thinking of building my ownwild cat cartridge

cant_rope_the_wind01

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i,m thinking of using the 300 saum as the mother case
then necking it down to 257 exactly the same as a 257 Roberts
changing the shoulder from .030 to 20' 45' wth an over all case length of 2.015
and a neck length .321
am looking for some positive and negative opinions please, any
ideas of how you think this will perform??????
 
With a case this short and fat I would not reduce the shoulder angle but just the opposite I would be inclined to keep the 30 deg or even go to 40 deg. The theory is that you hold the powder in the case for the burn duration and don't sand blast the leade with unburnt powder. In all my wildcatting 30 deg is the least I would go on any case. I have designed something like 20 some odd wildcats and some have been extremely successful such as the 300 RUM, I played with this exact dimension case 3 years before even the Imperial Magnum came out, some 10 years before Remington bought the rights to the Imperial Mag and introduced the 300 RUM. I have designed my own version of the 22-284 and built a rifle on it, I played extensively with the 7mm X 300 Wby built for me by Bevan King, I built and shot a 7mm X 300 WM as well as a 7mm X 68mm 30 deg imp. And on....and on.... and on. What you should end up with is a 257 Wby on a short action. A very good friend of mine had a 25-284 on an old Sako/Browning action it was a hell burner. I was just on the phone discussing with "Why Not?" (Ted) the ins and outs of the .375 Ruger necked down to .257, 6.5, 7mm and .30 cal......................
The other down side of your proposed parent case is that it is obsolete already, I would be more inclined to use the 270 WSM case as it requires less working and will probably be around for a while, if not the 300 WSM will certainly be here for the foreseeable fruture.
My advice on wildcatting is don't try to re-invent the wheel, but look at what works and then build upon that.

Douglas
 
The 25 SAUM has been around for 10 years. Assuming your shoulder angle would work, performance would be the same.
 
It's a point of diminishing returns. If you recall, a few years ago the factory version of this idea was the .25 WSSM. That cartridge eventually died for a number of reasons, not the least of which was that it had serious problems feeding from magazines.

Your concept could work, but you might have an easier time with an obvious factory offering: the .257 Weatherby. Another choice is the time-tested .25-06. Both of those cartridges require .30-06 length actions, but that is about their only limitation from a hunting perspective. The Weatherby should get that .25 caliber bullet going as fast as you will ever need. Even then, your barrel life will be LESS than the .264 Winchester Magnum, which was a notorious barrel-burner. The .25-06 (or possibly a .25-284) would be about the maximum case capacity you can go with if you want reasonable barrel life.

From a benchrest perspective, shorter actions are theoretically more accurate because they are stiffer. However, I suspect that your goal is not to develop a new cartridge for competition because if you were that kind of advanced competitive shooter, you'd be teaching us about design, rather than asking for our thoughts.

In the end, as great as these new case designs are, there was a great deal of logic behind the "old-fashioned" designs, too. There is a reason why the .270, 7mm Remington Magnum and .300 Winchester Magnum are still kings of the roost today when it comes to practical, workable long-range hunting cartridges. Like I said, there is a point of diminishing returns where the downsides (poor barrel life, feeding problems, "fussiness") tend to outweigh the increases in velocity. In any event, increases in velocity get incrementally smaller as you increase case capacity. Think of a .308. You need to add at least 10 grains more powder to get the extra hundred fps of the .30-06. Then you need to add at least 15 more grains to get the additional 250 fps of the .300 Winchester Magnum. Then you need to add at least 25 more grains to get the extra 250 fps of the .300 Remington Ultra Mag. Each step along the way, you have to go with slower and slower powders, and your choices get smaller and more finicky. The cartridge you described would need to use the slowest powders out there.

If you do go through with this project, please let us know how it all works out because we all learn by watching what each other does.
 
OP, as Blargon mentioned this wildcat has been around for a while. It maybe a good idea to contact Clymer, JGS and PT&G and see if they have listings of wildcats and their dimensions. Chances are someone has already "been there, done that".
 
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