I think the tough part will be acquiring new brass. Several Members recently contacted Starline Brass and they were not given encouragement.  You should look at their Website 3 or 4 times a year to see if they list the 33 WCF as available for backorder.  I think that means they are contemplating an eventual run and want to start accumulating backorders. 

I had placed a backorder for .41 Long Colt brass and , after 6 months passed, I got a call from them inquiring whether I wanted to cancel or leave in place. No assurance when they might fill it but I kept my order active. About a month later they charged my card and sent me a ship notice.  As always, the brass was first rate. 

I’ve read from reliable sources you can convert 45/70 brass, although it helps to have two intermediate resizing dies. The late Mike Venturino wrote about doing it in his book,  Shooting Lever Guns of the Old West. 

I think there are several members looking for 33wcf brass. If the price were reasonable and 10 guys would commit to 250 cases each, ..

Is this new brass and is there a price for the whole lot?

Steve,  Do you have any interest in some 33wcf brass?

Zebulon said
Steve,  Do you have any interest in some 33wcf brass?

  

Bill – 

That’s an interesting question.  Previously, I wouldn’t have described my supply of .33 WCF as a, “lifetime supply.”  Now, I’m strongly leaning toward the reality that it likely is.  

Bill Yadlosky said

Zebulon said

I think there are several members looking for 33wcf brass. If the price were reasonable and 10 guys would commit to 250 cases each, ..

Is this new brass and is there a price for the whole lot?

  

I could be interested in 200-250 cases if someone picks up the lot.  Bill

  

Bill, So far, nobody has come forward to quarterback it and nobody else has offered to take a piece of it except you. If I had more time, I’d ask Bert to bid on it for me and then parcel it out. Unfortunately I don’t have the time. 

I’d be interested in some 33 WCF brass. 

Winchester offered .33 WCF ammunition from 1904 to 1940, according to one source. I’m not sure when that chambering was dropped from its line of rifles but  probably 1936 when the .348 was introduced. 

Although the .300 Savage, introduced in 1920, was only loaded with either a 150 grain or 180 grain bullet of .308 diameter,  it quickly became a very popular American big game cartridge along with its parent Savage Model 1899 rifle, and was touted by Savage as suitable for Elk and the large bears. Savage also  made a bolt action rifle for it,  Winchester eventually chambered both its Model 54 and Model 70 for it, and Remington chambered its Model 141 and 760 pump guns, Model 81 autoloader, and its post WWII Model 722 for it. 

As high velocity rifles became more popular following World War I, I think Winchester was pressed to come up with a lever action rifle and cartridge that would compete with the 300 Savage more effectively than the .33 WCF was doing. However, it lacked the resources to do this at the close of the War and throughout the Nineteen Twenties, as it descended into insolvency. I suspect it began to lose a serious chunk of the market for high velocity lever action rifle big game rifles after 1920 and Savage was the beneficiary. 

By 1936, after the Winchester assets were owned and being operated by Olin Industries, the new Winchester company had the resources and sympathetic management to allow production of the Model 71 and its .348 cartridge, a lever action rifle/cartridge that had to have been designed to compete with the Savage 99/.300 (there were no others).  Unfortunately, the American big game rifle market had already begun to shift in favor of bolt action rifles and the .30 Gov’t 1906 family of cartridges. After the hiatus of 1941 – 1947, the availability of moderately priced scopes brought about by the genius of Bill Weaver accelerated the shift. 

The 33 WCF has always looked like a useful cartridge to me but it was killed off by the .300 Savage. 

Bert H. said
Bill,

Winchester offered the Model 71 in 33 WCF up to WW II, and they continued to manufacture ammo for it through the 1950s, I do not know for sure when Olin discontinued manufacturing 33 WCF ammo, but I suspect that it was sometime in the very early 1960s.

Bert

  Thanks Bert.  I knew there were some Model.71 guns factory chambered for the 33 WCF but I’d not heard it was ever a catalogued offering.  Likewise but more seldom, the 45-70. But I’ve never examined the prewar catalogs. Have I been misled?.