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Some 6mm wildcat ideas

Beau Meixell said:
I’m looking for some wildcat ideas I shoot metallic silhouette and I’m looking to design potentially the best silhouette cartridge possible. I’m looking to come up with a cartridge that is light recoiling while being balistically efficient at the ram bank (550 meters) we need about 1,100ft lbs of energy at the ram bank to reliably nock them down the 6br and 6dasher are pretty popular but I’m looking to make something g better than them both.
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Beau -

Howdy !

Looking @ some numbers run through the Hornady ballistics calculator......

A vanilla 107Mk @ 3,100fps would give you 1,100 ft lb @ 602yd.

While I have not shot any rams @ 550 meters, you are talking about having enough
case capacity to readily reach the necessary Mv; when shooting a wildcat.
So....let's talk.
 
Beau -

Howdy, again. I hit the transmit button in-error on my previous response.

I shoot a 6mm wildcat of my own design, which I call " DEEP 6 ".

I described DEEP 6 in detail, in a series of posts dated 04 May 2022.
I included pics from the case forming process.

I'll include a pic with this response, but encourage you to do a search on this website for " DEEP 6 "; which is easier than me trying to recreate the info here. I don't think you need to include the quotation marks in your search.
 

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Idaho-Lefty said:
The 6 XC "Handles" the Heavier, 6 MM Bullets like 105 gr. Berg's, 107 gr. SMK's to, the 110-112's with, a 1-7.5 to 1-8 Twist,. Right at,. 3,000 FPS ( PLENTY for, the Ram's ! ). With BETTER Barrel Life than, the "Creedmoor" !
Lots of, 6 XC, Peterson and Norma Brass avail,.. Plus great,.. Forster Dies !
Click to expand...
Yeah that’s one possible cartridge. I am a sponsored shooter for Sierra, and Alpha so I would have to use the 110s and get them going as fast as possible but I don’t think Alpha makes brass for 6xc.
 
The 6 MM Creed should Be,. "Plenty" for those Ram's, also.
Does Alpha make, Brass ???
Tiny Bit Harder on Barrels ( Uses 3-4 grains MORE Powder ) than, the 6 XC But,. should work,.. Fine, otherwise !
Try some,. 107 gr. SMK's ( a "Hard / tough", good shooting, Bullet ) or, the 110 SMK's !
And StaBall 65, Powder ( Makes, Reloading, LIFE,. much, easier !! )
 
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Beau,

It was good shooting with you, your brother, and father this past week. You guys brought home a bunch of awards! Always have a fantastic time shooting Nationals up in Ridgway.

My ram load is a Berger 115 VLD-Target going 2,715-ish. According the ballistic calculators, it's delivering just a smidge under 1,000 ft/lbs of energy at the ram line. I rang two rams during the matches; one a low front leg/body junction hit (to be expected) and one center-butt on the third day in the rain (the rails were getting muddy/gritty and many folks started ringing rams).

Just remember that what you gain in velocity/energy you give up in recoil/punishment for the match.

This year I specifically created a softer load just for chickens which I can also use for short-course HP matches (half-scale turkeys at the chicken line, half-scale rams at the pig line). This gave me a little respite after the harder-hitting ram loads.

Good luck with your search for the magic caliber for Silhouette!


Edit to add: some of you guys may not know/understand that the Hunter rifle cannot weigh more than 9 pounds total. We aren't shooting 15+ pound rifles sitting on bags/rests, so recoil management is a major part of this game. What Beau is looking for is the sweet-spot between down-range energy when it counts (rams, only 25% of the shots taken during a match) and minimized recoil the rest of the shots (the other 75%).
 
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The 130 SMK was the bullet for the 7mm. Unfortunately, Sierra stopped
producing them and I bought out their last remaining lot, and it was a
short run......The 150 SMK's I had shooting in the 3's with an 11.5 twister.
Although recoil is back in the picture. The only other bullet I can think
of is the 140 Berger, but frankly, I could not get it to shoot as good as
the SMK in any of my rigs. But again.....recoil management.
 
Everyone is talking about recoil, and shooter abuse, yet a hot load is necessary for the rams. Could you pick a bigger case with more than enough power and load a hot load for the rams and a lighter load for the rest? i think you would need a reticle that would allow several aiming points so you could shoot the different loads, but it might be worth it .
 
Are you looking to make a wildcatt or simply any cartridge that will meet your performance criteria of knocking down the 55lb ram @550M/ 600Y?

6x47L or 6x47 Swiss Match. Shorter neck vs Longer neck respectively. You could blow the SM to 40° if you so choose to keep the same usable powder volume. Straight SM can be made simply running a 6x47L in a SM die.

With either case and 105-115gr bullets with 26"-30", 2950-3150 fps should give the energy needed with enough room to tune the load to ensure knock down but not more to limit recoil. Your not going to have to push the case hard so that lapua brass should last a long time. The PRS competitors have throughly vetted this case size and similar vol cases. Plenty of load info and vel data.

The easy button is the straight 6x47. I personally like the longer necks and sharper shoulders so a SM with a 40° is more to my liking and has very close to equal powder vol to neck junc. But that's just me.

Go smaller case volume you have to push it hard to hit 1100ft/lb. Go larger you using a larger powder volume than needed or non-lapua brass.

If you want a tad more boiler room 6x47L-Imp 40°
 
TimW said:
Are you looking to make a wildcatt or simply any cartridge that will meet your performance criteria of knocking down the 55lb ram @550M/ 600Y?

6x47L or 6x47 Swiss Match. Shorter neck vs Longer neck respectively. You could blow the SM to 40° if you so choose to keep the same usable powder volume. Straight SM can be made simply running a 6x47L in a SM die.

With either case and 105-115gr bullets with 26"-30", 2950-3150 fps should give the energy needed with enough room to tune the load to ensure knock down but not more to limit recoil. Your not going to have to push the case hard so that lapua brass should last a long time. The PRS competitors have throughly vetted this case size and similar vol cases. Plenty of load info and vel data.

The easy button is the straight 6x47. I personally like the longer necks and sharper shoulders so a SM with a 40° is more to my liking and has very close to equal powder vol to neck junc. But that's just me.

Go smaller case volume you have to push it hard to hit 1100ft/lb. Go larger you using a larger powder volume than needed or non-lapua brass.

If you want a tad more boiler room 6x47L-Imp 40°
Click to expand...
I was looking to make my own cartridge. Or else I would go dasher or gt because of how good they are ballistically.
 
If it were me,

I’d ponder the short fat powder column the PPC gang subscribes too.


Maybe start with a Lapua 284 Win case and shorten it to the point where the powder capacity is right for the velocity range you are after.

A form die or two and a little testing will get you close.

N-160 should run cool enough to keep from burning up the throat too fast so you get the mileage out of the first barrel yo need to properly test all that needs tested.

A little larger fuel tank than a dasher to hold enough slower burning powder to get the energy you seek with the bullets you have chosen in a short fat case to get very efficient ignition.

CW
 
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