doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion Classic & Custom Single Barreled Sporting Rifles @ doublegunshop.com Pre War Light Varmint Chambering

I believe that the .22 & .23-28-30 were before the .22-32-40 and were designed as a Schuetzen cartridge using a jacketed Mann-Niedner base-band bullet. They were allowed for a short time in Schuetzen matches until Lewis, Niedner and others started cleaning up then they were barred from the matches. The majority of varmint rifles from Niedner before WWI were .25 caliber using the Krag case and few using the 06 case. After the war and when Niedner moved to Michigan he brought out the .22 Niedner-Magnums a 25-35 necked to .22 and .22 Niedner-Magnum rimless the .25 Remington necked to .22 both very successful cartridges. One of Mr. Niedner’s varmint rifles was a repeater chambered in the 6mm Niedner-Magnum the .25 Remington necked to 6mm.

E.A. Leopold and others were a big fan of the .25-21 until the .25-20SS took over which is another cartridge you might consider.

I've have both books by Landis, as well Practical dope on the .22's by Ness. Lots of ideas, just wish there was something between the Zipper class and the Hornet class of cartridges. For those who have not figured it out yet, this is for the German single shot pictured in another thread. It has to be a cartridge that was available pre WWII, and it has to be rimmed. The Rimmed Chucker is VERY tempting, and I am sure could be made to shoot very well. I am a little concerned about whether the action would handle the larger class of cartridges. Much more bolt face thrust with the larger diameter case.

Thanks everyone for the input, keep it coming.

John

I have been meaning to ask about the base-band jacketed bullets. What happened to them? I read about them in reference to Mann and Niedner and then they seemed to disappear.

Gasgunner, as I said on the other thread, my friend has a very similar action barreled in what he says is the short version of the Donaldson Wasp. It does very well. The .22 barrel was made to the same dimensions as the original German barrel and the original wood was used.

Richard

The cartridges for the base-band bullet were made to very close tolerances and even changing brands of brass might cause a shooter problems. They had the necked reamed to take about 1/16-1/8" of the bullet that had the band so they had to be loaded single, they were hard to transport if not done right. A lot of misunderstanding of the whole system caused many a gunwriter to publish negative stuff about the system. The majority did not want to go to all the trouble they took and as other cartridges and loading tools became common on the market the base-band bullet died. I believe that there is still a lot of merit in the system but very impractical for any but the bench-rest folks.

I have one of Dr. Mann's barrels from a high-wall chambered for a .25-krag that the outside diameter of the case neck is .257", try to order a set of dies for that ;-).

If concerned about the breech face thrust of the 30-30 case head size, simply chamber for the standard Zipper or the standard 25-35. Their case wall taper/slip angle is apparently exactly the right size to ensure case sticking if loaded above 40-43K, and this characteristic should relieve much of the bolt thrust associated with the comparatively large case head area. I have proven this assumption to my own satisfaction by chambering a standard Zipper and testing it. Please see Frank de Haas' very informative article on the Zipper family of cartridges for more details, it was most informative to me.

Yes, the case head will move to the rear if loaded above the elastic limit of the brass, i.e. above 40-43K, but below that level it appears to me that any bolt thrust is largely mitigated by the tendency of the case to stick. AAMOF I had to polish the chamber walls just to get good extraction with this cartridge and that's something I've never had to do before.

The standard Zipper when loaded to 40-43K will slightly exceed the performance of the 222-223 family of cartridges, at a much lower pressure. Use of the LR primer instead of the SR primer as in smaller cases also means, in my experience, that bushing the firing pin is much less critical. Also I've found that necking down 30-30s provides a built-in tight neck situation for better bullet alignment, with very few or no brass issues. Please see the exceptional preliminary performance I achieved with this cartridge in a Ruger factory barrel; normally most Ruger barrels aren't worth rechambering/reusing for whatever reason but this cartridge proved the exception.

Not saying it's the the best choice but IMO it's the most performance for the least hassle, by far! Heavy emphasis on the 'least hassle' part, grin.
Regards, Joe

This has been an interesting subject, with lots of top-notch advice given. In the course of seeking general info, I did look up the Bee info. It is twixt wars. And when handloaded to potential, achieves decent velocity for at least two hundred yard groundhogs. As well, apparently the Imp version can march along decently in company with most other 'settled area' woodchuck shooting calibers.

Now, I am not gainsaying any of the other posters advice. It would be difficult to go wrong on about any of them, according to how much twiddling about with brass and dies in which one wished to engage.

However, perhaps your choice might be made based upon the 'use' parameters. Where will it be used: settled farmland fringe or in lower human population, wide open spaces? What is to be hunted? At what ranges?

So, one considers muzzleblast/report; desired terminal characteristics in the prey species; typical shooting distances; and optic/rifle combo.

This is a simplification here, among such august company. I've surely overlooked some key elements crucial to your choice. However, perhaps working backward from the desired objective to the individual components of the whole, may be a useful exercise.

Me? I think a custom bbl'd,, speciality-smith accurized, Golden Age Tree-bone stocked, retro-Marlin levergun in .219 Zip would be choice for walking the flat reclaimed swamp farmlands of NW Ohio. Mebbe with one of those Leatherwood 3X scopes.

However, for 90% of the shots I get after the beans are up here, a .22 Hornet is quite sufficient. The Bee just gives you that little extra stretch needed, upon the occasion. Hence it's local popularity.

FWIW and the general weal.

Mikael, saw your post on the R2. When I got my gun I was surprised but there is brass out there. I scored a fair amount of the G&H factory brass at quite a reasonable price over at Saubier.com, the small caliber forum. A light anneal on the shoulder dramatically reduces the splits, as does a lighter bullet for some reason. I shoot AA1680 with 37gr Calhoons with quite good accuracy out of a HW.

Glen, you want to be daring and have lots of fun, think about a .17CCM or .22CCM. Brass is available from Schroeder in Cal. based off Hornet brass and they are a ball, I get 3200 fps. with a .20 gr .17 cal slug with less than 10 grains of powder. The .22CCM is almost as much fun + no noise to speak of.