33 WCF Jacketed 200gr and lighter info|Page 2|Winchester Hunting, Shooting & Reloading|Forum|Winchester Collector

Well,

There are about 10 different posts on 33 wcf going on right now, and I wasn’t sure which one to post on, but I did want to make a post as I chrony’d my first batch of 33 wcf loads yesterday with the 200 grain hornady FTX. 

The overall length of the cartridge did not present an issue with clearance to lift the round up on my particular 1906 half mag takedown 1886, even with the mag tube turned all the way in, however the magazine follower itself did present an issue in conjunction with the pointy bullets. More on that in a second.

I used:

New Factory Winchester 45-70 Brass

Redding Form Die

Redding sizing and Seating Die

Lee Factory Crimp Die

Rcbs shell holder. #8 I believe. 

Imr 3031

200 grain Hornady FTX

Federal Large Rifle Match Primers (overkill, but it’s what I had on hand).

I loaded up some dummy loads with no powder, but a seated primer to test feeding at various seating depths. It was evident very quickly that length clearance on my particular rifle was not a problem in regards to lifting clearance, but I did have a loading and feeding issue. 

Knowing length was a hot topic after reading various forum posts, I trimmed the brass down to the hornady specified min brass length and seated the bullet to the point where you can just barely see the cannelure.

The feeding problem I experienced was that the rounds would enter the reciever cockeyed and get hung up on the loading gate side of the reciever. I got to thinking about why this was happening, and determined that the flat face of the factory follower allowed the tipped bullets to slide on it. Combine that with the geometry of the 33 wcf case necking down to a smaller diameter than the body of the cartridge, it was leaving room for the bullet tip to slip and the cartridge to enter the reciever crooked. It is also not very easy to feed a round into the magazine tube straight coming in from the loading gate. The extra cartridge length, again combined with a pointed bullet just gives bad angles. 

I did some googling, and it turns out that this situation may not be unique to this rifle and cartridge. It appears that marlin and a possibly others utilize a dimpled magazine follower these days, with a small dimple centered in the follower to give that tipped bullet a spot to rest and less chance to divert off course. Well, I am pretty blessed to have a brother than runs a 3d printing business full time, and lives 1 mi away from me. I took him the factory follower, and asked him to replicate the follower with a dimpled face. 2 grams of plastic and about 30 minutes later, we had a printed prototype follower with a dimple that looked similar to the modern dimpled followers I found on Google. I took it home and slapped it in my mag tube and gave my dummy rounds a go. It appeared to work in terms of keeping the cartridge straight once properly loaded, but it did not help get the rounds in through the loading gate, and the small diameter dimple was too small to hit at the angle they go into the loading gate on. Again, I am lucky to have the resource as after 10 minute phone call and 2 more grams of plastic, we had prototype number 2, which basically craters out the entire face of the follower, and allows the bullet to “slip” into being centered upon loading the rifle. 

There is probably some tweaking to the follower that could be done, but prototype follower #2 works. I can feed rounds through the loading gate, and the gun feeds them into the reciever straight. I now have an 1886 in 33 wcf that consistently loads, and cycles my home brew 200 grain ftx loads with factory length BRASS and the bullet crimped on the cannelure. 

Attached is an image of the magazine follower we came up with, as well as yesterday’s chronograph results off my garmin xero w/38 grains of 3031. Note that I am almost 100 fps faster then what the book velocity shows for this load. This is close to the maximum velocity listed in the hornady manual for 3031, at a lesser powder charge than they report. I shouldn’t need to say it, but please work up your own loads responsibly from a lesser and safe starting value. 

I about croaked when I saw next to no SD on my first five shots. I weighed the charges by hand, but I can’t say I was trying to make match rounds. Rounds were fired in reasonably fast succession (probably 10-20 seconds between shots) and I’ll blame the SD opening up on my barrel getting warm. Either way, I am very pleased with the results, and im very pleased to be able to buy off the shelf bullets from a major manufacturer for this rifle. A hornady interlock is one of my favorite deer bullets, and I suspect this would be a smackin’ load on a white tail. 

Cheers,

Garrett

Garrett – 

Great information and report!

Bill,

The only issue I had during forming/sizing was lube. The imperial case lube I was using dented the cases If I put enough of it on that I could actually function my press. I switched to using hornady unique case lube, and everything went very well with an thin and even coat of that. 

In regards to long range performance, I do have access to steel up to 700 yards on 100 yard intervals. I would be happy to do a range report but you the on paper data may provide better guidance. At any sort of range with open sights, I would anticipate the shooter skill and consistency would turn into an issue. 🙂

Attached are two ballistic calculator runs out of Hornady’s app. Both of them were run under the same neutral conditions, at an assumed 2087 fps from the muzzle. Since hornady no longer makes an .338 FP, I looked for the closest comparison flat point bullet with readily available data. For this test, a 170 gr .32 caliber flat point was as close as I could get. 

There is no doubt that the .430 BC far is a huge jump up from the kind of BC’s that any sort of flat point would offer. Now, is there a noticable difference at the kind of shots that a guy would take with an open sight lever action rifle? I’ll let you guys decide. 

I ran off quite a bit of data when I was exploring the cartridge and its potential. One thing I looked at closely was the performance of 33 wcf vs 30-30 winchester. Hornady has a box offering leverrevolution load of 160 grains at a stated velocity of 2400 fps. The maximum velocities listed in hornady’s reloading manual for 33 wcf is 2200 fps. When looking at drop and energy, the 30-30 box load at 2400 fps, is equal or better than an assumed 2200 fps 33 load with the 200 gr FTX. This puzzled me at first. Is the 33 wcf no better than the 30-30? Well, if you put all of your eggs in the energy basket, it would appear so. 

After a conversation with my uncle regarding the results, he urged me to look at metrics that were centric on terminal performance, not just energy. When you start looking at an equation based on terminal performance, such as taylor KO, the 33 wcf is in an entirely different tier, capable of elk etc, compared to the 30-30 results being in the “whitetail range”. If there is interest, i’d be happy to post some of those results and calculations.

Regards,

Garrett

Thank you both.  That is enough to convince me it would be worth the effort, although my old steel BLR 358 wcf and its detachable box magazine dampen the urgency to experiment..

What I really need to do is find a .407 jacketed spitzer for my 1895, likely a long search.

My original 1895s preferred .411-412 Hawk 300 gr bullets. I did try some 315 gr Hawk .412 bullets and they were accurate at all practical ranges. Andy Hill at Hawk will custom make bullets to your order. Slug the bore or be very sure of your bullet diameter required.

Bill may have a custom barrel. I am not sure of the bore diameter of newer reproduction rifles, as I have never owned one. 

Bill does not need to slug his .411 barrel.  He needs not to write posts when he hasn’t had enough sleep and his aged brain is fogged. 

Tomorrow,  he will un-fog his brain with some range work with a rice-powered 1886 ELW 45-70-400.