Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire A Family of Cartridges

With Imperial, you don't have to lube every fired case.

Dave LeGate set-out to see how many fired 9mm Parabellum cases he could size after lubing just one with Imperial.

Chickened-out after nine.

I generally avoided doing more than four or five on one wipe.

A little dab'll do ya.

Any more questions or comments, guys, before I put this one away for the night � and probably for good?

Hey all,

I was looking for '06 basic brass, (didn't know Jamison was out of business!), and found that http://www.z-hat.com/Cylinder.htm has some for sale.

Hope this helps bring some Howell cartridges back to life!

Later....
Edit to add, ARH has basic brass for up to .380 Howell at pretty reasonable prices.

Ken - Thanks for the posting. I've always wondered about the history of these fine cartridges.

Ken - in your original posting you said "Belted cases, at comparable peak chamber pressures, increase back-thrust force on breech lock-ups." as part of the reason for the cartridges based on the 30-06 case.

I assume that you are referring to the case head diameter (belted cartridges have larger diameter heads) rather than the fact that it is belted. Would not a non-belted (fat) case of the same diameter produce the same bolt thrust at the same pressure?

Veddy interested in the quarter bore version......

Ken

Thank you for the write up.

You have my mind going in several directions right now.

What do you think optimum barrel length would be? (Let's say for the 260)

With the longer case and optimally for the heavy for caliber bullet, will a standard length action acomodate the family of cartridges?

Thanks again.

Dave

BTT since its a great read.

Wonder if any custom rifle makers would be interested in bringing this family back to life?

Good read and I'm really interested in a 6.5 version.

I was able to fire a few rounds of .220 Howell last weekend and agree that it is indeed an intriguing round. I may have to Kiff grind me a reamer.

Unless you treat it as what it was designed to be, you're in for some unpleasant surprises. It's both less than and more than just another hot cartridge. The cartridge and the rifle are an ensemble, both integral elements of an exercise in reasoned design.

Come by some time, and I'll run-off a set of spec drawings that you can send to Dave Kiff.

Thanks Ken, appreciate the information.

Dan

I think I can make it work for something. I can't see using it as a PD round due to the work involved making brass. Would like to put one together just to play though. Tossing around the idea of having a 220 Howell only match! There are a lot of really good slow powders these days that might make it easy to sing. I read where you intended to limit the pressure somewhat and that makes the Ramshot powder not the ideal choice as it likes to run hot- like 65,000 PSI. Plenty of other slow burners out there to try- Mag Pro and R33 for starters.

Looks like the Powder angles covered,.....

What about BRASS, and getting that heretofor irritating little detail sorted out ?

GTC

Right now I'm working on a Mauser action to match up with a gifted/used .220 Howell barrel that I'm hoping will do justice to the cartridge design. Recent experiences with a very fine .220H rifle hint that getting the brass correct will be the bigger challenge. So, am thinking on that aspect - and looking forward to the day. Dennis idea sounds like fun - so would like to get it all sorted out by August. But, not much time left.

So using Mr. Barsness's rule on case capacity increase what velocity do the Howell rounds provide over the base round? For my 338-06 that throws the 210 Partition quite easily to 2750 fps, the Howell will give ~60 fps more? Is this what has been observed?

He designed the case with barrel life in mind I guess. Only wants it run at 50,000 or so. With a 26" barrel, 3600 fps with a 75 grain Amax is the gold standard. I'm sure with Mag Pro and R33 3600 FPS can be exceeded but who knows how those bullets will hold up at that velocity. I am going to build one and see what I get. Will probably make my neck .001-.002" bigger than the specs show for ease of brass use. Not sure yet though. As is, factory brass cannot be safely fired in the chamber made by the original reamer.

The creep has crept as far as he can creep, compa�eros.

I've gone as far with this as I can go. Better minds than mine are taking-over.

I look forward to their improvements.

Very interesting thread. Thank you Ken.

Didn't Joe's ammo work, as the designer intended, in Joe's rifle?


Didn't Joe tell you why this is so?

The factory brass wasn't made to the specifications that were integral to the original design. (Bruce took it on himself to "improve" something that didn't need his "improvements.") But Joe diligently made some of those cases work safely � with muzzle velocities very close to predicted and very small groups (as small as 0.291 inch, right?). What now needs super-guru-expert remedial attention to improve that performance?