360 Rook

[dubber123]

Can anyone tell me the origional boolit weight and ballistics of the 360 Rook cartridge?. I have somebody who wanted me to cast him some boolits for one, and stated they needed to be at least .362" in diameter, but was unsure of the weight. Thanks.

[45 2.1]

COTW says the boolit weight is 124 gr. A heeled boolit with an outside diameter up to 0.376".It also says that the 38 Long Colt interchanges with it. Ballistics were 1,050 fps with 15 gr. of BP as a factory load. I would imagine you could use one of the hollow base wadcutters in it to get it running.

[dubber123]

Thanks for the info, I wonder if he knows it is a heeled boolit design. It may not even chamber with these boolits then.

[NickSS]

I had a 360 rook rifle for many years until I sold it recently. The case is almost identicle to the 38 long colt and factory loads used a heal type 125 gr bullet and black powder to suit. I never bought a heal type bullet mold for it but did fire several hundred hornady HBWC in it with 3 gr of red dot. This made a nice 25 to 50 yard plinking load that would shoot into around 3 nches at 50 yards. The bore slugged out at .363 in my rifle.

[dubber123]

According to the guy who asked me to cast these boolits, the owner had used .362" boolits loaded inside the case, (conventionally), with good success. I can only assume he either has a sloppy chamber, or it has been reamed oversize to allow inside seating of the correct diameter boolits.

I would like to speak to him directly to se if I can help him getting his rifle running correctly. The HBWC idea sounds like a possible alternative.

[leftiye]

You'll need to know what his chamber looks like it sounds like. A gun that should shoot heeled boolits shooting that large of projectiles seated inside the case sounds like it must have very loose chambers. Heeled boolits are generally the same O.D. as the case and the whole chamber would be that same diameter as the boolit is. If the boolit can be seated inside the case then that is not the situation. Check out the possibility that it has been reamed out for a larger diameter case with the front of the chamber left the stock diameter thus creating a "throat."

[NoDakJak]

I owned a couple Small Martinis that were chambered for the 360 Rook. I trimmed 38Special cases back to fit the chamber and used the Lyman 358429 as cast and hand lubed. Worked okay for 25 to 35 yard shots on small game. One way to preserve an original weapon but I managed to trade into a 310 Martini that had been rebored to 357 Magnum. My oh My, what a nice small game gun that was. With my usual perspacity I et my hunting partner talk me out of it. Sad day. Neil