My new 300 Warlock

[mountainman56]

(My beautiful bride picked the name) .....Like there's any need for another 30 calibre wildcat, although it's basically just a hybrid. Couldn't help myself, been thinking about this for a long time and finally went ahead and ordered the reamer. Nothing fancy, just a 30 Nosler – 300 PRC cross. I wanted the tight tolerances associated with the PRC and the powder capacity and cartridge length of the Nosler. I'm having it throated specifically for 225 ELDM's with which I have had great luck.

I thought about maybe something a little longer but I already have an Ultra Mag. It will always be faster but it will also always be more inefficient. I do shoot the 225 ELDM's and 230 Bergers in it very successfully but it's single shot only when loaded as long as required and I had a hankerin for a magazine fed chassis. I actually thought about building an ultra mag with a short throat but it seems to me, if you're going to stick the bullet down in the powder column the brass might just as well be shorter.

 

[highdrum]

So it's a 30 nosler w/ minor changes to neck/freebore/leade or what? Idk how you make a nosler prc cross. They only similarities they have are case head diameter, neck length and caliber.

 

[mountainman56]

The neck and throat diameter on the Precision Rifle Cartridge are cut to much closer tolerances which, all other things being equal, help with accuracy The throat diameter has only .0004 clearance around the bullet which helps keep the bullet started straight in the bore. The PRC is also designed with a longer throat from the factory to allow for long seating of the heavier high BC bullets. There is certainly nothing new to re-throating the 30 Nosler but I took it a little further to .235 to allow seating of all but the boat tail of the 225 ELDM above the shoulder and out of the powder column. So, it's a 30 Nosler reamer with neck and throat diameter of a 300 PRC and throated long...........nothing special. I will have to turn the neck diameter on all my brass for consistency and to ensure proper clearance but I mostly do that anyway. It's more than likely it won't shoot anything lighter than 200 grains well but I have other rifles for that. Basically it was just something I wanted to try.

I'm a fan of both cartridges.......hoping to get away with just having one

 

[mountainman56]

I put these dummy rounds together this morning to show my friend what I was talking about. Even at 3.7" these won't fit in a standard magazine but they will certainly fit in a Wyatts. You can easily see how far down in the powder column the 225 ELDM winds up the RUM, even loaded longer than the manual suggests.

 

[mountainman56]

Finally got to shoot it. Less than ideal conditions with 20mph wind and spitting rain but finished the rifle last night so I couldn't stand it. The wind was mostly out of my 6 so it wasn't too bad. The numbers are load numbers and not the actual order in which they were fired.

The first group out of the new barrel did rather poorly so there is no picture. This is not unusual and not fair to the 215 Bergers I shot it with. There was a load @2 with 200 ELDX that also did rather poorly.
#1 was with 225 ELDM Hornadys and 8133. After this group I stopped cleaning after every round. As you can see the last 2 went in the same hole.
#3 was with 196 grain Hammer Hunters and 8133, also 2 in the same hole. No telling what it could do with a better pilot.
#5 was with 212 grain ELDX and RL-26
#6 was with 181 grain Hammer Hunters and H-1000 loaded a little on the hot side. Had ejector marks and slightly stiff bolt lift.

Unfortunately it was too windy to set up the chronograph but I'm very pleased so far