Just Playing

 

The ballistics modeling, cartridge design, and trajectory software is available from Ed Dillon at neconos. com.
Yes, I know the cartridge picture gives an OAL of 2.6” even though I calculated the internal ballistics using 2.83” OAL. Given a good tight parallel throat, an extra 2 tenths of freebore won’t make any real difference. Seating the bullet deeper will raise your pressures quite a lot though.

1. Yes gunnies, I designed the “Ackley” version too, with a 40° shoulder and minimal body taper. It gets you an extra 50fps or so with maximum loads and full length barrels, and the case holds 3-5 grains more powder, but what it does the most is create enough turbulence inside the case to ensure a more complete powder burn at any pressure level. A full charge of IMR 3031 will burn up in the 9.3 Indiana Ackley with a barrel as short as 16”, though such a short tube will cost you 100fps or more in velocity. So mostly the Ackley version lessens muzzle flash, which really isn’t an issue for sporting firearms. The deer won’t notice.

   P.O. Ackley was 3 generations ahead of his time; the recent crop of WSSM cartridges prove that he was right all along. And the WSSMs give you the PPC-like accuracy advantages that come from short wide cases. Given the 1.8” case length and the .553” diameter, this cartridge I dreamed up falls with that PPC realm, so it ought to be superbly accurate to boot.

   For bolt guns, you could gin up your own 9.3 Indiana, regular or Ackley, based on the .270 WSSM case. That case is a hair fatter at .555”, and you could run your creation at magnum pressures (65K psi) for even greater performance.  Necking the case down a bit further to .358” will let you use easily available 35 caliber bullets, and you’ll get higher velocities and better BC from the same bullet weight to boot: 2675fps, 4000lb/ft muzzle energy. Use a .308 length action for that one.

   Indiana has no clue what they’ve wrought.

   Posted by Drew458       11/17/2011  at  11:23 AM  



2. Or you could just beat your legislature over their mushy lil’ heads until they wake up and stop trying to regulate us to death. Most of their efforts have nothing to do with safety and everything to do with control of us serfs.  Washington State finally threw in the “Hunting Rifle” towel and changed the big game reg’s to include any gun with a minimum 4” barrel length and minimum bore diameter of 6mm (.243").  That makes my Taurus .38 revolver a legal deer gun as is a .460 Weatherby.  I don’t consider either of ‘em to be SUITABLE, but both are legal and I’m left to decide what gun in what caliber to use.  As it happens, the area I hunt is so thick with brush and so infested with itty bitty lil’ deerlets about the size of a bull mastiff that the best rifle/cartrige combo I’ve found is an M1 Carbine loaded with 130 gr. wheelweight metal bullets loaded to about 1900-2000 fps.  Long shots are 30-60 feet.  Not yards, feet.  I like to use a 5 rd. mag, as it makes the little rifle easier to handle.

   Posted by Gerry N       11/17/2011  at  07:11 PM  



3. SSHHHHHHH!!!!!! Don’t let them know about diameters!!!

   Posted by harleycowboy58       11/18/2011  at  08:58 AM  



4. 30 FEET? Horry clap, you guys must have the same kind of deer overpopulation we do here in NJ.

   In NJ the best weapon for deer hunting seems to be a pickup truck.

   I agree that the gov should but out, but I could see some sort of min/max rules. Something like “a centerfire cartridge using at least .243” diameter bullets, with a muzzle velocity sufficient to allow a calculated minimum impact energy of 1500lb/ft at a distance of 100 yards and a maximum impact energy of 2500lb/ft at 200 yards. Projectiles must be expanding or capable of creating a 18” deep hole in ballistic gelatin of at least .450” in diameter at a distance of 50 feet, and must not be of the full metal jacket type.” That would keep the pea shooters, the elephant guns, the military surplus FMJ ammo, and the 1200 yard “sniper rifles” out of the game, but would allow large diameter hard cast bullets. My numbers are hypothetical; I’d base the real ones on what a factory .30-30 175gr or a 12 gauge 1.25oz slug can do as minimums, and figure out a max somehow. You could use your heavy rifles, but they’d have to use a very blunt bullet to slow them down quickly to make the 200 yard max energy spec. I guess game wardens would have to be able to issue tickets and bag questionable ammo for later range testing, so you’d want a rule along the lines that hunters would have to carry at least 7 rounds with them, whether those are in the gun or not. You would not need to create a list of every possible cartridge and bullet allowed, just fine the daylights out of hunters using suspected ammo that turns out to be out of spec; $20 per lb/ft and $100 per 0.05” hole in the gelatin ought to do it just fine.

   My point is that good regulations could be worked out that make everyone happy. All it takes is a bit of cooperation between the law makers, hunters, etc. Then when you pass the law you tell everyone how the committee worked together to set ethical standards etc. That’s how government ought to work, when there is an actual need for government.

   Posted by Drew458       11/18/2011  at  09:19 AM  

Commenting is not available in this weblog entry.