quote:

Originally posted by white bison:
Here's your answer: The .255 Dean is a wildcat improvement on the .25-20 repeater cartridge. It was designed in 1941 by Harry Dean of Buffalo, N.Y.
This case has straight walls an abrupt but rounded shoulder and a short neck;and it holds 17 gr. of 4227 powder. The regular working load was 15-16 gr. of IMR 4227 behind the 60 gr. factory bullet with an expected velocity of 2500 fps. The .255 Dean rifle chamber will accept the standard .25-20
factory cartridges and reshapes them as they are fired. There was an article about this cartridge in the American Rifleman by Fred Ness, but I don't know what year..probably in the 1940's. If I can find it, I'll forward more info to you.
The only other source I can think of (I checked the others) is the Wildcat Cartridges Book published by Wolfe Publishing...the books are still around & can be found on Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble. Maybe Wolfe still sells them?
From a wildcatter point of view, the problem of this cartdidge would be to find how to chamber it? Unless, you found an original .255 Dean chambered rifle, then you're all set. Just fire form .25-20 cases in it. Otherwise, no one will have a .255 Dean reamer. A custom one could be made, but they'd need the dimensions of the case or a couple of fired .255 Dean cases.
Anyway, that's all I know about it...and only one valued book had info on it.
Aloha,
Tom