[MusgraveMan]

Elkhamr,

We shoot the K31. As it is that 7.5x55 already is an impressive performer. A real mover. Personally I would not neck it down smaller than 6.5mm but of course wildcatting has no brakes. Most of the ammunition and used cases have been secured in a container for a move to another venue and it may not be possible to locate an empty case immediately. Nevertheless, a search shall be conducted in Colorado and if a case turns up it is yours.

 

[MusgraveMan]

As said before - in my my field of reference that case may merit necking down to 6.5mm but not smaller. I know many wildcatters do not really mind about throat erosion as long as they can get the best speed out of it with light-weight bullets. Let me go back a ways and I'll return to modifying this excellent case that had used perfect mathematics to already make it simply very efficient.

There is another field of wildcatting which almost fails to meet the first-order understanding of the term of wild abandon - and that is dedicating a rifle and cartridge to a certain task. Wildcatting in its essence is about "free thinking" - even towards slowing down a particular bullet for a particular task. I asked a question in another thread here because that particular subject under discussion had touched on a long time thought I've had and I casually mentioned my reason for liking a particular post. CrookedCreek picked up on that and started a thread about my humble "bushbuck rifle", and just look where we have gone with that.

I have only shot two rifles in my life which I did not like. The first was Jeff Cooper's one-off .460 Guns&Ammo wildcat and the other was some Savage in .22-250. Nothing was really right in the latter but mainly it was the off-hand un-balance of the rifle, and roughness of the action. The stock design for Cooper's idea which he brought to Africa was sadly nowhere near suitable for the amount of recoil it had. That rifle needed the Bavarian style stock, but Jeff Cooper having been Jeff Cooper would rather have died seven deaths before accepting such advice from us. His wildcat died too. Like Jack Lott he was disgusted with the .458 Win Mag after in a previous visit to Africa, 8 shots from his .458 WM did not even put his Cape Bufallo down and his PH putit out of its misery it with his .375 H&H. To this day Winchester was not interested in this problem and Cooper decided to build his own buffalo rifle and cartridge - but the typical straight line American "Safari" profile for the stock is not clever for that amount of recoil.

So I like most almost every rifle I have shot. Then one day you shoot a rifle cartridge combination which truly leaves a lasting impression on you - maybe a few even, which many years after having pulled its trigger and emptied its magazine you will remember the satisfaction it had caused in its balance, and at or on the target performance. To me the 7.5x55 Schmidt-Rubin from the K-31 is one of those. (The others are the 8x68 Schuler; 7x64 Brenneke and equalled again by the .280 Remington; 7mm Rem Magnum; .338 Win Mag - although in Africa there is only one single use for it; 9.3x62 Bock and the .416 Rigby, and my Kentucky .50 muzzle loader with top loads). Every time I shoot the Rubin in Colorado the impression that this is something special is reaffirmed.

The Swiss will lend itself to necking down to 7mm, and possibly also to 6.5mm dedicated to 154gr bullets at 62,000 with original GP-11 cases. In 7mm I would dedicate it to 170gr. In standard form it will accept US designated .308" bullets as is. I shot in military competitions against the Swiss Army/Air Force team using the K-31. The stock military rifle is simply very accurate. Impressively so.

My own opinion for a modification? An "Ackley improved" profile to 8mm and even 9.3mm. Do the figures for that and see what you get.

In Europe, to obtain official approval by the C.I.P. (and in South Africa by the SABS Standards Bureau) the cartridge and every single rifle to fire it and which is to be sold to the public has to be fired at 125% of the load that approval is applied for with no measurable plastic deformation. That pressure figure for the Swiss is 68,000+ psi.

Hornady as well as Privy Partizan sells 7.5x55 ammunition in the US.

 

[MusgraveMan]

"Arguments could be made either way whether that this is a worthless endeavor and that there is already enough cartridges out there to fill any niche. I believe that's true BUT, if we ever stop thinking of ways to improve something, then this gets to be a boring stagnant sport for the average shooter/handloader. It's pretty hard for me to get all revved up about going down, and loading a bunch of 30-06 rounds."

I have been your signature boring .308W / 30-06 user/hunter for 50 years. My dad's Parker Hale 30-06 and my Musgrave .308W killed every type of elk size game with such boring one-shot regularity for many years. Then I wanted to give the Musgrave a rest because the factory closed down and that particular model was becoming a bit of an icon. Over two years I searched to build up a truly matched set SAKO Model 85 Hunters in .375 H&H / 30-06 / .270W / 243W - and found the .375 was doing most of the work, followed by the 30-06.

The .270W was merely a duplicate of the .308W on deer size game at longer distances and not nearly as good on big game like kudu and wildebeest at shorter distances due to its lightweight 150gr bullets. The .243W is regarded as a varmint cartridge out here and I used that successfully on jackal and caracal culling.

That beautiful set of SAKOS were a covey of very sexy mistresses - and I realised that much in the end, so I sold the set. (SAKOS are to this day a very good financial investment, by the way).

I needed change, and then I moved to the US and wanted a true US born rifle and cartridge - so a 30-30 Marlin was it. Then I read about the Pennsylvania rifle and built myself a Kentucky .50. Then I learned about the .280 Remington, and Ruger was the only remaining US manufacturer and that was a good find - an industry neglected cartridge and the equivalent of the 7x64 Brenneke when loaded properly. Everything the .270W was punted to be but could not achieve.

Back home I had given my Musgraves (.308W and 30-06) to my two sons and turned my old Lee Enfield .303 into a very pleasing big game getter - another rifle and cartridge which is a very satisfying shooter and hunter. Now I am about to get an old Mauser 8x57 and it will also become a beautiful looking killer.

Then came the wildcat free thinking about a heavy, slow mover for exactly the same reasons you mention - it almost gave me the creeps to read your scenario. True bushbuck surroundings. The .35-30/30 wildcat plan is almost complete thanks to 150 or so posts from experts in that thread.

I still need a heavy bullet, slow mover, for camp meat in the Mozambique wilderness as presently I carry the .416 Rigby there because it is wild country with lots of wild stuff around. BUT: the .416 is so much gun it makes the hunter virtually fearless and maybe even careless as it can take care of any situation you can get into even with incomplete situational awareness. That is the crux: If I want to stay the alert hunter I have been while I am getting older I can not allow myself to insure my life by simply having a strong rifle in my hands all the time.

My Mozambique wildcat is going to be a Lee Enfield No.4 Mk.1,shooting a 9.3x55 wildcat based on the .303 case. That will again humble me some to again be a better tracker and listener and observer - a better hunter again - to stay out of trouble while looking for bushbuck or a young sable bull for camp meat. It must however be able to get a bullet into the brain of a fool charging buffalo cow or hippo or trap-injured lion because one can not always avoid that. Free thinking.

 

[MusgraveMan]

Elkhamr, where the 35-30/30 will be used there is nothing dangerous - it will be on SA unfenced properties and not in Mozambique. The biggest risk is a lung shot which on all Africa game is poor shot placement and the bushbuck is a gutsy little critter having an ego as big as a buffalo since he has horns designed to impale. Even with us humans the more ability our spears contain the more guts and ego we display, is it not? God forbid that the heartbreakingly docile eland one day assumes that fighter's attitude the little bushbuck has. The eland is heavier than a Cape buffalo and a 1,000 times more agile. I have seen 2,000 lb bulls clear an eight foot fence from simply standing next to it. As it dies the eyes shed big tears at the same time the sphincter muscle relaxes and we like to believe that it merely is sinusoidal fluid being released.

Mozambique is where I plan the 9.3x55mm only using local PMP brass as these are of measurably thicker gauge than anything else. For the .303 and .308W case volume:neck diameter that is very good. We are in some spat with PMP presently as they sell their brass and ammunition cheaper overseas than what we suddenly have to pay for it. Some bean counters at PMP have decided that if local users want the best then we have to pay a premium for it. The other good brass out here is from Lapua, and the Hornady is also good. PMP primers are in a class of their own but Remington is the next option we prefer - and Sellier&Bellot is the favourite with the mass reloaders like my sons who shoot in the defense handgun competitions.

The .308W will always be the goto big game cartridge out here followed by the 30-06/7x57/7x64/.303 as they are the cleanest killers of all. Having been using the .308W and 30-06 for 50 years I also want something now which is not "more of the same" - even while full knowing that once the bullet leaves the muzzle the size and shape of the case has nothing at all to do with its success on game. From there on ONLY its design structure (to be able, by virtue of its mass - the amount of matter it contains - to withstand the release of kinetic energy into itself as it slows down) will determine its success or failure to stay intact and cleanly punch through the heart's main protective cage of shoulder bone, sinew and muscles and possibly a rib, to cut the heart and then force its way out the similar opposite side without having expanded more than about 1.5x calibre - and never more than 2x. Of course for calibres thicker than .35" no expansion at all is needed.

There is a distinct move by the younger generation hunters out here towards heavier, slower bullets in all the calibres mentioned above, and particularly the magnums. The evidence to support that thinking is simply too obvious to ignore. Since the advent of range finders there is no aiming problem with a rainbow trajectory - in fact there has never been such a thing as a flat shooting calibre in any case.

Elkhamr, this is an open invitation to please bring your questions to the bushbuck thread - I am already clearing that with the OP (CrookedCreek) as it is very closely related. Great respect for your ethics, sir.

 

[MusgraveMan]

It is you project and your thread EH, so maybe just run with it, anywhere, I think.

 

[MusgraveMan]

EH, the search for a loose, floating about case is already underway in my absence - had the requirement been known three weeks ago before the packing in started you already would have had..

It is too late at night to think too deeply about your and ICL's inputs so maybe overnight the subconscious mind will do that.

In the mean time: why would NEW backthrust come into significant play? A case with more parallel sidewalls has better brake shoes too.

 

[MusgraveMan]

Elkhamr I do not have that but I know where to enquire. For some or other reason the French connection has been to the side of the German and Brit and Swiss and Swedish and Czech in my use and experience and interest. I am almost embarrassed to say that, being of almost unadulterated French blood - and France being where free thinking in rifle and ammunition was the start of many modern established applications.

The unconstrained mind I unashamedly shall always promote and the sons indeed seem to carry it I see. Often that trait of the human faculty is hated by boxed-in opponents to change - or even to merely learn of new knowledge that exists outside of the gun religion and its dogmatic no-go boundaries. Fact simply is that Europe, and specifically the Germanic and paleo-germanic minds have had rifles and cartridges in such perfect marriage of thermo dynamics and metallurgy and combustion chamber physics for so long, and so unknown here that even mentioning them elicits a chorus of "that is un-American!"indignation. There seems to be a thought afloat that science and mathematics never existed outside of the belted-case-and/or-short-neck-era USA, and certainly 130 years ago whatever was done in Germany, France, England and Switzerland, etc. was random stumbling onto lucky breaks and not by pure scientific thinking.

Fortunately there also are the free thinking wildcatters in particularly the USA. Like you already do, they just need to think a little more out of the box and look at Europe for cartridges that already exist and take it from there. Particularly to consider and understand the value of the long neck relative to what the bullet needs to do from the moment of ignition to leaving the muzzle in the most linear and concentric application of every principle of thermo dynamic output.

While I certainly am not overly concerned about back thrust as a function of inter alia braking effectiveness by the case walls my own interest is more focused on bullet behaviour from the muzzle and into the animal than internal and intermediate ballistics. My son is the design physicist and structural engineer and I test my mere understanding of these latter principles with him and therefore I can not speak with authority on case design. My backwards thinking regarding my bushbuck rifle shows that - having started with exactly what I want to happen at the 50 yards target of THAT particular construction - and thinking backwards until I reached the combustion chamber, but then I did not know how to design that, and that was what the forum did for me.

 

[MusgraveMan]

Elk.H., the Colorado stuff is virtually all boxed and no empty Swiss case was found lying around. The Frenchie request is being attended to in Nebraska, no response yet.

 

[MusgraveMan]

My shots will have to be 40yds or less, so that all the dirty work is hidden by the large thick willow bank bordering his property. I'm hoping it will absorb some of the sound too. If the neighbors weren't a problem, I would just use my bow, but then I would surely have critters dying right next to houses and in the roads...lol.

Many years ago I was involved in some impala culling in fairly dense Savannah with open patches. We did a lot of experimenting with barrels and calibres and in the end we used a Uzzi barrel with a lock-up breech, shooting 9mm Luger 147gr pure lead cast bullets through a silencer, at night from atop a Toyota Landcruiser truck like the one in my photos in the Africa section. Brain shots at 30-40 yards. That was when we also learned that all animals reacted exactly the same to light, whether it is bright white or filtered red or yellow or green or blue from a hand held spotlight. The actual Lumen intensity had more effect than the colour. The red was used because it allowed shorter time for the shooters' eyes to re-adapt to darkness.

 

[MusgraveMan]

Elkhamr, like with some other military brass the free market principle of demand precipitating supply clearly ensured that there certainly is no reason why even the most negatively oriented wildcatter soul should feel any compulsive obligation to avoid the excellent Swiss cartridge. Depending the thickness of the front end material of the commercial brass the case design lends itself well to become a launch pad for a 9.3mm heavy bullet - either for a full length, full power bear killer or a shortened mildcat.

I am sure that expert advice will be added to the discussion so that, like my own quest for a 250gr projectile at 1,800 ft/sec, the interest and help by real experts like Crooked Creek, MikeG and others, your planned process will be systematised into one coherent body of knowledge too - which will have edification value for those interested in using the lesser known European cartridges - either as a base for modification or simply as they are - and possibly even educational value for others not directly interested in the subject matter but still experiencing a desire to learn even if it is not by conscious choice .

A while ago I had the privilege to view a matched set of three very pleasantly done Mauser '98 rifles chambered for the 7x64 Brenneke, 8x64 and 9.3x64. These are old, high pressure German chamberings that clearly indicate the value of enlarging the case mouth of any .30" and larger - particularly when the water volume is above 60gr. The 9.3x64 is an exact match of the .375 H&H with the same bullet weight.

It surely is a satisfying sight to drive through Switzerland and see school boys on their bicycles pedalling to the shooting ranges with their K-31 carbines slung over their backs. Marksmanship is part of the school curriculum.