.338 Hairbrain

[joebush]

I have had this idea bouncing around in my head for a while. I have never done wildcat design/development before but was thinking about necking .223 up to .338 and loading it with pistol powders. It would be a straight taper case, necked up that that extent. Would it be possible to head space the cartridge on the case mouth like .45 ACP?

My playing around with the Powley Computer seems to indicate that you could get .44 magnum energy numbers with a modest load of 16.3 grains of 4227 and a 250gr round nose bullet, which is less than the starting load for 4227 for a 240gr HP .44mag in my Lyman manual.

I guess this is what happens when you start reading the wildcatting boards and letting your mind wander.

This is a form of insanity isn't it?

Joe

[The Wolverine]

WBRD is not only contagious, it is also expensive.

Insanity? not if you ask me.

www.reloadbench.com/cartridges/w338223s.html

I have read about it, I will see if I can get more info for ya.

338 Thumper
www.bwefirearms.com/338.html

Works well suppressed.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=RASnCZmiEG8

Just because someone has done something similar, it dose not mean you can't do it better.

Paul

[Deleted]

Mar 26, 2012 6:35:40 GMT -8 joebush said:

I have had this idea bouncing around in my head for a while. I have never done wildcat design/development before but was thinking about necking .223 up to .338 and loading it with pistol powders. It would be a straight taper case, necked up that that extent. Would it be possible to head space the cartridge on the case mouth like .45 ACP?

My playing around with the Powley Computer seems to indicate that you could get .44 magnum energy numbers with a modest load of 16.3 grains of 4227 and a 250gr round nose bullet, which is less than the starting load for 4227 for a 240gr HP .44mag in my Lyman manual.

I guess this is what happens when you start reading the wildcatting boards and letting your mind wander.

This is a form of insanity isn't it?

Joe

Welcome to wildcatting. LOL
To answer your question: Yes it would be possible to head space off the mouth like a .45 ACP. I would think the losses while forming might be excessive without first annealing the cases. You would have to experiment with overall length to see if it would fit in a magazine.

You might want to look at using a 6.8 case or the 6.5 Grendel case and have greater case capacity. Using the 6.5 case you would not be restricted by bullet length. The 6.5 would let you have more usable case capacity because of the shape of the case.

Obviously these comments are just my opinion, and you know what they say about that. LOL