The Universal Cartridge, the Universal Rifle or, Good Bye .30-06!!

The Universal Cartridge, the Universal Rifle
Or, Good Bye .30-06!
©2006, Ballistic Bombast Magazine, reprinted with permission.

What's that, Jim? I didn't think you were into shotguns. You gonna take up skeet? Bill watched Jim stretch the tape measure along the barrel.
Nah, it's not a shot gun. It's a .69 caliber rifle right now but I think I will trim it back to a fifty.

You mean have the bore sleeved to .50 cal.? Bill, perplexed, frowned.

Nah, I'm going to cut it off so the bullet will be a fifty when it passes the muzzle. The bore's tapered and I figured it ought to reach fifty right about here, indicating the end of the tape. He marked the spot with a scribe.

Tapered? Isn't squeezing a bullet down from .69 to .50 going to raise pressure? You're gonna blow that thing up in your face. I never heard of such a thing! said Bill, truly alarmed.

Nah, it's tapered all right but the small end is at the breach and the large end is at the muzzle. It's chambered in .223 but I want the bullet to expand only to fifty. I really figure that if you can't do it with a fifty you don't need to do it. I'll leave the .55s, .60s and .69ers to the real die hards. There’s rumors of a guy named Fritz, a German y’know, going all the way to 20 mm, but that’s too much. Ya gotta draw the line somewhere. I think he called it the 20x45 or sumpthin’. Besides, I don’t need the extra barrel length. This ‘uns, 16.1", right on the button, all I need to keep it legal.

Jim, trying to recall if he'd missed something in Lyman's 48th edition, stumbled a bit on the next question, deciding he'd try one more. You mean you are going to chamber this barrel in .223 Remington and try to shoot a little .22 caliber bullet through a .50 caliber bore. Right?

Nah. I mean nothing of the sort. I wanted a real universal cartridge and rifle combo. You know, one rifle I can take any where and do anything with. Varmints in the morning. Plink cans after lunch. A little long range competition in the afternoon and maybe snipe for a grizzly at dusk.

You can do all that with one rifle?

Well, in a word, yes. Of course you have to tailor your loads to the game at hand. I bought a 8 lb. keg of that new Xanadu powder and 10,000 PhysicsMasster® bullets. I aim to load up some bullets and find suitable light, medium and heavy loads. For light loads, a little dab'll do ya. The load calls for 10.0 gr of Xanadu in the .223 case which will give the PhysicsMasster® 2,000 fps, .22 cal. and 75 grains bullet weight for a .650 BC. If I want a deer load, I use 20.0 gr. Xanadu and get .30 cal. and 200 gr. weight right at 3,000 fps. Still better is 25.0 gr. Xanadu which gives me a true .416 bore, 500 grain weight and 3,500 fps. But if I want to max it, I use a compressed load of 35.8 gr. Xanadu to reach fifty, 1250 gr. weight at 4,500 fps. At that speed, BC is almost 6.5. Isn't a thing on the planet that can stand up to it! You don't really have to go to .69 cal. although 5,500 gr. at 6,000 fps isn't bad. After all, those NASA boys tell me the most they can get in a reaction rocket motor, just exhaust gasses coming from a nozzle, no bullet or barrel, is 7,000 fps. So, 6,000 fps and having to put up with barrel friction isn't bad at all. Plus, you can really ring those gongs over there in Hardin County, if the FAA allows me the airspace. NASA nixed me, some suborbital technicality or so they said.

Bill, too confused to speak just nodded and grinned. "Best humor him until I can reach the phone and call help." That and edging toward the door was all he could focus on now.

But, Bill had waited too long. Jim was now lost in the thrall of winning the annual Schutzen Fest in three months time and was not going to loose this chance to issue a warning to his nemesis, Albert Hardy, via Bill. Al had always managed to win the shoot despite the new rifles, gear and gimmicks anyone came up with. Until now.

No. I think Betsy here, once I get her screwed into the action and the stock, will be the answer to every shooting chore I will ever have. If NASA hadn't been so quick to share their space technology, I might still be shooting that miserable '03 and scrounging for the last of the FA62 Match brass. You see, the PhysicsMasster® bullets are homogenous; no core, no jacket, just solid all the way through - except for the RF pill but that is centerlined. Run out is measured in microns so they are accurate; .000000000015". And since the alloy NASA developed is contra-massive, the faster they go, the more mass they have. For plinking and varmints, choose a light load of powder. 10 Gr. of Xanadu is plenty. It's an easy load. The bullet has zero mass at rest and stays that way until it reaches full diameter as it departs the rifling. That’s the great thing about the PhysicsMasster® in a reverse taper barrel. No recoil and great ballistics.. Bounce one up to 2,000 fps and it usually rings in at 70-80 gr. Use a reverse taper barrel and it won't swage up beyond .22 cal. Makes a great 300 yd varmint ca'tridge. Give it a little more speed and the mass perks right up. Its easy to get 300, 400 and even 500 gr. on less than 25 gr. of powder and you can get .30 to .40 caliber. Do you know how flat shooting and hard-hitting a 500 gr .338 is, especially with at .985 BC? And, to top it off, since its' chambered in .223, I can use a ultra short actioned, light weight rifle.

One last try, Bill thought. If I distract him, I can get away. What’s that wire there, he said, pointing to the offending object. Jim stiffened and Bill know he’d hit the mark. He edged toward the door - until transfixed in his tracks. That connects the chronograph sensor to the actuator, Jim said, poking the wire back under the stock. Act You what? Bill asked before he could stop himself. That’s right, Jim said. Ack U Ate Ore. It is slaved to the ‘lectronic ’scope & rangefinder on top here so it flexes the barrel to keep me on target. You see I’ll miss those little critters on long shots if the muzzle velocity varies by more than .1%. The chrono is under the hand guard right here, he said, tapping it about 2" ahead of the chamber. The chrono measures velocity right out of the gate by sensing the RF pill in the bullet. If velocity is too much or too little, it signals the actuators here - tapping the front of the hand guard - and they flex the barrel, up or down to maintain .02 MOA elevation. Neat trick, but its already a bit dated. The generation III stuff won’t have the exposed wires. It works neato and you can watch the replay in the ‘scope. Bill was feeling a bit faint and trying to remember why he’d come in the first place. Escape was on his mind now. To dismiss himself, he ventured: well, you mean no more dabbling with handloads, no more searching for Zero SD and that gizmo controls everything so all the bullets go in the same hole, no more skill, no more windage and elevation. Doesn’t that gizmo add extra weight?

Jim scowled this time, and snapped, I never said anything about windage. I said elevation. I’m workin’ on it. The new scope system will have GPS, remote sensing and all that other electronics stuff but I’m workin’ on it. As for weight, with sling, sighting system and a full magazine, the rifle weighs right at 50 ounces. If it weren't for the fact that the bullet has no mass until it exits the rifling I'd be at a significant disadvantage. Still, I have to tolerate the 50 ounces. The 'smith said I had to have something to mount the ‘scope on and need a stock to steady my cheek behind the ‘scope’s display. Not to mention the miserable BATFE. They alone added 3 ounces & 4 unnecessary inches. I coulda maxed at .40 cal., & 12" y’know. I suppose I can put up with 3+ pounds. It could be less but I chose to stay with the legacy 5.56 case. I could reduce weight yet another six ounces if I’d gone to a smaller case but what is there? .221? .22 Hornet? FiveseveN? Ballistics are nearly as good but they are on the small side and hard to pick up. Arthritis, y’know. Besides, .223 cases are dirt cheap. Gotta save money somewhere. I’d thought about going .17 caliber but again, starting at .22 caliber is not a bad compromise. I’d even named baby the .22-06, the century thing, y’know, but decided ag’in it. Someone may think I just necked down the last ought six. A new ought six shouldn’t stand in the shadows. So, it’s the .22-.50-‘07 in this set up. And Ought Seven it will be. Besides, I’ll carry on tradition with the rifle itself, blending the old & new he said, tenderly stroking the stock and snicking the bolt back and forth in the receiver. You got to admire its classic lines, its classic design and I just love the feel of a phenolic stock; I mean if an AR-15 was good enough for grandpa, its good enough for me.

Bill, unlocking the touch pad on his cell phone, clucked approvingly.

I forget where I saw it, but someone once seriously proposed a multi-caliber rifle barrel. It was made of a wrap around strip of steel and caliber change was accomplished by twisting it tighter or looser. Of course no mention was made of small details like steel thin enough to twist and thick enough to contain any serious pressure, but then genius does not concern itself with details.

Jim

I had one of those -- it came with a long, skinny Scandanavian who would run downrange beside the bullet, tapping it with a stick to keep it on course.

(What, you never heard of Finn stabilization?):madsmile:

I'll groan as soon as I stop laughing.

Jim