Cartridges

[CINDERS]

My .318 Kynoch nitro express for the .318 Westley Richards.

Westley Richards introduced the .318, primarily for use in their M98 Mauser and later their P14 Enfield based bolt action sporting rifles.

The .318 Westley Richards is a rimless bottlenecked cartridge primarily intended for use in Africa. The bullet diameter is actually .330", the naming is due to British nomenclature which sometimes names cartridges by their land diameter rather than the more commonly applied groove diameter.

Westley Richards offered solid, soft-point or the revolutionary LT-capped[note 1] bullets in two loadings, the more common being a 250 gr bullet with a listed speed of 2,400 ft/s, whilst a lighter loading firing a 180 gr bullet at 2,700 ft/s was also offered for lighter game. The 250gr bullet possessed high sectional density and thus excellent penetration.

In my book I have on "African Rifles and Cartridges", by John "Pondoro" Taylor wrote that the 250gr .318 Westley Richards is "fully capable of driving its bullet the full length of a big elephant's body.

MkVII 303 for scale.