Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters .22x57mm....why not?

The 5.6x57 isn't so popular because it has a rather thick neck in order to accommodate the used of sub caliber inserts. RWS brass can be hard to find at times and due to the large neck, reforming 7x57 brass leaves you with a sloppy neck.

The 8x57 and 7x57 are different cases. Yes, they are 57 mm long but otherwise very different.

People tend to assume that you can simply neck up 8x57 brass and have 9x57 or 9,3x57 brass. yes, it will fireform but it is not correct by simply necking up. I load and shoot all of the above and enjoy them all.

TexasRick,

"The old Lee Navy is basically a 7x57mm with a semi-rim. Same capacity and shape."

Not hardly. The Lee Navy DOESN'T have a semi-rim. The rim is the same diameter as the body of the case. You're thinking of the .220 Swift, which originated by giving the Lee Navy case a larger rim, plus necking down AND shortening the neck. It has about five grains less powder room than the 7x57.

Getting 4000 fps with a 55 gr NBT from a 26" barrel. Have not used any other bullets in it.

This is the same coyote that is in a earlier post on this thread,but the receiving end of the bullet. The shot was about 30 yds away.

The only cartridge based on the 6mm Lee Navy that I know of is the 220 Swift.

The 244/6mm Rem uses the same case as the 257 Roberts and 7x57.

Jeff

I met Mr Clark at a gun show, many years ago, and IIRC (could be mis-remembering) he told me he designed his original wildcat on a 228 bullet - to get the weight needed.
Anyone out there more informed than I?

Mark

you are absolutely right, the 5.6x57's thick neck is completely abnormal and a nuisance when resizing cases.

otherwise, I like the cartridge very much. my rifle is a Krico that shoots both Sierra's 65gr GK and Barnes' TSX' 62gr quite accurately at 3,600 fps... a very deadly combination.

Not sure about that, Mark. My recollection is that he used a heavy .224 with a double jacket.

I do know that PO Ackley used his own controlled expanding bullet, the precursor to the Barnes X, on his big 224s, because he told me so during a visit.

Ted

Mark shubert
Sound like your Mr. Clark spent time with P.O. Ackley as he was a strong advocate of using 228 dia. bullets.Such as .228 Belted Express, 22 Newton, 228 Krag, 228 Ackley Magnum the 226 Barnes QT (used .228) and lets not forget the 22 Hi-Power developed by Newton. Hope that might be of some use. Cheers NC

I have a 224 Clark built by Kenneth in the late 70's.He made his bullets by sizing down 6mm jackets to 224, then putting a 17 cal lead and jacket base up to form a partition type bullet that ended up being about 82 grains. That was his deer bullet. I seen a few deer killed with his round. An 80 grn pill at 3500fps is no slouch. Hornady made him a batch of 80
HP bullets also. The only negative on mine is he made them with a 9 twist,8 twist would have been great. He was a great guy to stop and talk hunting and guns back in the day.

RS

What are your expectations for barrel life?

I have a 22-6mm AI made by a benchrest shooter and gunsmith from Detroit Lakes, MN. It has a 40 degree shoulder. The .224 Clark has a 30 degree shoulder and the 6mm case has a 26 degree shoulder. My expectancies are about 1000 rounds before refreshing the chamber. My barrel is a 1 in 7" twist Lilja straight non-taper 30" barrel and the plan is to cut off the threads and chamber when it is worn and re-chamber and thread at least once more to the same chamber and then go to a 22-250 AI. The action is a trued Rem 700 LA and it is set up as a single shot. I have shot 75 and 80 grain bullets and will try 90 grain bullets this spring.

Specs for the Lee navy

Case type Semi-rimmed, bottleneck
Bullet diameter 0.236 in (6.0 mm)
Neck diameter .278 in (7.1 mm)
Shoulder diameter .402 in (10.2 mm)
Base diameter .445 in (11.3 mm)
Rim diameter .448 in (11.4 mm)
Case length 2.35 in (60 mm)
Overall length 3.11 in (79 mm)
Rifling twist 1:7�
Primer type Boxer large rifle

I think that you'd have a bit of trouble seating 105 to 115 grain bullets at 2.8 inches on the 57mm case.

If not using those type of bullets, what's the point of the wildcat? A standard 243 would run just as fast with 55 grainers.

I am not sure use how long it will last, probably a lifetime, as I do not shoot it much. It is just one of my five roe deer rifles, not a target or a prairy dog rifle, and I do not shoot that many roe deer per season to be worried!

Because we already have the swift and 22-250, unless you are just wanting to see how fast you can burn up a barrel doesn't make sense

Swifty,

Where'd you find that info on the 6mm Lee Navy?

If the case is "semi-rimmed," then the .270 Winchester, .30-06 and just about every other "rimless" case with a .473" rim are actually semi-rimmed, since the specs for their bodies, right in front of the extractor groove, are .470" according to SAAMi specs. That .003" difference is exactly what's listed in those 6mm LN specs between the case body and rim.

John, not at home, hate this phone.

Have to go back and check, but don't believe the LN had a 473 bolt face. Believe it was smaller as another member on here pointed out in a discussion on the swift.

Seems so far confirmed that Winchester very well may have enlarged the rim to fit the LN case to the .473 bolt face to accomodate the increased case capacity and to have a common bolt face. Hence the swift as we know it, but not the original.

Can't find too much solid to dispute it, got a lot of old books to go through yet but so far it was indeed semi-rimmed.

Did some digging, seems that there were some rounds marked Lee 236 U.S.N that were produced with either a rim, or semi-rim along with the ones marked 6mm Lee Navy which were rimless. Why ? Haven't dug back enough yet.
It has been alluded to that the 236 U.S.N was developed for use in the 30.40 Krag action, which I believe is a 473 bolt face.
If this is so, reasoning would dictate that Winchester used the 236 brass for the Swift instead of the 6mm LN brass and adding the rim to fit that bolt face.
This would also lend creadance to some writings that stated Winchester used existing brass, and tooling to give the Swift more case capacity and oomph rather than using the 250 /3000 Savage brass as designed. Plus the fact they probably didn't want to pay Savage.

I wasn't asking bout the rim size on the 6mm Lee Navy case, as I have a Lee Navy rifle I've handloaded for ans shot, and a box of factory loads from the 1930's. It does have a .448" rim.

The prototype Lee Navy case did have a rim, but never made it into military service. By the way, it used a .238" diameter bullet, even though it was called the .236. The final version used the RIMLESS case with the dimensions you listed, with a .244" bullet. (Apparently neither cartridge used a .236 bullet, despite the name of the prototype rimmed round and the mistaken claims of various references, including Wikepedia.)

But I wasn't asking about all that, since I know the details very well thanks to working with my original Lee Navy rifle. I was asking about why the reference you cited calls the case "semi-rimmed," because it isn't, any more than the 30-06.

Winchester put a .473" (".30-06 sized") rim on the 6mm Lee Navy case to come up with the .220 Swift, so they could use the .270/.30-06 bolt face and extractor size in the Model 54 rifle. That resulted in what is generally called a semi-rimmed case, with a rim significantly larger than the case body but including an extractor groove. But the original 6mm Lee Navy case doesn't qualify as semi-rimmed.

MD-
The specs noted by Swifty52 appear to have come from the "specifications" sidebar in the Wikipedia entry on the 6mm Lee Navy: [color:#0000FF]Wikipedia entry (dated 02Sep13)[/color]

I've found some further information on the rimmed version of the 6mm/236 Lee case.

C.V. Hamilton's short 1962 book, U.S. Metallic Centerfire Rifle Cartridges 1860-1960, describes both cases. For the rimless version, rim diameter is 0.446" and body diameter is 0.445". For the rimmed version, rim diameter 0.515" and body diameter is 0.448". Hamilton's measurements are based on actual specimens. The drawing of the rimmed cartridge shows no extractor groove in front of the rim. He has labeled the rimmed version as "236 USN for Blake Rifle".

Sharpe's book, The Rifle in America, mentions the rimmed version in two places. Discussing the Lee Straight Pull rifle (p.236), he notes his sample rimmed case has a .236 USN headstamp. Sharpe states a hypothesis that the rimmed version was intended for experimental use with the Army's Krag rifle, although he notes he has no factual basis for this. Sharpe's assumption is probably incorrect. The Krag cartridge has a rim diameter of 0.545", so a rim of 0.515" is likely too small. I think the histories of the Lee Navy cartridge make it clear that the Navy was acting very independently of the Army in the 1890s in selecting arms.

Sharpe's second mention of the rimmed version is found in a description of the Blake rifle (p.106,111-112). John H. Blake had presented a military model of his rifle to the 1895 Navy rifle selection Board, but an untimely illness prevented him from adapting it to the Lee Navy cartridge, which had already been developed and selected. The Board did say nice things about the Blake rifle.

A few Blake sporting rifles may have been chambered for the rimmed version of the Navy cartridge. A Blake catalog described the rimmed cartridge as firing a 135-grain bullet at 2500 fps; the standard rimless version used a 117-grain bullet at 2800 fps.

A discussion of the Navy cartridge on a 2012 thread in the IAA forum, [color:#0000FF].236 U.S.N. cartridge by WRA[/color], provides some further information from knowledgeable individuals. The shoulder shapes of the rimmed and rimless versions differed somewhat, and its possible to find samples of rimmed and rimless cases with shoulders of both types. As a result, there are four different case shapes for the Lee Navy cartridge. Obviously, the most common by far is the rimless cartridge issued to marines and sailors; the other three are rare.

Is there an industry standard definition of the term "semi-rimless", or is the term generally descriptive with fuzzy edges?
--Bob