At the Dallas show this weekend, I bought an old Army & Navy magazine rifle in .242 Rimless N.E. I know that in "Cartridges of the World" it states that this round is mostly obsolete; it also says the barrel is .248-.249 bore. Can anyone help with (1) how to obtain or make brass for the gun, and (2) who can make or swage bullets in this diameter ? Thanks for any help; this old rifle is nice. (I'll slug the barrel to prove the actual bore diameter, but expect it will be .248-.249). Thanks again.

Frank,

Wow ... yet another unusual beasty. You really are somethin' else!!!! Just amazing.

Is is worth spending a lot of maonies on this project? Cost of brass,having the mold made,having the dies made. I would find another project,its up to you. van

ok....I'll confess my ignorance on this.....is this the old 6mm Lee Navy?

Case head is .465 dia.
Case length 2.38
OAL 3.20
Shoulder dia .405
Bullet .249

You are going to need some custom bullets.

If you have a lot of loading dies you might be able to load it using a mix of dies for other calibers.

Vapodog: No, not the old 6mm Lee Navy

ireload2: I have many calibers of dies; any ideas on progressing thru the steps needed to form brass ? Thanks.

What I think I would do to determine if a newer case can be made into the cartridge is have a chamber cast made. Then you can work from there.
Paul B.

you should be able to make them from 7x64 Brenneke.

The bullets will probably need to be custom.

I'd do a chamber cast and slug the barrel before anything else.

Bill

Midway is selling off their 240 NE brass. Is this the same cartridge?

Hello Frank Beller,
I noticed by the comment that mstarling made " WOW another" that you probably pick up more than a few of the unusual calibers, and if they are not shot often you might want to just have the ammo custom made. On the other hand should you decide to fall in love with this rascal, banzaibird is correct stating the 7X64 Brenneke brass will work fine. You will however have to have a set of dies from RCBS etc made up, and if you can live with the lower velocities, NEI (and others*) will make you up a mould, sizer and punch*. Should you wish to have jacketed bullets for this puppy (depending on how in love you are) they can be made but are expensive!! As far as the .240NE mentioned by Wink it won't work, if it is the .240 Flanged NE it is a rimmed cartridge and the other .240 NE is belted (could work by removing the belt etc but???). Good luck whatever you decide and God bless. cordell BTW---Any chance of seeing a picture of this fine rifle?? The old Army/Navy rifles are getting hard to find

I understand the folks at Quality Cartridge will make any brass you want. You might want to contact them for your unusual calibers:

http://www.qual-cart.com/

Do you have Howell's book on forming wildcats from different cartridges? It sure has a lot of different wildcats in it.
Butch

Hawk will make custom diameter bullets, but these are a low speed design. G.S. Custom might be able to make all copper (Barnes X style) bullets for you as well. Wildcat is capable of making you some bonded bullets, but I don't know if he wants to venture into odd diameters. None of these will be cheap. If you have more patience than money to burn, you could try paper patching .243 bullets, but the difference between bullet and bore diameters is not ideal for patching.

the case is a 25-06 shortened to 2.380" and necked to take a .249" diameter bullet, which can be hand swaged down from 25 caliber bullets. With a set of 6mm Rem dies it would be easy to form and then make a tapered expander to go up to .249". You should be able to load using 6Rem dies.

Rich
DRSS

Hello Frank,
Just returned from a PM with Idaho Sharpshooter and if your chamber is forgiving by say .025, the 25-06 may work. IS recommends running the 25-06 into a 6mm sizer and trimming to 2.380. If you have a 6mm die set I have some 25-06 brass I can send you to play around with, although the 7X64 Brenneke would eliminate this process I am sure 25-06 would be cheaper at least during the initial case constructing stages. If you could do a chamber cast when you slug the bore it would help in determining how much you have to play with as far as tolerances are concerned. I also probably have a spare RCBS .30 cal. expander/decaper I could send you. Two minutes with a drill and file and your at .249 (this was also IS's idea). Well Frank at this point we don't know if you are going to have these custom made or mess with them yourself so the balls in your court. Let us know if we can be of any help, and if you decide you want the brass and expander drop me a PM and I will get them off to you ASAP. Take care and God bless. cordell

Thanks for all the great input & ideas. I have spoken to the folks at Hawk bullets, and they're very cooperative, and are researching what they can do to make me some bullets. Also, the owner of Huntington's reloading (who I think started RCBS) says that when he was at RCBS, he used to manufacture dies for my caliber, and is contacting RCBS in my behalf and telling those folks what they need to make some custom dies for the .242 Rimless. As a side note, when talking to Hawk bullet company, I learned that they had made & had in stock custom bullets for another rifle that I have, but didn't have the proper bullets (.240 Apex H&H magazine rifle), so they're sending me some of those bullets (.245 caliber). cordell: I really appreciate your offer, but I'll hold off for now, because I think I may be able to purchase the correct brass from the cartridge company in Maryland that was mentioned above. Again, thanks for all the help - this AR site is REALLY a good source for information. I'll keep everyone updated.