doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion Classic & Custom Single Barreled Sporting Rifles @ doublegunshop.com .310 Cadet sporting use?

I just noticed that an online dealer (Joe Salter) has a box of .310 Cadet ctgs for sale. These are hard find in any form now but what interested me in these is that they are factory-loaded hollowpoints.

Was the .310 used much Down Under as a hunting ctg. after the release of the Cadet Corps rifles to the public? Were there other rifles made in this caliber?

Greener certainly offered it as a small game rifle, and even built box lock doubles in that calibre for blackbuck and the like. The doubles appear to have been mostly exported to India, and their uses are set out in this catalogue entry.



Some of them have been re-imported to the UK, with at least one with the engraving gold inlaid in the Indian (Kufari?) style.

Sir Gerald Burrard used this cartridge on blackbuck in India and regarded it as excellent for rabbits in the Cotswold hills where safe backstops abounded.

He doesn’t mention in his 4th edition of Notes on Sporting Rifles which type of rifle he used, although it was probably one of Greener’s nice little miniature Martinis. B.S.A. also chambered the Cartridge.

Interesting--Thanks!

I always assumed that the .310 was a near ballistic equivalent of the .32 WCF and used for the same purposes when it was in "civilian" hands.

Was the .310 considered a "rook rifle" ?

Back in the day, it seems to have been classed with the .300 Westley Richards Sherwood ( AKA .300 Extra Long when made by B.S.A. ) and the .298 Minex as a target/light game number rather than a Rook and Rabbit cartridge.

For Vintage Rook Rifle events I classify it (and the .32/20) as acceptable as a Rook and Rabbit calibre, but some purists could well disagree.

Greener’s 84 grain hollow point load at 1050 fps was ballistically almost identical to the .300 or .295 Rook cartridge.

As you say the .310 is very similar to the .32/20 both in ballistics and in how it was put to use. Neither would be considered a deer rifle today, but Great-Grandpappy harvested his venison with both.

I guess as 80 years old I qualify as "Grandpappy" and I killed several Columbian Blacktails with a .32-20 Savage bolt action (before I discovered that it was an illegal caliber in CA at that time!). During and after the Depression and WWII there were many country people in rural CA who had only one "real rifle" and it was often a .32-20 or 25-20. They got used for everything a rifle could be used for. I suspect that might have been the case with the.310 in OZ once the training rifles were surplussed.

Mike,

Fortunately the Blacktails had not read the game regulations either, and no doubt promptly expired on a well placed bullet arriving in a vital area.

Was that a Savage Model 23?

Since a Roe Buck weighs around 45 pounds, the .310 would efficiently kill one, and would be legal in some areas. Germany requires about 740 fp of energy at 100 meters, it would not qualify there now (but may have until the 1960s).
Mike

Parabola. it was a 23C with a Redfield receiver sight. MY grandfather's "coyote gun," although we had no coyotes then--all poisoned along with most other predators and scavengers: Your tax dollars at work....

The average Blacktail "meat buck" in our area ran around 80# with the blood and guts out. I wonder what they taste like now that their main food is wine grape vines and grapes?

I replaced the 23C with a much newer (1947) 23C that i still have and use. Slick little guns, although I much prefer a Utica-made Savage 219 .25-20 single shot that I also use.

Ross Seyfried wrote some articles in Rifle about this class of cartridge. He touted there ranging ability and their usefulness for small game up through small deer and antelope. He considered the 300 Sherwood to be the best tof the lot by a stretch, as I read the articles due to bullets and higher velocity.

In the "crowd" I run with, Ross Seyfried's advice is considered to be the "Gold Standard" and he is correct about the 300 Sherwood; but the 310 is much more available to we peons.
Mike

Once upon a time I had a Savage 23-D in .22 Hornet. The pre-war W.J. Jeffrey catalogue used to offer them stating that for a few Pounds they could refine the woodwork to make an more attractive rifle,

I think mine must have been one of those they reworked as the stock had been slimmed down and chequered at hand and forend with a horn tip.The stamped trigger guard had been replaced with an engraved English guard and there was a grip cap.

What puzzled me (it was clearly the original stock and butt plate) was the highly figured wood. Then when I looked at the heel where the finish had worn off I realised that the grain figure had been painted in.

The .22 Hornet, .32/20 and .310 Cadet all seem “to punch above their weight”. No doubt the combination of accurate rifles and mild recoil leading to good bullet placement.

In this article, he ended with the fact that his dream Martini would be a 300 Sherwood with serious open sights for long range shooting, but the barrel/chamber would be hard to source. He stated, however, that he did want to build one more ultimate Martini and his intent at the time was to make it a .298 since the bullet was for a barrel he could buy and the case was for all practical purposes a 300 Sherwood. That way it would be a custom rifle and not a semi-wildcat. The loads and ballistics he presented did seem to be a step up from the rest of these rounds.

AGS,
From memory, I think the 300 Sherwood takes a .300" bullet, I wonder if he considered a barrel from a 7.35x 52 Carcano rifle.
Mike

I gathered his intent was to build a high end full custom rigfle with a lengthy barrel for long range shooting. I doubt a used barrel fell within his project ideas.

I have no doubt that Jeffrey's could improve on the handling and looks of most Savage centerfire bolt actions of the mid-20th century! Especially the 3-- series from the 322 to the 340, which are notably clunky looking. But couldn't BSA or somebody else come up with a medium power bolt repeater of "English Make"? I suspect your Jeffrey's 23 Hornet may be a very rare bird!

I have no doubt that Jeffrey's could improve on the handling and looks of most Savage centerfire bolt actions of the mid-20th century! Especially the 3-- series from the 322 to the 340, which are notably clunky looking. But couldn't BSA or somebody else come up with a medium power bolt repeater of "English Make"? I suspect your Jeffrey's 23 Hornet may be a very rare bird!

Mike,

They did indeed, and introduced In about 1951 the BSA Hunter, a controlled feed short Mauser type action with integral scope mounts.

Prior to that Parker-Hale built Hornet rifles, some with a flush mounted scope just in front of the action, as well as ParkerRifling other rifles to Hornet using a 1/2” instead of the usual 3/8” O D tube.

The reason I no longer have the 23-D is that I felt I didn’t need 2 Hornets, and kept my Hunter instead. The one I should have hung on to was a cased ParkerRifled Holland and Holland hammerless Rook Rifle.

AGS,
I guess whether a used barrel fit into his "project ideas" would depend on whether he wanted a .300 Sherwood or not.
Mike

I'll try and look up the article and post the source. I believe his final decision was made because he could use a more common barrel and components and still use an actual period cartridge which is essentially the functional equivalent of the Sherwood, which was the best in class of these cartridges as far as performance.