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O.K. Tophet, here goes:

My first wildcat is an 8mm, that I named the "Boer 8mm Mag." It is an Americanized 8 x 68S Schuler. Those cases were scarce, so I did up one of my own, using the 375 Ruger Basic cases. Then I decided to do an "everyman's" version of P.H. Harry Selby's infamous John Rigby 416 made on the post WWII military actions.

This is about as big a caliber as I can get to headspace on the shoulder. My shoulder angle is 16 degrees. The neck is identical to the Rigby at one half inch, and they both share the same roll crimp. My shoulder is .483" in diameter, which precludes the Taylors from chambering.

This costs me a bit from the blocky factory Ruger case, but I still have a couple grains of H2O more than the Taylors. Since most bullets have the Rigby's half inch neck dimension ingrained in the shank between the cannelure and the bullet base, my bullets just go down to the base of the neck.

Now the neat part is; my gunsmith used my 8mm finish reamer to cut my .416's chamber. He head spaced it with my 8mm Go Gauge, too. He used an oversized (416) pilot on my reamer. Then he cut the neck/throat, with his own neck throat reamer. He has the full set of these, so I can go back to the well, for anything between 8mm and .416.

But it gets better. I purchased a cheap set of Lyman 416 Rigby dies, and trimmed off .300" from the F.L. sizer. The seating die worked fine, right out of the Lyman box. So, I ran two cases from my 8mm case forming die set, (.40") into the Lyman sizer. One with the expanding ball, and one without. Then I miked both and phoned in these specs, to the Hornady custom desk. They then plugged these two neck sizes into their G-Code, for my earlier 8mm wildcat, and I received a beautiful F.L. custom die set, in short order. Now, I can reload with both die sets, and I can't tell the cartridges apart. Not even the two roll crimps!

But the caveat is that I ordered a full set of case forming dies for my 8mm Mag.. They bring the really tough Ruger Basics down in 0.050" steps. I specified std. bullet sizes, so I have a .450, a .400, a .350, and then a F.L. sizer for my .323" Magnum. There was way too much effort between stage one, and stage two, so I ordered a stage 1.5 which puts only the case taper, into a file trim die body. This has to have a faux shoulder which will hold the case neck against the hacksaw blade and file, but it's about 11mm.

The Hornady expanders are elliptical, but the Lyman ones, can only expand a couple of thousandths. So taking my .400" std. neck out to .416 is about all I can do with the Lyman die set. But it worked fine. When I got my custom Hornady die set, I found that I could reform in one plunge, from a virgin brass 375 Ruger, up to my 10.6mm x 375 Ruger wildcat. The streamlining is offset by the necking up, so I only have to barely kiss the case mouths in my Wilson case trimmer.

To say that I'm happy with my wildcat is an understatement. It really feeds slick out of my military 30 Mauser. The Hawkeyes have wider feed rails, than these old war horses. Hornady had to out wildcat the wildcatters, to insure that their cartridge didn't step on the toes of the heirs of Charles Newton, who still have the rights tied up on the old 40 Newton.

The new Hornady/Ruger cartridges are actually the same diameter as the original Newton chamber specs. But the Western 35 Newton cartridge in my collection is about .006" under this size. Dr. Newton figured to let his cartridge expand in an oversized chamber, to take the first 30KCUP, and then his steel barrel handled the rest. August Schuler got his hands on some of these, which were orphaned by WWI, and made a proper chamber for his 8mm x 68 Schuler, which is also a bit longer. But his taper runs aground at anything above the new 375 Holderlin.

So, I feel that I've split the differences between the .416 Taylors and the .416 Ruger, with my baby 416 Rigby. Now that I'm back home, I'll start working up a heavier load than I took to the Karoo. I know I can match the smaller Taylor, and now we'll see what a longer neck and 3.5 inches O.A.L. will do with some tungsten cored solids. Woodleigh mailed me some specs, and I can use their 416 caliber 450 grain solids, made for the Rigby. These will go down into the case body about a tenth of an inch, to crimp into those cannelures.

Mr. Darrel Inman, here, is making the old Speer African Grand Slams, in a few calibers, at about $10 apiece. His tungsten cores cost $5 apiece, so he's not getting rich off of these. The 400 grain homogenous gilding metal bullets are long for their weights, and I think I still have a sweet spot for these too. His solids use turned beryllium copper profiles, with the tungsten cores pressed in from the rear. So, these are short for their weights, and give him a bit more powder space, in his Al Biesen stocked .416 Taylor.

So, now you know about as much as I do. My 350 grain Karoo loads that dropped the Gnu, were close to the older 400 Jeffery, and the 400 Whelen, at 2400 fps.. But I decided to go for penetration, instead of Slap! I took a left hand Ruger MKII in 270 Win. with Federal ammo, using Barnes 110 gr. TTSX bullets for the small stuff. I only recovered one of these from the rear spine of my Springbok, and it only lost 6 grains. My 350 gr. Speer Mag Tip, from the Gnu, retained 300.5 grains.

Unfortunately, both of these bullets and their shell casings were confiscated by the curious landlord, Mr. Johann Alberts, who put them up on his mantle, to reside there, along with a myriad of other interesting rounds, which have impressed him, with their killing abilities. All I got was the two weights and a chance to photograph them first.