Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters So what cartridges were ONLY chambered in one commercial rifle?

Thought of another. The .307 Win in the 94. At least I think Winchester was the only production rifle so chambered. Not sure if Marlin made them as well?

Jeff

I've seen the 35 Rem mentioned a couple of times in this thread...so I have to ask, what rifle was it supposed to have been chambered in? I have Marlin 336 in 35 Rem, and I believe the Remington 600 and/or 660 was also so chambered.

The .480 Ruger was/is only made in the M92 replicas, in rifles. I think the recent #1's are chambered for the .475 Linebaugh, so they of course take the shorter case as well. The .454 Casull has been made in recent Browning/Winchester Hi-walls

Someone mentioned the .30 Luger previously, it was made in the Browning Hi-Power as well, if we're including pistols.

The .44 Russian was made in several different revolvers, but I think the recent Spencer replicas are its only use in a rifle.

I'd bet the .30 M1 Carbine was never made in anything except M1 carbine rifles, although Ruger did make some single action revolvers for them.

The .50 Beowulf has definitely been used only in AR15 variants.

T/C & Ruger chambered the .30 Carbine in pistols.

The .35 Remington was chambered by T/C, Remington in autoloaders and the 788, Winchester in the Model 70.

The .30 T/C, .308MX and .338MX come to mind as cartridges nobody else will chamber.

Since so many people obviously aren't reading this entire thread (the .348 Winchester keeps popping up, even though I discounted it in the original post) I decided to make a list of the rounds that have been mentioned AND NOT DISPROVED so far.

Also, I'll repeat and refine the definition: a commercially loaded rifle round that was chambered only in one commercially available rifle, and not chambered in any other rifle OR handgun. (This is to eliminate handgun rounds that were chambered in only one rifle.)

ONLY THE LONELY

.223? Voere caseless
.224, .378, .416 and .460 Weatherby
.25-20 Marlin
.25-36 Marlin
6.5x54, 8x56, 9x56 Mannlicher-Schoenauer
7mm BR
.30 T/C
.303 Savage
.308 and .338 Marlin Express
8mm Remington Magnum
.338 RCM
.351, .401 WSLR
.358 Norma Magnum
9.3x66 (.370 Sako)
.416 Ruger
.475 Turnbull


This obviously also eliminates a bunch of military rounds, which is what I intended in the first place. I also decided to eliminate a whole pile of black-powder rounds introduced during the BP/smokeless transition. They never had a real chance.

One thing to watch for is that a lot of older smokeless Winchester rounds were chambered both in lever-actions AND the 1885 single-shot. I also eliminated the .240 Weatherby, because it was chambered in both the Mark V and the Mark Ultra Lightweight, which are definitely different rifles. Also, the .300 Ruger Compact Magnum has been chambered in the No. 1. Has the .338 RCM?

I didn't eliminate some of the Newton rounds on the same basis, but they were chambered in different models of Newton rifles, with different actions. What does everybody else think about this?

I also added the .35 Winchester Self-Loading, a shorter, earlier version of the .351 that only lasted two years in the Model 1905. When the 1907 rifle came out, the .35 was dropped for the .351 WSL.

I'll also note that I am one of thefew people to take game with a .223 Voere caseless. A companion and I shot a few small animals in South Africa with one in 1992.

MD,

Did someone disprove the 308 Marlin Express?

How about the series of new Blaser Magnums? I don't know if Blaser is offering these in more than one model or not.

Thanks again for the thread.

Thanks for noticing about the .308 Marlin Express. I had it and the .338 ME on my hand-written list but somehow they didn't make it to the post.

Too early to tell about the Blaser Magnums, but who knows?

The 35 Winchester was a chambering offered by the Ross Rifle Co. in their Model 1905 sporting rifle. A couple of English gunmakers (don't recall whom exactly)chambered Mauser 98 sporting rifles in 280 Ross around the time of the Great War. It was probably experimental, but there is at least one Winchester High Wall known in 303 Savage. This is in the Cody, WY museum.

While Remington was trying to figure out what to call the .280R/7mmExpress a few rifles went out the door stamped 7mm/06. That may be a 'one of'. A friend still has one tho Remington wanted to buy it back.

O

John, I have a round that is stamped ".351 SLR", is this different from the "WSL" that you are referring to? I'm pretty sure it was used in the 1907 Winchester.

Ryan

The .35 WSL came out in 1905 for the Model 1905 self-loading rifle that evidently had real problems. The problems were fixed with the Model 1907 self-loading rifle, and the cartridge was lengthened into the .351 WSL.

I can tell you that aside from Schultz & Larsen of Denmark, the 308 Norma Magnum was also chambered by Remington in their 40X as it once was the darling of the 1000yard prone competitors. It's also mentioned in Warren Page's article that tracked accuracy tests out of the 40x's.

That's right! I remember seeing it in that article. Thanks....

I'm not sure how this would be assigned, but Gerlich's 280 Halger Magnum used a case that was dimensionally identical with the 280 Ross. Halger rifles were built on Mauser 98 actions.

Halger sold a few of his rifles chambered in .244 HV Magnum, and .335 HV Magnum. I'm unaware of any other rifles built commercially for these. Only a very few hundred Halger rifles were ever produced.

The Blake rifle (mentioned on campfire's Savage forum last month) from the 1890s is described in Sharpe's Rifle book. There were some Blake cartridges made for it that were probably chambered for no other rifles, including the .236, .30, and .400. The Blake rifle may have been the only rifle ever chambered for the 6mm Winchester/Navy Rimmed cartridge. Elmer Keith wrote an article about the Blake in The American Rifleman in the early 1930s. The 1898 Blake catalog was reprinted about 40 years ago, I think.

--Bob

Jim,

Modified the post to reflect your information. Thanks very much!

The .303 Savage High Wall may have been a special order. Why not chamber a competitor to the .30 WCF if somebody was willing to pay for it?

301 Winchester

401.....

Cooper Centerfire Magnums don't make the list?

Dardick Tround, 8mm remmag, 30-03 govt, 5mm remmeg, 416 Barrett, 30TC, 307 WRA, 356 WRA, 38-72, 460 S&W, 500 S&W.