.223 based wildcat?

A straight walled, or near straight walled case is exactly what I'm interested in. Not all wildcats have to be high pressure, high velocity barrel burners, eh?

I'm thinking of building a switch barrel stevens. .223, .17 remington, and something else that uses the .223 bolthead.

I don't have anything against straight walled cases. Pistol cases are straight and are extremely efficient, low pressure, and barrel life is very, very long; case life is longer too.

Perhaps I might even find something that's subsonic. A .358/.223 might be interesting. I could shoot pistol bullets, with pistol powder for an extraordinarily cheap and fun plinker.
 
try the .300 whisper
its a 221 remington case necked up to .308.
here is some load data
125 nosler bt 20.6 grns of H110 = 2283 fps
200 grn nosler partitions 8.6 grns of H110 = 1013 fps
 
Beat to the punch by dan........

You could try the .300 Whisper. Info below from Wiki....

The .300 Whisper (also known as .300 Fireball or .300-221) is a wildcat cartridge in the Whisper family, a group of cartridges developed in the early 1990s by J.D. Jones of SSK Industries. It was developed as a multi-purpose cartridge, capable of utilizing relatively lightweight bullets at supersonic velocities as well as heavier bullets (200–250 grains) at subsonic velocities.

The .300 Whisper was originally based on the .221 Fireball case necked up to .30 caliber. However, avid reloaders have found the .223 Remington or 5.56×45 mm NATO works well when shortened and resized to .30 caliber. Firing in the .300 Whisper chamber results in a slightly sharper shoulder. Magnum pistol powders such as H110 work well for subsonic loads. Sierra 240 grain (16 g) jacketed bullets work well if the barrel has a 1:8 twist. Barrels with a 1:10 twist will stabilize 220 grain (14 g) bullets at subsonic speeds. 125 grain (8 g) bullets will reach 2400 ft/s (730 m/s).
 
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I to was thinking of a switch barrel rig that would utilize the same bolt face as the .223 family. I would want something that could be used on deer or coyotes.

I liked what i read about the 6x47 or 6x45 cartridges. They would be suitable for long range varminting and a capable deer cartridge at modest distances.

The 300 Whisper is an interesting cartridge, would be curious to hear a subsonic round out of a 26" or longer barrel.

Alas, I already have a barrel on order and thats all my gun money for a while.
 
x2 for the whisper, redding even sells dies for them.
was looking into that myself at one point but got side tract by another project.
with a stevans its easy and simple to do the switch barrel thing.
check out the whisper forum.
some nice and useful information there.

keep us informed on the project.
 
That's exactly what I want. Either a .300 or .338 whisper. Both will allow the use of the .223 bolthead. It'll be a helluva lot cheaper than buying a custom reamer, and custom die reamer. I priced those out, and it woulda cost me about 400 bucks.

Ok, now to save up the money. See you in six months or so.
 
senior said:
Why don't you just use a .30 carbine? Cheaper reamer, cheaper brass, readily available bullets.

Already quite common 6mm/223. Quite a few Mini's converted to it.
Click to expand...

6 x 45mm looks like a perfectly fine cartridge and very accurate, but it's about 2800 fps. I think I'm going to go with the whisper, a subsonic round, for the novelty and variety of it, plus......it's subsonic, and that really appeals to me. A typical loading only loses about 70fps between the muzzle and the target at 200 yards.

There are alot of good 6mm bullets out, especially now that the 6mm benchrest is so popular, but for availability, I think .30 caliber still has a definite advantage. Also, with subsonic.... I'll be able to use cast lead bullets, without adding too much antimony, and maybe without even using gas checks. That will be new for me!

I might be less interested in a subsonic loading if I lived in the mountains or the praries, but I live in northern ontario, and where I shoot, we're surrounded by dense bush, and high berms on my range. There's no wind most of the time, and I often am the only person there. Most of the members only show up to sight in their rifles for hunting season, and there's only about 150, all told. It would be really nice to shoot with just a little cotton in my ears instead of both plugs and muffs.

The term ".300 whisper" is trademarked, but the .30-221 isn't, and is the same cartridge. Shilen makes ready to install barrels chambered in it, for savage rifles; fireball brass is already as cheap or cheaper than the hornet brass I go through, and dies are available.

Nope, I think the whisper is the ideal large and slow loading on this switchbarrel project, for me.

Also; can you imagine how long a stainless shilen bull barrel will last, never pushing those .30 caliber pills more than 1100 fps? I expect to see pistol barrel type longevity...:eek:
 
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The barrel will outlive you :)

Lee liq Alox on air cooled wheel weight alloy with gas checks and you are set. I am sure you can get away without the GC but it's there for zero leading. And most molds are set up for GC's anyway.

Definitely go Select match as the tighter bore tolerance will be better for the bullet.

Sounds like a great project....supersized 'rimfire'.

Had alot of fun doing something similar a few years back. Accuracy was actually decent.

Jerry
 
I use the .300 Whisper alot for accuracy testing of .30 cal. bullets and it is a deadly round, i prefer to make my cases from .222 rem. brass as you end up with the proper thickness neck, whereas some brass made up from .221 had a neck slightly thin for my chamber. Accuracy is best a supersonic velocities due to the relatively fast twist of 1-13" in the Gaillard barrel, others may find what they want with long /heavy bullets and much faster twist, and subsonic speeds.
 
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