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Im living on Gambier Island in the howe sound.

well some info on the cartage and how it came to be is,

I was into 43 Mauser quite a bit I had a few 71/84 and a few parts rifles. I was setup for relaoding and also cast bullets for it.

I got into re barreling Lee Enfields with all kinds of other calibers using barrel nuts/thread adaptors one of them was a no4 that I put a 71/84 barrel on. I was loading it quite a bit hotter then I was in the 71/84 and it was hard on my new 43 Mauser brass and I couldn't make it feed very easy with the huge rim.

so I decided to find a brass that was close enough to work but didn't have a huge rim, the issue with that is where I need a good crimp, I cant head space off the case mouth. The shoulder is very small and round so I can head space off that, I needed a belt or to turn the rim diameter smaller on a rimmed brass.

I happened to have a 300 Weatherby mag case on my bench and by looking at it I figured that should be close. after doing some measuring and running one though a 43 Mauser sizing die, looked good. so next step was to bore the belt area into the chamber area to set head space and make the round fit.

once I had the resized brass fitting the chamber and the rifles head space perfect and a few test fires just using primed cases all was good. then after I loaded a few cases with my sized .447 bullets they wouldn't chamber, due to the thick brass in the neck compared to the 43 Mauser brass. so I used a adjustable reamer that has about a .5 degree taper on it and cut the neck area of the chamber to 0.006" bigger then the loaded neck measured.

after that, loaded ammo fit properly, chambered well, feed easily and extracted like factory rifle, the weight of the bolt would pull the case out of the chamber.

so that was the birth of the 43 express. at the time I had called it the 43 rimless belted express.

it was about a year later I had this "unknown" Mauser missing its bolt in my lap. it turned out to be a large ring small barrel shank 98 mauser.

the specs on the mauser receiver-

"Receiver used;
"Type VI, Oberndorf intermediate action
Action OAL: 8.750
Recvr screws, center to center: 7.835
Bolt body length: 6.165
Magazine length: 3.115
Receiver ring dia: 1.410, large ring
Barrel shank dia: .980, small shank
This type has a longer than normal receiver ring

I call this the Oberndorf intermediate action, as they are the only ones who produced it. Commonly encountered models include:
1903 Turk
1909 Peruvian
1935 Argentine
Oberndorf Commercial"

The Curio and Relic Firearms Forum July 14, 2003"

so once I realized what size a small shank barrel was I though of putting the 71/84 barrel on the large ring Mauser. once I realized all that can work I rethreaded the barrel and cut the belt grove and opened up the neck.

I had no bolt for the Mauser so I looked for a "knife handle" bolt that would go well with the flats on the barrel knox. then after I found a bolt I opened up the feed rails and made it function.

then once I had build the large ring mauser I changed what I called the round to just 43 express, and then made a thread about a "new wildcat- 43 Express" on CGN and told people about it.

there is 2 rifles chambered in it right now. there is a no4 lee Enfield and this Mauser. I have sold the lee Enfield. so its somewhere in Canada

not much info on the round it self but more so on how it came to be. I can give info on how it shots and load data, fps and pressures if you wish.

Edited by Evan (30/12/21 08:37 AM)