500 Jeffery based wildcats

[Swamplord]

Hello all, hope everyone had a great Christmas and had some quality time with family !

Finally managed to get a few hours and conduct a test I have been itching to do and as promised earlier, report my results here .

This water case capacity test involves the 375 Mjolnir cartridge only
The test consisted of 20 Jamison 500 Jeffery cases fireformed (once fired) in the chamber ..

I full length sized the cases and trimmed them all to minimum length, primed each case with Federal 215 mag primers.... I wanted the water reading to show the capacity of a case ready for loading and not a fired case fully expanded in chamber !

I placed a case on my Dillon scale, zeroed it out then filled the case with water flush to the top of the neck, wrote down the reading and dumped the water out and refilled with water and weighed again, repeated that process 5 times to get a consistent reading .

I zeroed the scale out on each dry case before filling with water , this process was done with all 20 cases with the utmost care to get a consistent and accurate reading .

Out of the 20 cases weighed 5x's each, the scale showed 140.8 gr of water almost every time with several readings of 140.6 gr and a few at 141.0 gr..

I am calling case water capacity at 140.8 gr !!

Now my earlier case capacity report of 147.8 gr was an estimate by Quick Design !
The Ammo Guide estimate shows capacity at 132.9 gr .

My test shows the water capacity right in the middle of those estimates, not knocking or dismissing those estimates but reporting my findings ..

If someone has a more accurate way of determining case water capacity , Please inform me and I can try again !

As alway, any comments or questions are welcome !

Happy New Year !

 

[Kiwi Greg]

Very interesting wildcats you have developed

The 375 will go extremely well with the lighter Cutting Edge bullets

Those rifle bags from Brian looked great.

 

[Swamplord]

My new wildcat projects have become reality as I have completed crunching numbers and reamers have been ordered !

I have named the cartridge the ".375 EXECUTIONER"
and yes a .338 is in the works at the same time !

338 Lapua and 378 WBY sized boltface actions are the target for this cartridge
Case capacity is 14.2 gr more than my .375 Mjolnir, ( Quick design estimate shows 162 gr, I subtracted 7 gr due to results with the 375 Mjolnir)
making it a 155 gr capacity case in a 338 Lapua sized casehead cartridge

I believe this cartridge has the max capacity in a 338 Lapua boltface case .

more info soon !

here is a Quick Design image with my dimensions plugged in ..

 

[Sling]

I believe the 338 version will be the best of the bunch. Custom action makers usually use 1.125" threads for the 338 Lapua size cartridges & 1.187" for Cheytac cartridges, I see no problem opening up the 338 Lapua chamber to your 338 Wolverine in a 1.125" tenon. The Cheytac action boltface won`t work of course but would be stronger since tenon size is even bigger. With the popularity of the 375 Cheytac with heavy per caliber projectiles, it will probably be a better choice since powder capacity is a bit more. It looks like the 500 Jeffery Jamison brass has a thicker head than the Bertram 500 Jeffery or the 500 AHR. I talked to Marc Jamison and he said all of his rifle brass is made to handle 70,000psi.

 

[Swamplord]

Just got my final part completed and installed (custom 40 moa base)
on my "Alaskan Beast" rifle chambered in my wildcat 338 Wolverine
all that's left is to Cerakote barreled action

will be loading some fire forming rnds this week and once I get a handful of fired cases, will send to Whidden to make a set of precision micrometer reloading dies...,

once dies are in my possesion I will test a handful of select powders and bullets, will post results here on this thread !

I use Jamison brass for all my 375 Mjolnir loads and will incorporate Norma brass for all my 338 Wolverine loads in order to identify by different case head brand .

Rifle specs...

Sako M995 action (Sako TRG-S donor)
blueprinted/accurized & trigger tuned to 2lbs
KRG Whiskey 3 Gen. 4 folding chassis, takes 5 rnd AICS cip mags
33" 9.5 twist 5R fluted Sendero contour Benchmark barrel
Benchmark "Muscle" Brake
custom made to fit Sako M995 40 moa stainless picatinny base
Nightforce 34mm ultra light rings
Nightforce ATACR 34mm 5-25X56mm rifle scope
16 lbs total as described above including 1 empty 5 rnd mag, (with Harris bi-pod 17 lbs)
+ extra 31" 9.3 twist 5R fluted Rem Varmint contour Bartlein bbl with Defensive Edge style muzzle brake machined into the extra inch of bbl

extra long rifle case from Brian at Shoot Long

here are some pics I took on Sunday afternoon (2-9-2014) at the south end of Kenai Lake at the mouth of the Snow River, (forgot to put in an AICS cip 5 round mag)

 

[Swamplord]

.................,

 

[Msimmons408]

nice rifle...im curious about quick design and quick load..i just bought it and unfortunately the chambering part of it is kicking my butt.any help would be outstanding

 

[Jud96]

Just got my final part completed and installed (custom 40 moa base)
on my "Alaskan Beast" rifle chambered in my wildcat 338 Wolverine
all that's left is to Cerakote barreled action

will be loading some fire forming rnds this week and once I get a handful of fired cases, will send to Whidden to make a set of precision micrometer reloading dies...,

once dies are in my possesion I will test a handful of select powders and bullets, will post results here on this thread !

I use Jamison brass for all my 375 Mjolnir loads and will incorporate Norma brass for all my 338 Wolverine loads in order to identify by different case head brand .

Rifle specs...

Sako M995 action (Sako TRG-S donor)
blueprinted/accurized & trigger tuned to 2lbs
KRG Whiskey 3 Gen. 4 folding chassis, takes 5 rnd AICS cip mags
33" 9.5 twist 5R fluted Sendero contour Benchmark barrel
Benchmark "Muscle" Brake
custom made to fit Sako M995 40 moa stainless picatinny base
Nightforce 34mm ultra light rings
Nightforce ATACR 34mm 5-25X56mm rifle scope
16 lbs total as described above including 1 empty 5 rnd mag, (with Harris bi-pod 17 lbs)
+ extra 31" 9.3 twist 5R fluted Rem Varmint contour Bartlein bbl with Defensive Edge style muzzle brake machined into the extra inch of bbl

extra long rifle case from Brian at Shoot Long

here are some pics I took on Sunday afternoon (2-9-2014) at the south end of Kenai Lake at the mouth of the Snow River, (forgot to put in an AICS cip 5 round mag)

What does a rifle of that magnitude cost?

 

[MudRunner2005]

What does a rifle of that magnitude cost?

In the words of Barry Badrinath... "If you have to ask big man...You can't afford it."

 

[Jud96]

In the words of Barry Badrinath... "If you have to ask big man...You can't afford it."

Hahaha yeah I just stumbled across this thread and saw these rifles and they looked decked out to the max.

 

[Swamplord]

I can't even bring a $ # to that rifle without adding all the parts and labor seperately, had 6 builds going at the same time with parts showing up at different times,
4 years is a long time to build a rifle but allows to provide funds without impacting the wallet in one shot, a nearly impossible feat with 6 rifles going !

Now with the rifles completed, factory made brass is the next obvious step and I have started the process....

Captech International (Jamison Brass) has been contacted and there may be potential there but not certain yet, need to continue coms with them, interested shooters can contact them and help bolster their attention to this project .....

My recent communication with Bruce Bertram was very encouraging as he agreed to produce brass for the 375 Mjolnir and the 338 Wolverine, the problem is the production run has to be sizable in order for him to do it,

I will find out what the minimum order is and if anyone is interested in factory ready, properly headstamped brass for the Mjolnir and Wolverine .... please let me know here and we will proceed from there ....

*** Note *** if there is an interested party willing to provide the financial backing to produce the run of brass, please contact me by pm to work out the details, I am sure we can come up with something ....

 

[Sling]

I'm interested in the wolverine. Let me know
When factory brass is available.

 

[Swamplord]

I'm interested in the wolverine. Let me know
When factory brass is available.

At this point I an offering the opportunity to interested shooters on acquiring this brass at cost in order to generate the minimum required by Bertram to make a batch, this will be your brass to do with as you please, My personal order will not be up for resale ..... It would be nice to have properly headstamped formed brass for all of them but if I don't meet the minimum needed for each then I will get just the 338 Wolverine which will be easily necked up to 375 and down to 308 cals in one pass ... the 416 Grizzly is not an issue as it is simple to neck down form the 500 Jeffery case ..

I am expecting a response from Bertram on minimum needed and them moving forward with whatever is on the table to expedite manufacture .....
This will be a one time run this year due to Bertrams workload and commitment to current orders,

If I get assisstance with financial backing for a large run of brass for these cases, then it will be offered at retail per bag of 100 pcs...

 

[Swamplord]

Bruce Bertram got back to me and his minimum production run is 10,000 pcs of brass !
basically $30k ($3.00 a pc)
this is less than half price of Bertram 500 Jeffery brass at Midway.....

this will be properly formed & headstamped brass, no custom case forming dies, necking down and fireforming, load and shoot at less than half the cost of the parent case ..... can be legally used in countries requiring headstamp match the chamber in rifle .....
if we get enough guys to jump on board or someone willing to finance this production run we can get this going .....