Hello from Indiana !

[Rifleman67]

I can't believe this website exists and is populated by interesting and knowledgeable gun nuts. I was looking for barrel manufacturers and opinions about their products and bumped into this website. There is so much information it will take forever to find what I need to know and what I don't even now know I need. I just got on here today and saw several posts from people I highly respect, all on the same website! This is a fascinating place to listen in on ideas knocked back and forth as understanding is achieved even if only by accident.
My name is Rifleman67 and I live in NW rural Indiana where life is slower and people generally have respect for one another's ways and good manners. I spent the first three weeks of June in SE Alaska from the town of Eagle (almost went all the way down that road but we figured we would be in the way if we couldn't help the flood-victims of this springs thaw) on the Taylor Highway down to Nabesna Road at the Wrangell-St. Elias nat'l park/preserve and then on to the Kennecott mine at the end of the McCarthy road. My brother and I found the people everywhere we went to be just as nice as the folks at home but more independently minded. I reckon that comes in handy during the long dark winters they endure.
I have some time on my hands nowadays for one reason or another and have gotten back into the various firearm disciplines as a means to keep my wits about me, to find solutions to interesting ballistic problems as they arise and as an all consuming distraction to personal grief for the time being as I live my life. This has worked well for me all year so I'm continuing to learn about all of the little intricacies of shooting projectiles from powder-based cartridge style weapons. I was a Combat Engineer for a stretch in the Marine Corps and most of my training started there although I've always had a burning need to know how things work and was an Automobile Mechanic for twenty years. I should have gotten an engineering degree like my father and oldest son did. (I know first hand that genius sometimes does skip a generation!)
Between my sons and myself we have quite a few older and newer guns, mostly rimfire and the smaller calibers in long guns, the traditional pump shotgun sizes and a few handguns which I prefer others to shoot if there is an audience. I like bolt action rifles and since they are not legal to shoot deer with in Indiana there is not a lot of support for or interest in here. To get to shoot on a 1000 yard range is a good two hour drive from here and there are hardly any people per acre! I recently had a .450 Rigby built for personal protection when I visit Alaska and had a great time figuring out what I needed if I had to stop an enraged large brown bear on the coastal areas and the inland grizzly bears. They are the same thing but one has more food sources and gets much bigger generally. I used to take my Remington 870 for that purpose then last year we went down to Kodiak Island and flew out to the Katmai Preserve and I saw large brown bears that would laugh at my little 12 gauge. These are beautiful animals and a rarity to encounter in an actual predatory charge but the danger is real even if I do everything I can to prevent it.
I based the rifle on a nice used CZ 550 in .416 Rigby because of the price, value and a new Aimpoint 9000L red-dot scope mounted in Maxima QD rings.
I had it rebarreled and worked on by Wayne Jacobson of American Hunting Rifles in Corvallis, Montana and he did a fine job. I had him inlet the fore end of the stock and install a Picatinny rail to which I mounted a Surefire X400 with a tape switch on the right side of the stock where my left hand fingers naturally grip so I would be able to back up the Aimpoint and not spend a fortune doing it. Yes, it is not a traditional looking rifle but that is not what I was after and yes, it does offer a brisk recoil but I have a certain inborn tolerance for recoil that defies any logic I might lay claim to. I will test that ability more as I get set up to reload these cartridges and am able to find safe limits for the internal ballistics using, I might add, information I am finding on this website. If I have enough resources(money) I will try to put together a list of potential starting points to reload this cartridge as it is not supported by the manufacturer and there seems to be very little information out there. I feel it is a great cartridge and offers many component selections along with longer life for the cases and barrel even though it is almost identical in performance with the .460 Weatherby which also is based on the .416 Rigby case. It is regulated by the European C.I.P. standards and is rated at over 58,000 p.s.i. which isn't far enough behind the .460 Wby. to rate a raised eyebrow! Am I prejudiced just a little? Perhaps but I do like this thing.
I promise to participate in discussions if I can think of anything intelligent to say mostly via enquiry because I am not an expert on anything in this field and don't want to waste people's time. I'll see you later.

 

[justgoto]

Welcome!

When I first came here i read for days,,, actually I am still reading.

 

[pressman]

Welcome! it is nice to see some more Hoosiers on here.
You will find that this site has a lot to offer and the people here are outstanding
in knowledge and willingness to help. They are also some of the best smiths on here in the world.

 

[Rifleman67]

Re: Hello from Indiana!

To justtogo and pressman, thanks for the welcome aboard! I don't have much experience with forums outside of reading threads regarding interesting subjects. This one is different because I need information and if I can't find it I will ask a question in a new thread. I really don't even know how to use the compositon tools for these posts and those smile icons are strange to me. I will learn over time, however. Thanks again.

 

[esshup]

Rifleman67:

Welcome! I spent weeks reading when I first found this place. LOTS of interesting stuff.

What city/town are you near? There are a few Hoosiers here, but not many!

You can use bolt action rifles for deer here, you just have to follow the rules for cartridge/bullet size.

 

[Rifleman67]

esshup:
Thanks for saying hello! I am living in a small town of about twenty families called Tefft which is four miles east of a slightly larger town by the name of Wheatfield. We are twenty-five miles south south-east of the small city of Valparaiso and probably sixty miles southeast of Chicago as the crow flies but on the other side of the planet culturally. I was born in a small town called Winchester which is about twenty-five miles north of Richmond and both near or on the Ohio state line straight east of Indianapolis. I have lived about half my life in the Hoosier state but consider it my home and most of my relatives have lived here since the 1870's. My nuclear family is one of the few that did not stay in farming but that is one tough business and has really changed over my lifetime.
I also have relatives in Fort Wayne, Indianapolis, Portland and towns that are harder to find on a map than mine. I would have listed it but have not figured out how to use the personal profile yet. There are seemingly more options there than features on a Cadillac. Are you near me or any of the more populated areas?
I was not aware the state allowed capable calibers in rifles for hunting deer. In the last couple of years they have opened up the handgun cartridge list and rifles chambered for them but I usually let the kids do the hunting nowadays. They use shotguns mainly but also bag game with bow and arrows as well as the black powder long guns. It's funny to see how proud my niece was the last time she took a deer with her 870, I didn't even know she hunted! I spent fourteen years growing up in Pennsylvania and the first day of deer season no one went to school for the first two days every year from first grade through the middle of high school when I guess there were more important matters to attend to. Out there the deer are much bigger and plentiful with no limits on rifles but no flat land either.
Anyway, glad to make your acquaintance, esshup.

 

[esshup]

Rifleman67:

Good morning!

You really aren't that far from me. I'm roughly 30 miles due East of Valpo., approx. 2 miles North of Rt. 30, and 12 miles West of Plymouth.

The specs for centerfire rifles for deer require a caliber of .357 or larger, brass maximum length of 1.625". To my knowledge, when the law was put into effect, there was no stipulation that it be a straight walled cartridge. So, if you could get a short, fat bottleneck to feed, anything goes. If someone wanted to use a single shot, the options are easier.

The easiest way to get close to a 300 Yd bolt action rifle would be to take a .25 WSSM trim it back to 1.600" to give yourself a bit of room to grow, and open up the neck to .357/.358. There are other cases that are bigger diameter, but getting them to reliably feed and to get them short enough to comply with the law would take a lot more work.

I really wanted to see if I could get a .408 Chey-Tac case to work, but I've more pressing projects at this time.

 

[Rifleman67]

Howdy eeshup and good morning to you also.
I think you are on the right track with the .25 WSSM and could probably cut .050 off the neck, size it up to .357 or whatever you wished (within reason) and still have enough tension to control the bullet (with a properly placed cannelure and roll crimp, of course). This would be a short neck but as with the .300 Win Mag it might work fine. You would not lose much, if any, case capacity and no special dies would have to be made. You'd have to full size the case without touching the neck as a separate operation but this might work out better overall. It would get tricky if the neck isn't long enough.
I know your bullet selection in semi-wadcutters would be very good but you might consider .30 caliber in a light weight as an alternative also. I like the fact that a wide variety of long guns are available for this wildcat with a rebarreling the only real drawback.
The .408CT/.505Gibbs presents a different set of problems because you would basically be cutting the case in half and the wall thickness would have to be turned down before neck and shoulder forming could take place and you would have to anneal the neck/shoulder if you wanted a safe and reusable case. Because of the increased wall thickness below the shoulder the powder capacity might be less than your .357 eeshup wildcat but it would definitely take high pressure. The biggest drawback I see with using the .408CT/.505Gibbs case is the size of the large bolt face and the gunsmith charges inherent in making it a short action plus the rebarreling. There would also be a high cost for cartridges and custom dies. Not to rain on your parade but I would go with the .357 eeshup for reasons of economy and performance. I think it might be just the ticket for putting meat in the freezer and a great idea on your part. If you want more info on what you can do with a radical reforming of the .408CT/.505Gibbs I would try to get ahold of JD Jones and ask him what he thinks because he has the experience of creating off the wall cases (like necking the 20mm to .50 caliber and building a 95 pound rifle to use it!).
You are very close to me where you live. Are there any long distance ranges in your area or do you have to hope that wind-reading is not as hard to do as everyone says it is. My local range has 25yard to 200yard courses and strict rules and short usage times. They are open from 7AM to 4PM my time or dawn to dusk (whichever is shorter) because they use Eastern Standard Time and I am in the Central Standard Time zone. 4PM doesn't make much sense this time of year when there is another five hours of usable light to shoot with. I know, waaah.
Thanks for letting me in on a solution to the rifle taking deer in Indiana problem. I hadn't even considered this at all. I have two brother-in-laws who are going to get really excited when I tell them what you've come up with.
Thanks, eeshup, I'll see you later.

 

[Rifleman67]

eeshup,
I just noticed your comment about the .35 caliber minimum caliber so forget
what I said about .30 caliber alternatives.