I wonder how flat was the bullet trajectory.
Also I never saw any youtuber testing a Panzerbüchse 39.
Is it something illegal even for americans?
How fast were those bullets?
I wonder how flat was the bullet trajectory.
Also I never saw any youtuber testing a Panzerbüchse 39.
Is it something illegal even for americans?
Not much.
You can clearly see the bullet is not even properly seated and crimped, leaving a big gap for gas to escape from it's sides.
It's a meme cartridge, that's why no one ever tested it.
It's not illegal. It's that no one has any in the US outside of maybe a museum or boomer collector.
About 1/3 of the drop for a given range compared to 8mm mauser
It's like being 600m closer to the target with a regular Mauser in terms of velocity.
There's nothing illegal about it, it's an 8mm bullet in a very overbore cartridge, it's really similar to 50 bmg necked down to take 30 cal bullets. There's just not much reason to do it when you consider the extremely short barrel life and that modern ELR cartridges can do even better with less powder in an action that isn't super huge.
This, the only reason to own one would be for collector's purposes
I used to own a rifle very similar. It was a wildcat built on a .50 BMG necked down to .375, so not exactly the same as the Panzerbuchse but quite close.
Old link:
https://web.archive.org/web/19991113223600/http://www.statearms.com/mach5.htm
Brass can be seen in picrel, 3rd from the left.
There's nothing illegal about these, it's just that originals are rare collector's pieces and it's not like you can just buy ammunition for them so you have to commit a lot to handloading for them.
Based 1999 website
I remember you posting about that 375/50 before, you been into any wildcats since?
I haven't gotten into any other wildcats but I have been handloading for some oddball antiques. Picrel is 8ga rifle brass. I am actually quite interested in some of the super tiny wildcats, especially the .14 Flea, but I haven't found any source of barrels.
>8ga rifle
Based, single or double rifle?
I've always thought a high pressure shotgun cartridge based on one of the hmg calibers would be cool. 50 opened up to 12ga or 14.5 to 6 or 8ga could probably get slugs up over 4000fps with full pressure loads
Seems like you'd have to get lucky and find a boomer getting rid of a .14 barrel. It can be hard to find/expensive to even get blanks for the less common but still standardized bores
Double rifle. And I'm also not sure exactly what size to call it. According to the original order book it's an 8 bore, which is how it was described at auction when I bought it. However when I took the chamber casts to have brass & molds made the groove diameter comes out to 0.888 inch, which according to Greener is a "7/1" bore, or in other words, the first standard over-size above a 7ga. I don't have another to compare it to so I don't know if this sort of thing was common or if this is some oddball size. The caliber is not marked on the gun but the charge is: 10 drams. So going by the same notation as a ".45-70", this is an ".89-275"
As for the .14 barrel: finding one from some boomer is exactly what I had in mind. I've had a saved search up on Gunbroker for ages though and no hits yet. I don't really care what it might be for, I have access to a machine shop and I don't mind having a chamber reamer custom made, I just need a blank or an existing barrel to use as a starting point.
I like your idea about the high pressure shotgun cartridge too, that would be very fun to play with. It reminds me of a gun I saw for sale a few years back where someone built a shotgun for 8ga industrial shells on a single-shot .50 BMG action.
Something else I've been thinking about doing is trying to recreate the old Westley Richards Explora and Fauneta cartridges. These were basically high-velocity hollowpoint slugs with a thin sheet metal aerodynamic cap.
.88-275 would be fitting for here
A 7/8" long 14 caliber cartridge could be called .14x.88"
>8ga industrial shells
>24 pellet 3oz buckshot
>they make them with huge silencers
Wew
Extending the range of a shotgun would be really cool. Birdshot flak shells with a nose like that could reach a lot further up.
>rifled barrel
>fuzes set for different distances
>Ounce or two of birdshot in an aerodynamic capsule is launched at 3000fps
>fuze sets off small (<1/4oz) charge that releases pellets into a cloud just short of the birds
what is the point of that thing?
Shooting slag off the insides of kilns
neat
or two of birdshot in an aerodynamic capsule
That is a very old idea, check this out!
So many firearm and ballistic ideas are old things made new again and I love it
>50 opened up to 12ga
there's 12 gauge from hell, ed hubel and some others loaded them 25 - 35ksi
you could go hotter if you're thinking of building it on an actual .50 rifle action; they were using modified shotguns
savage 212 with custom barrels for the highest pressure, i believe
Building on an existing shotgun frame, or something similar, makes sense because then the finished gun can at least be fired like a normal shotgun. Something built on a .50 BMG action would be very bulky and heavy and it wouldn't be easy to use it for hunting or frick around with clays or whatever.....but it could be loaded to higher pressures.
Wat do? Honestly, I think I'd rather go the .50 BMG route and just go for the maximum meme factor of the highest pressure you could get. It's not as if any of these designs will be practical so why not go full Dragster if that makes any sense.
The two main problems I see regarding practicality are:
1) recoil.
2) serious diminishing returns with respect to performance. shot has miserable aerodynamics. If we double the muzzle velocity due to higher pressure we're not getting double the range, in fact we're probably only going to get like 5-10% more useful range.
So I say frick it, don't even try to make it shoulderable. Build it like a benchrest rifle. Four foot barrel, massively heavy, say to hell with diminishing returns and just see how fast you get that that shot moving.
I can chamber barrel blanks if you want anon,
Anyone can chamber a barrel, I've done one holding the barrel in one hand and the reamer in the other and it turned out great. The problem with .14 caliber is that no one makes blanks for them and all the barrel makers have too many orders as it is to start production of a sub caliber that won't sell as well
Threading a tenon with one hand sounds like shitty work and a shitty time. My revolversmithing/stockmaking professor chambered barrels in his shed a similar way but the tenon was shit. Anyway, here is a link to some 4mm barrel blanks that are somehow both blanks and finished. You could cut the chamber and go from there.
Custom barrel blanks are available but expensive
https://www.ebay.com/itm/265042801466
Anon, are you suggesting I get a time machine to back in time to 1985 when I could order some from Lothar Walther? If I could, I would. But today, they only offer down to .17.
Yep I said the smallest I could find was 4mm, not .14 caliber
I have a friend with several 4mm barrels. If you're set on .14 though, sucks. Single point rifling is possible
Kind of a dead caliber range now. It was apparently always a pain to drill properly and rifle.
Calhoon used to play with 14 but has now settled on 19. PacNor used to offer a 14 but now only down to 17, they may still have the tools lying around.
I talked to Pac-Nor, apparently their .14 cal tooling broke and they aren't bothering to replace it because the caliber is in such low demand and such a pain in the ass.
Make your own? Experience the frustration people felt when playing with wildcats. I would love to know how often Eichelberger swore when making .10 calibre barrels.
Not sure who would be able to supply barrels now. Not even sure if bullets are still available. Pretty sure Corbin offers tools to make them though.
I can do that too, that's the easy part. Can you supply .14 cal barrel blanks? That is the question.
Someone needs to do 20MM Vulcan necked down to .17 or 2.7 Kolibri
Call it, “2.7 Spacefarer”
Those are shit.
Ackley showed that diminishing returns start to become logarithmic.
Meaning a short action cartridge can move a .224" 55gr @ ~4000 fps, but a 300wm necked down to .224 is only getting the same bullet @ ~4700 fps.
Hell yeah where can I read more about that
Handbook for Shooters and Reloaders by P. O. Ackley (2 volumes)
Thank you, friend. He was prolific
Tank shells get up to 5900 and they use the same propellants, what gives?
Talking out of my ass but the powder is drastically different, with a longer burn time and much higher pressure. Also sub-caliber projectiles are not the same as something necked down. Less volume in the barrel being the main point.
Ackley was talking about standard bullets, you're talking about subcaliber saboted ammunition.
Also, powder technology has improved since Ackley's day. Go look up the .30-.378 Weatherby for example.
>How fast were those bullets?
Every source I've read says it would push a 224gr projectile at about 3,800fps