Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors Where did the “.303” come from in .303 Savage?

I think Savage just picked it because it wasn't something like "30-30 Winchester." It is misleading and ya have to wonder if any guns were damaged by guys who reloaded 311 bullets? Anyone know of any instances of this happening?

While we are at it, someone please tell me where 38-55 or 25-35 came from. And don't mention black powder.

The .38-55, as well as .32-40, was a holdover from the tail end of the black powder era, and was offered with black powder charges long into the smokeless era. You're right though re: .25-35, .30-30, .30-40, etc. being firmly in the smokeless era. My guess has always been that the nomenclature is a carry-over from the black powder era, denoting the charge of smokeless powder used in the initial cartridges- as a sop to the old stick-in-the-mud gunners who couldn't relate to any other means of identification.

You can't get 55grs of black powder in a 38-55, just as you can't get 35 in a 25-35.

What smokeless powders were these cartridges originally loaded with?

I never tried BP in a .38-55. Can it not be done by employing fine grained powder inserted via a drop tube, and compressing the heck out of it? (BP needs be compressed anyway for max efficiency.) Also, BP is measured by bulk with a measure, not by weight- would that have been an influence? Dunno, just asking.

As for the .25-35, it was never a BP cartridge. Woulda/coulda been the weight of the original smokeless charge? Anybody have an 1890's-vintage factory cartridge they could break down and weigh the powder charge? I certainly don't know the makeup of those early smokeless powders- if they were super dense and a caseful would've weighed 35 grains or not. I looked in Phil Sharpe's Guide to Handloading and even the old obsolete powders ballyhoo'ed in that pre-war tome came nowhere close to 35 grains as a full charge- stuff like #17 1/2, Lightning, Sharpshooter, Hi-Vel, etc. Maybe some guy at Winchester just liked the euphonious ring to ".25-35". Who knows?

I think it's agreed that the .30-30 employed 30 grains smokeless whatever in its original factory loading. Makes sense because today 30 grains 3031 and a 150 grain bullet is a safe/sane load. I doubt you could get 35 grains of 3031 into a .25-35 and have enough room to seat a bullet. It's a lot smaller than a .30-30 case.

I promise you that 55 grains of anything was never the charge for the 38/55.

Maybe they were bragging.

Modern shooters typically run charges of 40-50 grains FFg, depending on bullet weight. Considering that FFFg is finer grained (and hence more weight per volume) it would be nearly possible or entirely possible to get 55 grains in a modern case, again depending on bullet weight/length of bullet and how deeply the bullet needs to be seated determined by length of throat- and depending on case capacity of said case and how much powder compression one is seeking. Bear in mind also that modern cases are more heavily constructed thus further restricting capacity compared to early cases made before smokeless pressures were a concern. [I don't know if .38-55's were made initially with folded head (balloon head) cases or not- if so then there would've been scads of room for a 55 grain charge.] That said, I see no reason why the original BP loadings couldn't have contained 55 grains of fine grained cartridge powder under the common 250 grain lead bullet. Of further note is the old trick of trickling powder into the case via a long brass drop tube while vibrating the case a bit to settle the powder. I wish I had an empty 130 year old .38-55 case to prove this empirically.

Chuck Hawks say the 38/55 had 55 grains of black powder in it.

The folks doing the press work screwed up and dropped the 0 from the end.
So they went with it.
303 does sound larger than 30-30.