Wildcat Fever M.L. (Mic) McPherson
Synopsis: Most serious shooters soon and often contemplate wildcatting. After resisting the temptation for several decades, about 1995 I decided to try my hand at it. I now own at least $3,000 worth of custom chambering reamers, associated tooling, and the lathe needed to ideally use those tools. Circa 2012, I cannot report any slowing of the progress and the symptoms of this insidious disease. My best advice: Avoid it while you can, for you are almost bound to succumb eventually!
Wildcats can run the gamut from simple conversions to beyond-the-pale difficult conversions. At left is the 17/23 SMc, simply a fireformed 17 Fireball. At right is the 6.5mm/60 SMc. This case began life as a 416 Rigby. Creating this case required more steps and more work than I want to recall. Case redrawing (to thin the walls), head truing, primer pocket reforming, stepwise necking (eleven increments), neck turning at three stages of the necking-down process, neck annealing (four times while necking down), and fireforming … followed by final neck annealing, trimming, and neck turning. Nothing to it!
expert assistance.
SELECTED EXPERIENCES IN WILDCATTING
When I wrote Accurizing the Factory
Rifle, I included a discussion of what it takes to design and order a set of wildcat chambering reamers. That discussion included several paragraphs on the fact that one could almost certainly include in that process several (necessary) dis- cussions with the reamer maker. One of the old-time gurus in the
reamer production industry read my discussion. He was so thrilled that a gun writer had finally acknowledged and publicized the fact that designing a reamer represents no mean feat that he fairly accosted me in a walkway at the following SHOT Show and fairly embarrassed me with wholesome praise. To hear him tell it (and many folks did), I was the first writer who had ever ac- knowledged that designing and order- ing a custom chambering reamer that actually does what one intends it to do and that will actually create a functional chambering is actually a complicated process and that very few gun tinkers are capable of doing so without some
So, with many years and many reamer orders behind me, I will offer a revised discussion of what is necessary to design a custom reamer that creates a functional chambering, for it seems that I keep finding pitfalls.
First, I have come to rely upon the expertise of Dave Kiff (Pacific Tool and Gauge) and Dave Manson (Manson Precision Reamers). While other manu- facturers exist, these are the companies that I have come to trust. Meanwhile, perhaps you can get a reamer design right all by yourself … but do not assume that this is so.
I have run into all manner of dif- ficulties through the years. The latest significant surprise occurred when I designed a wildcat based upon the 348 Winchester case. This was for a custom 1895 Marlin. On the face of it, this was simply the 348 necked up to 35 caliber and improved. I intended to use inter- mediate neck clearance (this is a hunting lever-action, after all, not a benchrest rifle), a short throat (so that typical bul- lets would be very close to touching the rifling when seated to the crimping can- nelure), and a benchrest leade (because that leade design has no disadvantages). Really, this should have been a simple reamer design project.
Many wildcats use the same headspace gauge as the basic case. For example, the 250 Ackley Improved uses the go gauge for the 250 Savage. Properly done, the action should just barely close on that gauge. Working with a reformed case, such as the 6.5mm/60 SMc, shown here, requires a unique headspace gauge. The die maker will produce this tool.
Page 82 Spring 2013
At first, I ordered two reamers. One was to be used to create a full-length sizing die (resizing die reamer). This reamer also can be used as a roughing chamber reamer. The second reamer was to create the finished chamber (the finish reamer). This reamer also can be used to create a bullet seating die.
What I belatedly realized was that
neither of those reamers would allow me to create the custom conventional crimping die that the customer wanted. For that, I had to order a third reamer, which is unique and has no other pur- pose! I would have preferred to ask Lee Precision to make a custom Factory Crimp Die but the customer wanted a conventional seating and crimping die. So be it.
I have since realized that the Hor- nady New Dimension 35-caliber rifle- cartridge seating die would have worked as well or better than any custom seating or combination seating and crimping die! I keep learning.
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