.276 pedersen

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Southcountryguy

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Hey all,

I am in crazy trade mode and today while at a fellows house to do a trade he had several boxes of .276 Pedersen. He said he got the ammo from his dad who bought it just after WW2. He gave the rifle for this to his kid who he is contacting for me but that’s not my question. Does anybody shoot or reload for this caliber? I am just about silly enough to chamber a gun off a few boxes off ammunition and I have a few beat up old mausers it might suit. Interested in discussion.

SCG.
 
It's basically a 270 Winchester round. Get a 270, which would be a lot less hassle.

You might be able to get enough for the rare ammo to purchase a decent 270 commercial rifle
 
bearhunter said:
It's basically a 270 Winchester round. Get a 270, which would be a lot less hassle.

You might be able to get enough for the rare ammo to purchase a decent 270 commercial rifle
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Thanks, but the .270 lacks the interesting cool factor. It’s not going to be long and there won’t be anything to hunt in BC so instead of a boring run of the mill caliber that gets her done He with the coolest, more extraordinary pew pews will be king! Methinks a .276 Ped will be pretty cool.

SCG.
 
Southcountryguy said:
Thanks, but the .270 lacks the interesting cool factor. It’s not going to be long and there won’t be anything to hunt in BC so instead of a boring run of the mill caliber that gets her done He with the coolest, more extraordinary pew pews will be king! Methinks a .276 Ped will be pretty cool.

SCG.
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I've done the same thing myself on many occasions. It's the main reason I put my workshop together, which is pretty complete as far a most smithing requirements go.

The last ''different'' project rifle I built was based on the Swede 8x63 machine gun cartridge, which they also converted K98s to shoot, with a muzzle brake. I made it up from the parts bins, to look like the Swede rifles they issued to their machine gun crews, so they could both use the same ammo.

There was a very good reason for the brake on that rifle. Not at all pleasant to shoot. Made up another for hunting and couldn't handle the recoil. The fellow that has it now loves it for the same reasons you do.

An interesting point about "cool factor" and the 270 Winchester.

Neither Pederson, nor Winchester were the first to go with the .277 bore or the case utilizing similar capacities and dimensions.

I believe the Chinese were the first to adopt the round, specially designed for them and chambered in rifles supplied by Mauserwerke.

Ballistics, for real world intents and purposes are almost identical in all three cartridges.

There are likely others as well.

I see a lot of nations experimenting with 6.8 bores again, especially the Chinese. I wonder if they took a few of their old Mausers out of storage, along with some of the original ammo and were impressed, again, after shooting it?
 
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I read in the history of the Garand that it was originally designed in 276 Pedersen with a detachable box magazine. The Generals objected to the box magazine because it would interfere with soldiers drill and some other general felt that there was no way they could not use up all the WWI 30-06 in war stocks.
 
The .276" Pedersen is a 7mm calibre having a bullet diameter of .284", from specimen measurement and various cartridge books and a case length of 2.022".
The last .276" P ammo was made in 1932 so the newest ammo is 89 years old.
RCBS listed dies for this ctg and may still have them.
Most similar commercial ctg is 7mm08 Remington.
 
This is rare prototype ammo for the Garand. Douglas MacArthur made the decision to switch to .30-06 for the Garand because of the large stocks on hand.

I'd like to see the packaging and labelling for this ammo as well as the headstamp markings. It's too valuable to ever be shot.
 
The cartridge was used in the Pedersen semi auto rifle, which had a toggle action breech. Vickers, in England, actually made a batch of the rifles, apart from US prototypes. As mentioned, prototype Garand rifles were also made in .276.
The large stocks of .30-06 ammunition on hand amounted to some billions of rounds left over from WW1.
 
purple said:
This is rare prototype ammo for the Garand. Douglas MacArthur made the decision to switch to .30-06 for the Garand because of the large stocks on hand.

I'd like to see the packaging and labelling for this ammo as well as the headstamp markings. It's too valuable to ever be shot.
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Yeah, I thought I was pretty cool as well. The gentleman swears his father bought it in 1948 as he was young and his father made references to the purchase he remembers. Either way when I get back home from work I am going to look into it more. Might even dig an old Mauser out of the safe and begin trying to get it barreled and chambered. It’s pretty cool either way.
 
I apologize for not responding to you all directly as I am on my last day before a long work schedule.

I just thought seeing those boxes of ammo was “too cool for school”. Wish I had thought to ask if I could take pictures. Didn’t register till after I was long gone what I had looked at.

Interesting discussion and while I am in work camp I might search if I can find dies and someone to make a reamer. It’s too quirky to not peak my interest.
 
green said:
The .276" Pedersen is a 7mm calibre having a bullet diameter of .284", from specimen measurement and various cartridge books and a case length of 2.022".
The last .276" P ammo was made in 1932 so the newest ammo is 89 years old.
RCBS listed dies for this ctg and may still have them.
Most similar commercial ctg is 7mm08 Remington.
Click to expand...

Thanx for that info. I hadn't seen or read it before. I've never owned a rifle chambered for the round or one of the rounds by itself.

I always assumed it was .277 diameter.
 
A slight de-rail, perhaps. When England looked to replace the .303 British with something else, prior to WWI, they came up with the "276 Enfield". Oddly, perhaps to us, it used .282" bullets. The rifle that went with it became known as the P13, which became the P14 (in 303 British), which became the M1917 (in 30-06), which became the Remington 30 (various chamberings) and so on - but all kept the same size square barrel tenon threads. From reading, looks like BSA was one of the players in the earliest P13 days. Some time ago, I received a BSA sporter rifle - looks like a Model D or so, built on a former military M1917 action, but chambered by BSA in "270 Winchester". The chamber is perfectly standard 270 Winchester, the bore measures to .270", but the grooves measure to .282" - ish. Not the .277" that one would expect for a 270 Win. It shoots about 5 inch groups at 25 yards, using various different 270 Winchester bullets and loads. My "guess" is that a previously threaded and rifled barrel for the old 276 Enfield ended up in a batch of "270 Winchester" barrels at BSA - the reamer would have worked just fine because of the bore size, and would have easily passed the Birmingham Proof test because of the over-size grooves. If you only checked the bore diameter, you would be sure it is a .270, but the groove diameter says otherwise. So, not the first time a ".276" named cartridge turned out to need "7 mm" bullets (.282" - .284")
 
If you have a look at forgottenweapons.com, you can find a video of Ian shooting a .276 Pedersen rifle.
 
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