement, anyway. Case in point:
The most common source of .30-40 Krag brass is .303 British.
Run the 303 through a sizing die.
Load. (Some people do choose to use CoW.)
Fire-form.
Out pops a short-necked .30-40 case.

Same steps as outlined above, but far from wildcatting...
 
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