Were you under the illusion that muzzle velocity is retained forever and projectiles never slow?

With your 35yrs of "experience",what might you have settled upon as your favorite load in your 338Ultra?.......................

("were" not where)

[ 03-07-2003, 01:26: Message edited by: Big Stick ]

Don,

Elaborate for me please,how,when and where the '06 matches the 300Winny. The '06 sucks hind tit,from start to finish,all performance advantages go to the Winny.

You made a secondhand comment that touches upon nothing. The '06 starts as an '06 and ends up an '06. The Winny starts with more and retains more to the finish line,assuming like projectiles in each.

You ducked the Ultra question nicely,but it's obvious you have never played with one,let alone hammered a critter with it. That's why so much smoke comes out your ass and the grasping of straws is your bread and butter.

If that is "fun",you certainly have your fair share of it................

What seems weird to me about this thread is the fact that a 25-06 or 257 rob would react better to being improved then a 280 or 7x57. It seems logical that a case close to "over bore" capacity, like a 25-06, would react much less than say a 35 Whelan.

Is it the ratio of increased powder capacity to bullet weight that is behind this? I would think the increase in capacity would be close to the same for all cartridges with the same parent case. I guess 4gr of powder will have more effect on a 100gr bullet than a 250gr bullet.

This is my take on this, probably a waste of time and money to improve a currently owned gun but a might be a good idea to build an imp from scratch.

James

My take on the velocities and pressures reported from so called improved cartridges is that they lack any scientific effort.

The increase in capacity in most cartridges is very small. It's not worth it in terms of performance but may be for some in terms of having something to talk about or to have a leg up. I fell for the improved baloney too and I have a few of those chamberings.

You make a point about buying a new barrel and having it chambered for an improved cartridge. This may have been a better idea years ago and I did it when I got the Douglas barrel for my .375 Improved. There is so much overlap today in cartridges and now that the short mags are out we have more choices than ever.

As I say, I wish I did not have these chambers but it's no big deal.

The only one that I would bother with is the .22 K-Hornet. The others are just make work for smiths and not that much work either. The inventor of the improved cartridge went to work for Lyman/Ideal for the paycheck.

Deke

One point in your note I think bears a response, since this is a reloading forum. Brass gets harder as it is fired, not softer. It is not annealed in the process, since it never gets anywhere near hot enough. Granted the flame temperature is high, but heat transfer is limited by time and temperature is limited by the heat sink of the barrel/bolt. Shoot a high intensity round, pull it as fast as possible, and the temperature of the case will be way too cool to the touch to anneal brass. Annealing takes a temperature in the 500 degree range, followed by an instant quench. Slower cooling will induce hardness, even if you could achieve that temperature. Brass responds exactly the opposite of steel. This is because steel hardening is a crystaline change while brass undergoes some chemical redistribution. The dominant change to the brass is work hardening due to the expansion/contraction cycle of firing/sizing. It mostly happens on the first cycle, if the deformation is significant. I recently found a box of 6x284 rounds I loaded about 5 years ago. I had formed the cases and loaded without annealing. I know they were perfect when loaded because they were neck turned. When I found them, over half the necks were split. The rest split on firing. I have never had a split neck on an annealed case.

Art S.,

Gonna respect, but not fully agree. You apparently know more than me when it comes to annealing, but that was more of a sidenote to try to explain the real issue which was primer pocket stretching (not on the first few firing, but on the 4+ firings for loads that are not excessively high pressure). I will again point out that others more experienced than me (Rocky Gibbs, etc) also encountered this, but were unable to explain it.

Deke.