338-223 strait in rebarreded WSL

[pmatuk]

I seen this cartridge in the cartridges of the world .So we gave it a kick and it works /cycles and will do load development in the summer .Case is a 223 cut at shoulder to 1.4" and the bullet is a hornady sst 225gr with the front milled back to 1" and now weighs 193 gr .Test load for function was 12 gr of IMR 4227 and I want to run this at subsonic levels

No real advantage to the cartridge as it said in COTW over the 351 .I thought I should have one for my set

Barrel is a SS 338 at 27" with a under lug attached to the barrel to hold recoil guide rod and spring and used a 1905 front cocking assembly .The rifle does function properly with the 27 " barrel .Also the 1907 can be returned to the 351 wsl configuration as the conversion did not need any mods to the frame

Cheers Peter

heres some pics of it

 

[hifiwasabi]

Oooooh, that's purty. Nice to see an old Winchester self loader get a new lease on life, is it just a plinker or for short range deer hunting?

 

[pmatuk]

not too sure yet ,it can be loaded to subsonic on another web site where it is called 338 thumper and used in ar platforms .Will know more after I get some testing in

 

[SHELL SHUCKER]

I love it! Good on ye fer getting a nifty rifle & funky cartridge into action. For deer & bigger, it will do the job fer sure at reasonable ranges with good placement. Too cool.

 

[hoytcanon]

How is the feeding and unfired round extraction??? Have you fired it yet? Did it extract a fired round?

 

[Andy]

Now that's original.

No "hole" filled, no real purpose, except for "just because", and to learn.

I have found 4227 to be the powder to use in my 351 and 401 WSL - full cases of it. I suspect that 12.0 grs is at least an 85% fill.

 

[hifiwasabi]

Would round nose 338 bullets work without milling the points off?

 

[BigUglyMan]

Would round nose 338 bullets work without milling the points off?

I was thinking that this might be something that Marshall could help with. Either way it's cool, and that's all that matters.

 

[Bigfoot 870]

 

[pmatuk]

I have completed test firing with 14 rounds ,the rifle feeds perfect and ejects perfect with no modification to the extractor.Used a 1/2 " ball mill to cut feed ramp with barrel held at 45% and used a 1/8 end mill to cut extractor grove also held at same angle.Chamber was cut with a 223 ackly reamer with a 338 pilot and will have to fine tune case length ,although it functions and the fired cases look good I will most likely leave it as is

A round nose bullet would be ideal ,but I didn't have any and could not find any that are short enough so hence the bullet mod to shorten to under 1 inch to get powder capacity up .

here is a pic of what I figured out last year before I started the project to determine if it would even function before starting any metal work

 

[Andy]

You could buy the Lee 338 mold and mill it down to the length you want for a "custom" plain base cast 338 bullet.

 

[hoytcanon]

You could buy the Lee 338 mold and mill it down to the length you want for a "custom" plain base cast 338 bullet.

Or have a custom cavity mold made...

 

[pmatuk]

will first do some targets and development before deciding on what route to go

 

[Andy]

You could buy the Lee 338 mold and mill it down to the length you want for a "custom" plain base cast 338 bullet.

...or not, if 1" is your target bullet length. The bullet is 1.050" long with Gas Check.