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Small hotrod caliber cartridges

Right now, lot's of people are out there trying to find out just who Elmer and Jack were and why anyone would ask about them, lol.

Supercub.org. Educating the public in so many ways!

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Chris Goll had Elmer up at NW Outfitters in about 1983 or so. What a story teller......... He spun some pretty far fetched tales. One that sticks in my mind was whacking a bull elk at 900 yds with an old 45/70 and peep sight.....
 
Chris Goll had Elmer up at NW Outfitters in about 1983 or so. What a story teller......... He spun some pretty far fetched tales. One that sticks in my mind was whacking a bull elk at 900 yds with an old 45/70 and peep sight.....

Didn't you ever see the documentary "Quigley Down Under"?
Long shots like that with a 45/110 (as I recall) were the rule of the day.
 
I have been doing some research. I dont want to start another thread so im going to ask your opinions here on two points of view. One name or the other will suffice. Jack O'connor or Elmer Keith

I think Mr Keith favored a light caliber like his 334 OKH for shooting ground squirrels.
 
Didn't you ever see the documentary "Quigley Down Under"?
Long shots like that with a 45/110 (as I recall) were the rule of the day.

My neighbor shoots BPCR long range at 800 and 1,000 yards with a 45-70 with open peep style sights. He is deadly accurate with that rifle. He let me try and it was a lot less difficult than I imagined and a whole bunch of fun!
 
Well let me expound on the whole story......
This shot was soposed to have been performed with old
Elmer standing up in the bow of a canoe, offhand after he did a windcheck via a wetted finger. Dailed up his Lyman 21 sight hung off the side of an old fathful old1886 Winchester. It all sounded so great to all the chechocko's
standing there with their mouths open.......
( I think NOT; fair maiden) And I am firmilar, with the off horsesback legendary shot of BD, who actually claimed he borrowed a totally 'unfirmilar 50/90 Sharps rifle',(really ???) from a friend, and pulls up and fires at an Indian sitting on his steed, which soposedly the Army later measured at 1538 yds....... Two things come to mind: First its proof that this fellow he shot; had to be the "worlds most unlucky Indian" !! And Dixon was quoted many times afterward as describing the shot as: " absolute total unbelievable luck" ........
And since we shoot 1000 yds all the time; with a tuned
6.5mm wearing a 6x24 FFP Scope with bullets sporting BC In the .700 zone; from a rock solid rest, at milk jugs. It honestly makes the Quigley stuff hard to imagine. But one
can believe anything he prefers....... And the big bore boys
always lean in a different direction than the .270 believers.
Elmer was always bashing JOC thruout his writings and once printed "a 270 Winchester isnt much of a cartridge and really only good as an eagle rifle" Elmer has a very small following today............Jack is still wildly popular and
And most of the stuff he preached in the 40/50's, is now the gospel.
 
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Another small hot rod caliber that looks interesting is the .22 Creedmoor. From what I've read on it, 34-3500fps can be expected shooting an 80gr bullet. Barrel life probably isn't that great, but lookalike a fun coyote killer.
 
Kinda fun reading this thread, and realizing that very little has been done that is actually new.
Has anyone here ever heard of the .224 Clark?
It's very similar to the 22 Creedmoor--
throws an 80 grain bullet at close to 3500 fps with a 9" twist barrel.
This is from PO Ackley's Handbook for Shooters & Reloaders, Vol 2, circa 1966.
224 Clark.jpg
Some good reading in these old tomes-
when it comes to hotrodding cartridges,
Ackley often uses the term "over bore capacity".
Basically, you can use a huge case and lots of powder, but if it's "over bore capacity",
both efficiency & barrel life go to hell.
 

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All of us that handload come to that same conclusion. Each 'new' cartridge that's introduced is, in reality, really, really close to some older one. I LOVE new rifles and new designs but just shrug with new cartridges. Show me a the latest and greatest round and I can find you one that matches it and has already been developed.

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I think about the biggest difference with many of these "new" cartridges is they are being throated longer for the heavier bullets, and rifled accordingly. The Europeans have been doing this for 80+ years.
 
One reason for the popularity of many of these cartridges, is bullets and powders that weren't available 40-50 years ago when many of these cartridges, or something very similar came about. What was then considered overbore,
, and a barrel burner, is now a viable option, with decent barrel life.
 
One reason for the popularity of many of these cartridges, is bullets and powders that weren't available 40-50 years ago when many of these cartridges, or something very similar came about. What was then considered overbore,
, and a barrel burner, is now a viable option, with decent barrel life.
That's very true, and I think the quality of modern barrel steel is also a major factor. Especially the stainless barrels. I suspect Daniel Lilja might agree.
 
I have a sorta unique set up for shooting coyotes. All of my shots start at 300 yds and go on out to 525.
Reason being that is the distance to the far side of the lake. So we are only hunting them in winter over the ice. They always appear from the far side and approach the bait with extreame caution watching for ANY movement from our home. So they have to commit to the 250 stroll out from the woods over open lake . The wind is normally NW from 10/30 kts and is almost a direct 90 degrees to the bait.
So for years we have shot them with a 25/06 and 90 BK bullets. The standard
22/250 with 55gr bullets with BC down around 250 just wont cut it under these conditions. However this .224 Clark with modern BC double the old 55gr stuff would probably get it done in these howling crosswinds? The NEW 8 twist crowd shooting all these NEW bullets are really simply resurrecting the OLD .224 Clark!!![emoji6]

Sent from my LM-X210 using SuperCub.Org mobile app
 
I have a sorta unique set up for shooting coyotes. All of my shots start at 300 yds and go on out to 525.
Reason being that is the distance to the far side of the lake. So we are only hunting them in winter over the ice. They always appear from the far side and approach the bait with extreame caution watching for ANY movement from our home. So they have to commit to the 250 stroll out from the woods over open lake . The wind is normally NW from 10/30 kts and is almost a direct 90 degrees to the bait.
So for years we have shot them with a 25/06 and 90 BK bullets. The standard
22/250 with 55gr bullets with BC down around 250 just wont cut it under these conditions. However this .224 Clark with modern BC double the old 55gr stuff would probably get it done in these howling crosswinds? The NEW 8 twist crowd shooting all these NEW bullets are really simply resurrecting the OLD .224 Clark!!![emoji6]

Sent from my LM-X210 using SuperCub.Org mobile app

I bet 25/06 would be perfect for that. Mabe even the 6mm creed would be a nice fit in that situation?
 
Oh, and for those who don't already know, South Dakota passed a law for residents so that they don't need a permit to conceal carry now!
 
What's old becomes new again...

The .224 Clark utilizes the .257 Roberts as the parent case. The .257 Roberts utilizes 7x57 Mauser as it's parent case. The .257 Roberts/7x57 Mauser is the parent case that Remington utilized in the era of the .244 Remington/6mm Remington. The 6mm Remington was necked down to .224" and became the .224 Texas Trophy Hunter (.22-6mm Remington with no body taper or shoulder improvements) and is almost identical to the old .224 Clark, but with a new and trendier name. Of course, someone had to then add Ackley's improvements of decreased of body taper and a 40° shoulder and you have the .22-6mm Ackley Improved. I've had one .224 TTH, and now my .22-6mm Ackley Improved is on it's third barrel. High performance hotrod extraordinaire.

Two other classic wildcats I've played with are the .240 Gibbs and .243 Catbird ('06 based wildcats). Both bygone era favorites and I liked both as high performance coyote rifles. But the magic in this case size has been these hydraulically formed .280 Ackley Improved cases, alleviating the need to fireform (and therefore utilize barrel life at mundane velocities). So the 6mm-280 Ackley Improved has replaced them both as my current favorite ultra-performance .243" hotrod. I think it's been called the "6mm Hawk" but I could be wrong on that. I've always had a pet peeve for naming wildcats when it makes more sense to just hyphenate the caliber to the parent case for ease of understanding. To beat the 6mm-280 AI you'd have to step up to the SAUM parent case, and nothing runs in the league of the 6mm SAUM's. Throats are short-lived, but performance is second to none in the .243" realm.

I have a lot of Ackley Improved cartridges, and really think PO was ahead of his time with his ideas, as published in his works. But "overbore" and "barrel burner" are two axioms of his I just don't like. If PO Ackley was in the cub world, he probably would consider a 180hp cub to be overpowered, and that's just unAmerican. Overbore and barrel life are relative. Velocity that makes one person cringe, is pedestrian capacity/bore ratio to another. For me, utilizing a purpose-built rifle for a specific task, there's plenty of usable service life in 1,000 rounds to make the performance worth it.

I never could get excited by the original Creedmoor, but became mildly interested when folks necked it down to .224" and then lost interest upon deeper review. It all comes down to capacity in baselining raw performance capabilities.

Capacity in H20 grains:

.22-250 Remington: 43.5
.220 Swift 47.5
.22-250 Ackley Improved: 47.6
.22 XC: 49.2
.22 Creedmoor: 50.0
.22-243: 50.8
.220 Swift Ackley: 52.6
.22-243 Middlestead: 54.5
.224 Texas Trophy Hunter: 54.6
.22 Vais: 55.0
.22-243 Ackley Improved: 56.0
.22-6mm Ackley Improved 58.63

I've already done three of those variants based off the .243 Winchester as the parent case. And Lapua .243 brass is simply some of the finest brass made; bar none. So good it's worth building an entire rifle/chambering around it's use. None of the makers of Creedmoor brass are in that league (yet), so I'd say just go with a .22-243 for equal or better velocity at the same powder charge. If you don't mind fireforming; improve that to the Middlestead or Ackley version, and look out!

All this said, if you want to cash in on northern coyotes being worth $80-120/apiece this winter, than none of these hotrods are your friends. Velocity is your friend right up until it isn't, and then, well, nobody sews that good.

If you want to skin them, focus on the .224" bullets developed for deer hunting and don't worry about pushing them fast. I've killed wolves with the 55gr Sierra SBT Gameking, so that bullet will kill any coyote, even those monster ones in Maine.
 
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Heres what im thinking. Ive got a remington m1903 from my great uncle (mentioned on other thread). After research i believe its a rare m1903 modified. Would like to sell it to a museum in his name and donate the money in his name to a veterans cherity. So any help would be appreciated.
 
Looking at this old thread brought back memories. While I met Jack O'Connor and Elmer Keith, I didn't really know them. My father, on the other hand, knew them well. He hunted with Keith a number of times in various parts of the world. I have a funny picture of them together, having swapped their famous cowboy hats. Dad's was tiny and Elmer's was huge. I heard some great stories from those gatherings.

Back then, the gun and ammo companies hosted the gun writers to incredible trips all over the world. When Remington introduced the 6mm Remington, they did it (as I remember) at the Y.O. Ranch in Texas. Dad was in a Jeep with Elmer when Keith shot a deer with the new cartridge. The deer took off at the shot, and the guide yelled, "Shoot him again!" Keith turned to look at the guide and said, "What for. He's shot right through the heart." At that moment, the deer piled up. Yep. Shot through the heart. Same hunt, Keith shot a turkey (with a shotgun), and as the birds were running off, he hollered at Dad, "Want me to shoot one for you?" "Sure!" said Grits, so Elmer rolled a gobbler out of the flock.

Jack was a better writer. Elmer was an editor's nightmare. Elmer, though, was a much better outdoorsman, and he knew his stuff. He also was a hell of a shot. Dad was one of the best natural shooters I've seen, so when he said Elmer was good, I listened.

I have a bunch of photos (1000s) from those hunts and product introduction trips, as well as file cabinets of letters to and from his fellow gun writers of the era. I came in on the tail end of that. They were old men when I started going to events like the Remington Seminar (an annual spectacular), and they weren't doing as much heavy drinking as they used to. But I did hear some stories. ;)
 
"Hell, I Was There!" by Elmer Keith is an excellent book.

20200415_064927.jpg
 

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It is an excellent book. It was an editing nightmare. ;).

Oh. One thing I just remembered. Dad said when Elmer told a story, it never varied. With 20 years between tellings, it was the same. Interesting.
 
Tom, I never connected the dots until I read your first post this morning. I loved your Dad and never even met him. From what I know about Elmer, I have no problem believing the part about being an editing nightmare, although I'd give anything to read some of his rough drafts (emphasis on rough I imagine)! Don't misunderstand, I tremendously enjoy everything I've ever read with his name on it. He was without a doubt the real deal. Nice to have you here. "Now wait a minute fellas..."
 
"Now wait a minute fellas..."

Perry, you have a good memory! ;)

Those Miller Lite commercials were so dang funny. As you might imagine, the stories about the making of them with the Miller Lite All Stars were something.

Bringing it back to Cubs, Dad hunted with Bill Ellis in Alaska, and way back then was telling me about this guy and the things he was doing with a Super Cub.

I'm currently working with a new Ruger No. 1 in .280AI. Planning to use that on my Idaho deer hunt this year.
 
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