Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters ELMER KEITHS 280 OKH RIFLE - SEEKING INFO

I'm starting to think that every time Keith and O'Neil developed or experimented with a different caliber, they stamped an "OKH" after it.

Go ahead and clear your cards, folks; we have a winner.

Hello boy1,

Thanks for the suggestion. It took less than 4 hours after calling the number above to get a reply. Unfortunately, no mention of the 280 OKH was found. Looks like I wii be doing a chamber cast next Tuesday. I'll be posting pictures then.

Hello Folks,

Well, my Cerrosafe arrived today and I've spent the last 6 hours casting, measuring, photographing, disassembling & reassembling, and trying to get as many details into this discussion as possible.

Please excuse the unorganized introduction of the information; I'm just going to start listing facts as best I can about the rifle and accessories. Hopefully this will address many of the questions raised in previous discussions.

I'll start with the 280 O.K.H. caliber and cases.

Shown below are some of the fired empty cases that came with the rifle. This one box has the load "55g 4350 - 180g" hand written on the side. All the boxes and cases are Western Cartridges Co. 300 H&H primed brass.



The bullets are boxed in 25s and the top of the boxes are ink stamped "CAL. .280 MAG" - "180 GR. C.P." - Bullets measure 0.2885" diameter and 1.272" long and weigh 180 grains.



A chamber cast is shown along side a loaded cartridge. Overall Length of the chamber is 2.840". Overall Length of the case is 2.800". Case shoulder dia is 0.504". Length of the cartridge base to shoulder is 2.210". There is a 0.080" radius joining the neck to shoulder. This case has a single radius only, not a double-radius like a Weatherby case. There is NO radius of the shoulder to body junction. Chamber throat diameter is 0.2890" and the chamber has 1.9375" long freebore. This is a true "freebore" NOT throat erosion.



When you compare similar cases, the 280 O.K.H. falls between the 280 Dubiel and the 280-300-CCC. The Grains-of-Water capacity is shown below each case. Interestingly, the 280 O.K.H. and the 280-300-CCC are both nearly identical in capacity to our modern day 7mm STW being minus -8/10th of one grain, and plus +1/10th of one grain, respectively.



I disassembled the rifle entirely and discovered that the barrel has been set-back. There is an old "280-300-CCC" caliber marking under the wood at what appears to have been the top of the barrel of a previous mounting. It therefore reasons that the current 280 O.K.H. stamping is the last and current caliber.

The rifle's internal magazine box has been altered to take cartridges with an Overall Loaded Length of 3.600" long. And as mentioned earlier, the action port has a clearance cut-out to allow the removal of a loaded round.



The 26-1/2" bull barrel measures 0.875" diameter at the muzzle and 1.250" diameter at the receiver. It is cut with 6 lands and grooves. The unloaded rifle with the 2-1/2 power Lyman All-Weather Alaskan Scope weighs exactly 12-1/2 pounds. The scope has extra fine cross-hairs with a tiny 1/2-minute dot.

The wooden shipping crate has many historic stampings and labels. As depicted at the beginning of this post, the crate's lid shows Elmer Keith's "North Fork Idaho" address.



This end of the crate shows the Railway Express label.

[img]http://www.buckstix.com/buckpics/express1a.jpg[/img]

Numerous Ink Stamps are found on all sides showing "C. M. O'Neil" and his "Hopkins, Minn." shipping address, as well as his "FED. LIC. 887", Federal Firearms License number.

[img]http://www.buckstix.com/buckpics/express4a.jpg[/img]

The opposite side of the crate shows the remnants of another old faded label that has yet to be deciphered.

[img]http://www.buckstix.com/buckpics/express3a.jpg[/img]

And here is something that I missed entirely. When I had the rifle apart, I searched the barrel thoroughly for any stamping that might give a clue as to who / when this rifle might have been built for Elmer. Only when I reassembled, cleaned, and oiled everything did I notice the "C M O'NEIL" stamp on the muzzle face. I guess that answers that!

[img]http://www.buckstix.com/buckpics/muz4.jpg[/img]

Wow, what a history lesson..thanks for the information..these two were very interesting folks..I visited O'Neil's grave in Superior, Montana in 2011...You rifle must have been built before Charlie moved to Mt...there was a write up on O'Neil in Percision Shooting, I believe, in 2011...

This has been very interesting. Thanks for sharing.

Thanks Buckstix for starting this thread. It has been very interesting to say the least.

Yeah great thread and seems like you've gained some provenance too. Nice outfit .Magnum man

WOW! A window into top of the game wildcatting history. And, we have a ring side seat...

Thanks,

DF

AMEN! One of the best threads ever on the Campfire.

Used to be able to hunt bald eagles in Alaska for money. Back when they had a 5 cent bounty on Dolly Varden trout.

That 1.9375" is some free bore, and to think that some get paranoid with a normal 7x57 throat length of about .3545".

Hello ghost,

You mention you corresponded with Elmer's DIL. Is there any chance to find out if Elmer kept any journals or notebooks about his and Charley O'Neil's experimentation with rifles such as mine. It would be interesting to back-track their thinking of over 70 years ago.

Could you post a picture of the NRA cover?

I have had everything on hold while I waited for loading dies, which may never come. So, I finally put together some assorted dies to reload these, and I tried about a half-dozen different combinations.

Here is a 100 yd target that was shot with 55.0g of IMR 4350 and a 175g bullet. - Just like Elmer said in his write-up about this rifle. I had several groups right around an inch, but this was the best group "so far" - a solid 7/8" 5-shot group.

I'll post more pics as I get loads developed, if they do better than this. I guess this rifle would be good for long range hits on Coyotes and Eagles.

That's for sure!

This is the coolest and most informative thread I've read in Campfire history.

What a nice piece of living history.

Gunner

Great thread! Thanks!

The grand old rifle is still shooting pretty darn good.

I agree, I grew up reading Kieth and O'connor, this is way cool!!!