What wildcat is this (35 WCF parent)

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coyote nose
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What wildcat is this (35 WCF parent)

Post by coyote nose »

35wcf.JPG
The tall round is a standard 35 WCF that was typical for the 95 Winchester. The shorter round is a 35 WCF case but besides being shorter it also seems to have a sharper shoulder. Bullet is still the 35 WCF bullet. Any idea as to what this obvious wildcat is called? Picked it up for 50 cents in a guys junk box at a gun show.
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earlmck
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Re: What wildcat is this (35 WCF parent)

Post by earlmck »

No clue here. I thought it might be a 9X?? for a European rifle that somebody made from the 35 WCF, but Nonte doesn't show anything like that in his "Cartridge Conversions" book. That said, 9X?? European is still my guess until somebody that knows something comes along...
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Re: What wildcat is this (35 WCF parent)

Post by 765x53 »

356 Winchester? :?:
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Re: What wildcat is this (35 WCF parent)

Post by Sixgun »

Coyote Nose,
That is an intriguing cartridge to which it inspired me enough to go through my gun library.....no brag, I've got a HUGE library with probably 500 books.

Zero......as the 35 W. and the 405 have the same rim as the 30-40 Krag so I was thinking that maybe someone had a lot of 35 W. brass go use up but nothing on that either.

There are only two answers.....it's a wildcat that an individual made up for a specific rifle or it someone playing around on a boring Saturday night as I have several cartridges in my collection that I have no clue on. In fact, I've done it. I once put a 45 caliber bullet in a 30-06 case and told people...who did not know any better.....that it was my "special cartridge".

Most likely it was a small time gunsmith wth extra barrels laying around and probably a single shot of some sort and wanted a more efficient 35 caliber cartridge.....just for something to do. :D ----6
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J Miller
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Re: What wildcat is this (35 WCF parent)

Post by J Miller »

How about a 35-303 Brit?
The 303 Brit and the 30-40 Krag rims are close enough to make 303 Brit ammo out of 30-40 cases. The shoulder on the wildcat round really resembles a 303 Brit round.

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Re: What wildcat is this (35 WCF parent)

Post by Pete44ru »

.

Some of the candidates based on the .35WCF case would be the .35 Krag, the .35 Rimmed Magnum and the Elliott .357 Express.

.
Last edited by Pete44ru on Sun Jan 21, 2018 7:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: What wildcat is this (35 WCF parent)

Post by KWK »

How long is the brass case?

That it's cut from .35 WCF brass is a real puzzle. Were it a wildcat on cheap .303 brass, it would be odd to cut down the rarer and more expensive .35 WCF case.

There was a 9x57R that wasn't uncommon, but the bullet was a smidgen narrower and the base several smidgens wider.
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Re: What wildcat is this (35 WCF parent)

Post by Sixgun »

Remember...it's very possible that this oddball cartridge that CN has was made when the 35 wcf was readily available like today's .243. I still say it was a wildcat that some average joe ..l.with knowledge...made up.---6
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Re: What wildcat is this (35 WCF parent)

Post by GunnyMack »

Place to start looking is Cartridges of the World, it might be in there or it might not.
I believe Six is right and it's probably a wildcat and you/we may never know who what when and why it was made.

I suppose if you really wanted to know you could get all dimensions off the case, send that to a few of the die makers, maybe one company made dies and would have some info.
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Re: What wildcat is this (35 WCF parent)

Post by Bill in Oregon »

Couldn't find my .35 Winchester cases for comparison, but here is a .35/30 loaded with the Remington 200-grain softpoint.

Imagefullsizeoutput_ac2 by [url=https://www.flickr.com/photos/93930283@N08/]
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Re: What wildcat is this (35 WCF parent)

Post by coyote nose »

Thanks all. Its not in Cartridges of the World, I'll look into the possibilities you guys mentioned. The headstamp of the case is 35 WCF
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Re: What wildcat is this (35 WCF parent)

Post by KWK »

I believe it is indeed a 9x57R. Here are the European specs for it. From your photo, I scaled the dimensions of the .35 WCF to get the length to the mouth and the shoulder/neck junction, and these are close enough.

I'll go with 6's estimation it was made up when .35 WCF was readily available. Perhaps a serviceman brought back a German break open single shot after the war and wanted to reload it.

Back around WW-I, Whelen ranked the rimless variant highly for use in North America.
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Re: What wildcat is this (35 WCF parent)

Post by earlmck »

I think you nailed it KWK. But we may never know if it worked for the fellow who made it: the rim diameter and thickness of the 35 Win are just a scosh larger than the specs for the 9X57R, so it would need a little "slop" in tolerances of the 9mm chamber to allow the cartridge made from 35 WCF to work as is, or just a bit of lathe work on the 35 case which I don't see from the picture.

I went back to my Nonte book on cartridge conversions to see why he let me down by missing this conversion, and his advice for forming 9X57R was to use 8X57R brass and neck up: I'll bet 35WCF brass was scarce by the time Nonte wrote his book (1961).
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Re: What wildcat is this (35 WCF parent)

Post by KWK »

The CIP specs for the .35 WCF indicate the nominal rim thickness is .006 greater than in the 9x57R. However, SAAMI specs for, say, the .30-40 allow the rim to be up to .010 thinner than nominal. It might be the fellow found typical brass would indeed chamber at the rim, and depending on the action design, there might have been no problem with rim diameter either.
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Re: What wildcat is this (35 WCF parent)

Post by coyote nose »

Thanks again everybody. I got more measurements and also found a book I completely forgot I had: Donnelly, Cartridge Conversions. I cant find dimensions for .303-35 but will list my 303 British dimensions.
Here will be data for my cartridge, then 9X57R, then .358 JDJ, then 303 british:

Rim Dia: 0.524 0.528 0.511* 0.525
Base Dia: 0.451 0.471* 0.465* 0.450
length to shoulder: 1.80 1.82 1.80 1.80
case length: 2.22 2.24 2.23 2.22
(Cartridge length: 2.83 3.19 3.10 - )
shoulder dia: 0.430 0.431 0.451* 0.395*
Neck length: 0.340 0.356 0.325 0.340

Taking inaccuracies of measurement into account I have asterisked the dimension that "fails" to match my case. Cartridge length doesnt matter to me...I want to know what the case was made for.
Looks like 9X57R is the best match but 0.020" at the base is huge. 35-303 looks great too except for 0.035 difference at the shoulder.
As an aside I had a nice table laid out to present this but when I hit preview it got rid of all my carefully placed spaces between the numbers! Grrrrrrrr!!!
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Re: What wildcat is this (35 WCF parent)

Post by KWK »

To present a table, use the "code" option in the editing window. Its button looks like a </> and it gives:

Code: Select all

                     ??    9x57R   JDJ   .303

Rim Dia:            0.524  0.528  0.511* 0.525
Base Dia:           0.451  0.471* 0.465* 0.450
length to shoulder: 1.80   1.82   1.80   1.80
case length:        2.22   2.24   2.23   2.22
Cartridge length:   2.83   3.19   3.10    -
shoulder dia:       0.430  0.431  0.451* 0.395*
Neck length:        0.340  0.356  0.325  0.340
although you'll have to format the spacing using a plain text editor on your PC and paste the results in. Notepad will work if you select a fixed width font such as Courier. (On a Mac, TextEdit will do the same.)

The 9x57R is a medium pressure cartridge, at 40 ksi, and blowing out the lower part of the body by .02 probably won't hurt. Of course, it could indeed be a .35 on the .303 case. I don't know about the relative popularity of the .35 WCF and the .303 Brit over the years, if there was ever a time it was cheaper and simpler to work down the WCF instead of opening up the Brit.

If it is a 9x57R, the short COL seems suspicious, but the original load was 280 gr according to Whelen, and our intrepid case former may have had to make do with the 250 gr of the WCF.
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