.400 Winchester

[Padrino]

Been doing some research on .40 caliber in a Winchester 94 (just to be different)and found that Olin developed a .40 cal based on the .30-30 case, but it never became available.
Anyone here know anything about it?

Thanks

[Trailblazer]

There is a case drawing floating around the internet. The case is a bit fatter than the 30-30. It is more like the 303 Savage. There is mention of it in the Hodgdon #26 manual in the 375 Winchester listing. Somebody on the leverguns forum had more info on it. You might do a search there.

[6pt-sika]

I got hung up on this by reading about it in an older Hogdon manual about 10 years ago . At one point I had drawings for the reamer but never had one made and seem to have misplaced (deleted) them by now !

IF folks in the early 80's had purchased the 375 WIN in numbers it is my understanding that the 400 WIN was on the board to come out very shortly there after !

While I used to enjoy wildcats and obselete cartridges , now I pretty much steer clear of them . However if it became easy to do I think I'd go for a Marlin 336 rebarreled to this one !

[Padrino]

Thanks for the info!

Regards

[NickSS]

It would be easy to rebarrel a 95 marlin in to a 40-65 Winchester case and have a 40 caliber rifle. Marlin originally offered the cartridge in the 95 way back but called it something like the 40-60 marlin but it was the same cartridge.

[missionary5155]

Good morning
Jess reboring offers a .410 cartrige based on the 444. I personally an looking into a .410 bore based off the 414 Supermag to have a lever gun to go with my revolver.
Mike in Peru

[6pt-sika]

It would be easy to rebarrel a 95 marlin in to a 40-65 Winchester case and have a 40 caliber rifle. Marlin originally offered the cartridge in the 95 way back but called it something like the 40-60 marlin but it was the same cartridge.

Marlin made what they called the 40-60 in their model 1881 and it was the same as the 40-65 WCF . I had a Marlin 1895 of 1896 vintage that was factory marked 40-65 on the barrel .

[northmn]

Many of the 40 cases can be made by blowing out a 303 Brit or 30-40 Krag. A 95 would be very adaptable to one of them, but in a Marlin would they be either too large or too small depending on the action. A 444 would probably fill the need for one of them, but it is fun to experiment.

DP

[Le Loup Solitaire]

A cartridge named the "408 Winchester" has appeared off and on in various places. It appeared to be a straight walled version of the 30-30. I still see it listed in the Lee listings for shell holders in the MSSS catalog pages. The SH # is the same for the 30/30. Whichever mold design would be appropriate; it probably would have an edge over the .375 in terms of ME, although the rest of the ballistics would merit some discussion. Not enough info around to compare it to the 40-65. It might be worth checking into as it may be a good re-bore project for shot-out 38-55's. LLS

[870TC]

Old post I know, but... didn't Paco Kelly make a .40 Paco Straight wildcat that was similar? basically a straight 30-30 case. Would bullet diameter for either, be .410 (enough room?) or would a .406-.408 be more likely. Also I have read about doing the 405 Jes conversion, it is recommended for rifles with the cap style forend rather than the barrel band style. Wonder if that would be the case with the .400 Winchester?

[6pt-sika]

Old post I know, but... didn't Paco Kelly make a .40 Paco Straight wildcat that was similar? basically a straight 30-30 case. Would bullet diameter for either, be .410 (enough room?) or would a .406-.408 be more likely. Also I have read about doing the 405 Jes conversion, it is recommended for rifles with the cap style forend rather than the barrel band style. Wonder if that would be the case with the .400 Winchester?

Looks to me as if the easiest way to go is to make a 411-444 or as SSK calls it a 411 JDJ which is nothing more then the 444 Marlin case necked down to .411 .

To be honest I have a more then passing intrest in the 411-444 at the moment . May see this to fruition one can never tell .

It would be nice to rebarrel a pair of my old 444's to 411-444 . Having one with the same contour 24" barrel while the other had the same contour but cut to 19" .

Chamber reamer and dies are easy enough to get for this undertaking . Brass is a non issue and molds are easily obtained . Matter of fact I got a Ranch Dog 411-255GC yesterday in anticipation of this exact project . And have about 7 more drawings I made from Mountain Molds internet program .

[fouronesix]

Haven't read any Winchester R&D archive stuff on it but there may have been a very simple reason (just guessing here) no 40 cal based on 30-30 case in the 94. Given the 94 receiver diameter, length and limited extraction capability-- the 38-55 may be the largest caliber suitable. There would be very little if any taper to the case taking a 30-30 and necking up to 40 cal. Because of the limited extraction capability of the 94 lever action, a case with near zero taper could cause chambering and extraction problems in the higher pressure smokeless cartridges for which the Win 94 was designed. After all, the 405 Winchester in the Winchester 1895 action answered the call for a big, powerful, smokeless 40 cal cartridge in a lever gun. 2 cents

[Skipper]

Here's the .408:

http://www.armorypub.com/images/4-00/408win.gif

From armorypub.com:

.408 Winchester Dimensions Inches mm
Bullet Diameter .400 10.2
Rim Diameter .506 12.9
Base Diameter .446 11.3
Case Mouth Diameter .430 10.9
Case Length 2.030 51.6

The .408 Winchester cartridge seems to have been developed for the M1894 Winchester rifle in the 1960's. The cartridge is un-head stamped and is loaded with a soft point, jacketed bullet. Robert Buttweiler had it in one of his auctions in 1993 and the cartridge sold for $27.50.

[pietro]

IDK about the Model 94, but IIRC the Winchester factory made some experimental cartridges for the Springfield Armory in 1884.
The cartridge was .45 caliber and a bottlenecked case 3 1/8” long firing a 500-grain bullet ahead of 200-grains of black powder.

IIRC, it eventually became the WRA 46 WCF, with Winchestermaking one (1) Model 1886 experimental rifle so chambered, and God knows how many cartridges.



.

[fouronesix]

Curious. Is that "408 Winchester" an experimental prototype developed by Winchester and never offered. Or, is it simply another wildcat designed by an individual and called the 408 Winchester? The head diameter for the 30-30 is .421" and this cartridge shows a head diameter of .446". So this is not based on the 30-30 parent case. It appears to be unique in design to accommodate the mouth diameter of .430" and still have some body taper.

[6pt-sika]

Is that "408 Winchester" an experimental prototype developed by Winchester and never offered?


Yes !

[870TC]

Interesting, that .408 is using true 40 cal bullets there would be quite a few in the 175-200 grain range but may not standup to the higher velocity's.

[KirkD]

The 38-55 is almost straight walled, so I suspect that a .408 would have to have a slightly larger base diameter than the 38-55 or the 30-30.

[x101airborne]

I designed a cartrige similar to that a couple years ago. Based on the 303 Brit case, shortened a bit and blown out to accomodate a .410 boolit to be a companion to the 41 mag. Wich, by the way is a fond cartrige of mine. I never took it further than working with Ranch Dog on the boolit design as we could not get the velocity with a 240 grain boolit to go over 1900 in the marlin. That was VERY preliminary discussion, and I found several designs that were over 100 years old that would have worked better.

[runfiverun]

i'd bet a 400 on the 308 marlin case would be pretty simple, there are some reamers available for the 308 win that takes a 400-401 bullet.
they should be pretty easily modified.
barells would be just another bbl.

[Dutch4122]

I seem to remember somebody mentioning the idea once of necking up the .356 Winchester case to .416

Paco Kelly, maybe?

[870TC]

Paco necked up a 356 win to 375. There is a article on leverguns about that.

[6pt-sika]

The Marlin 1895S action (current 45-70) would easily accomodate the 40-50 Sharps Bottleneck and the 40-70-2.1" bottleneck aka 40-70 Gov't.

The 444 action would accomodate the 40-50 Sharps straight and the 40-60 Maynard (straight version of the 30-40 Krag).

Just so ya know the 336-444-1895 present manufacture all use the same basic action . The biggest difference in any of them is the V threads used for the 450 Marlin , 308 Express and 338 Express .

You can take a plain old run of the mill Marlin 336 action and rebarrel it to 444 or 45-70 with a few minor adjustments .

Before I ever rebarreled or chambered to the Sharps or Maynard cartridge I'd rebarrel to the plain old 40-65 WCF or 38-56 WCF . You could take a Marlin 1895SS action rebarrel it and thats pretty much all you'd need to do !