Some of you may have noticed that I sold the Model 94 Winchester that had allegedly been rebored and rechambered to .35-30 by Parker Ackley.
Well, the new owner was puzzled after he fired a couple of loads through it and found the case had "changed shape." For some reason I had missed this with the handloads I had fired through the rifle, so I was quite chagrined and offered to buy it back in order to sort out the mystery. Well, mystery solved, and I should have realized what I had before I let it go. It was chambered to .35-30 Ackley Improved, with the shoulder moved forward and set to 40 degrees -- pure P.O. magic! Dave Manson sent me reamer prints of the standard .35-30 and the .35-30 Ackley Improved and the dimensions match.
I think what threw me off was that the rifle came with four boxes of old handloads, many with split necks, in the original .35-30 configuration. I pulled the bullets from three of those boxes and forgot about the fourth. I just found that fourth box, and lo and behold, those cartridges are loaded with fireformed brass and Winchester Power Points. The other three boxes were loaded with Remington CoreLokts.
See what I mean: top is a necked-up .30-30 case with NOE 230-grain boolit, and below is a fireformed handload with the Winchester bullet.
I should have known Parker Ackley would not miss an opportunity to very easily boost performance of even our earliest wildcat.
Of course, now I kick myself for not having measured case capacity and chronographed the Ackley cartridge. I would not be surprised if it actually exceeds .35 Remington performance. Has anyone here every heard of the .35-30 Ackley? If so, please do tell!

Hey Bill: did you get the gun back?

George