What Caliber Is It?

Whether behind the counter of a gunshop or just perusing the aisles of a gun show, you are going to come in contact with a lot of used guns. It may be a gun coming in for repair, a trade in, or just one you have been looking for to add to your accumulation. There are questions you need to ask. When buying anew firearm it will be chambered in the requested caliber and the folks at the factory will have neatly marked both the box and the gun itself with the caliber or gauge it is chambered for.

Unfortunately, once the gun leaves the dealer’s hands any number of things can happen to it. It may be rechambered for a wildcat cartridge and still carry the original caliber designation on the barrel. It may have been rebarreled in any number of different calibers without being marked. That is not a safe or professional practice but it does happen.

So, when finding that "bargain of the century," how do you know if the barrel stampings or the seller’s claims about the chambering is the actual caliber its really chambered in? It is one of those things we take for granted and until you get bit by that dog you think it is friendly. Usually, there are tip offs that things may not be what they seem. If the barrel is unmarked, ask the dealer or seller how he knows if it is chambered for the round in question.

If he hasn’t checked and just took the previous owner’s word for it, you should negotiate the right to return the gun if it proves to be something different than advertised. Even if he tells you he checked it, you might want to check it yourself and then, once What’s wrong with it? positively identified, mark the barrel to avoid any accidents in the future. Most times the result of chambering a wrong round is more embarrassing than tragic. A .270 fired in your .30-06 won’t likely blow the gun up.

It won’t hit anything but it sure will expand the case neck and perhaps blow some gas back your way. However, an 8mm Mauser round in a rifle converted to .308 could have an entirely different outcome. You’re going to find that .323 bullet quite incompatible with your .308 bore. This stuff happens all the time. Let’s make sure it doesn’t happen to you. It was laid on something wet and left there. I recently bought a Winchester Model 94 at a real bargain basement price.

The serial number told me it was made in 1956 and the left side of the rifle told me it had been placed down on a wet surface and left there for quite some time. The pits were enormous and rusty. That was the reason it was selling so cheap. Nobody wanted it. To add to the gun’s woes, the original .30-30 caliber marking was barely readable on the left side of the barrel and some intrepid wannabe gun guru marked the top of the barrel ".30 Stout Express." I don’t pretend to know everything but I had

30-30 caliber markings are still visible on the barrel. never heard of such an animal. When the dealer took my $200 offer I knew I was taking a chance. As it turns out I wasn’t the only one that had never heard of a ".30 Stout Express." Nobody else in the shooting world had either.

None of the cartridge guides listed it, the Internet gave me all kinds of things called "Express" but none of them had anything to do with "Stout." My initial reaction was that it was probably a .30-30 that once ruined by the massive pitting had simply been remarked with the name of some guy named Stout and his fantasy cartridge name. To be on the safe side I thought I’d better do a chamber cast. Left is a factory .30-30 case.

Middle is the chamber cast revealing that the rifle has been rechambered to .30-30 Ackley Improved. Right is the fire-formed .30-30 case. Casting the chamber is a relatively simple process. Clean the chamber and plug the bore just ahead of the chamber with a tight fitting cleaning patch and use a low melt alloy called Cerrosafe that melts between 158 and 190 degrees Fahrenheit. I use a lead ladle but at these temperatures you can melt it in most metal containers.

The molten Cerrosafe is carefully poured into the chamber. Once set up it’s pushed out from the muzzle with a cleaning rod. Cerrosafe is unquestionably the best media to use for this process because it shrinks slightly when it cools, removing easily from the chamber. Within a half hour it expands back to the original size, giving you a perfect casting of your chamber. Cerrosafe is available from Brownells (#080- 027-050AK) for a half pound ingot at around $25.

In this case the resulting casting had me scratching my head and it took

a bit for me to identify it. The barrel had been rechambered for the .30-30 Ackley Improved! This wildcat is basically a .30-30 with less taper to the body of the case and a sharp shoulder, increasing case capacity allowing for heavier powder charges and increased velocity with the same bullets.

It also means anew set of loading dies, dedicating some .30-30 cases to be fire formed to the new caliber, and finding loading data for the round as I have not found it commercially available nor is it listed in any of the loading manuals I have. I did find a half dozen recommended loads in P. O. Ackley’s Handbook for Shooters and Reloaders Volume I. Suddenly, my "Buy of the Century" pre ‘64 Winchester 94 with a little rust didn’t look so great.

I took 20 rounds of Winchester .30-30 factory ammo to the range and shot it through the gun to fire form the brass. I really didn’t expect much accuracy with undersized cases and I sure wasn’t disappointed. The targets looked more like a shotgun pattern than That won’t win bench rest prizes but works just fine for deer. a rifle group. I’ll have to see what happens when I reload the cases and play with some loads and powder to see if I can find a combination this gun likes.

If all else fails, I could simply rebarrel the gun to some boring unimaginative caliber, like maybe, .30-30. The size of the group really bothered me so I closely inspected the crown. It didn’t appear to be badly damaged. Just to eliminate a possible cause of the rifle’s inaccuracy I decided to recut it. Brownells sells tools to do this job by hand and I have been successful with their Rifle Muzzle Chamfering Cutters before and employed them again.

My next trip to the range with reloaded fire-formed brass and 150 grain bullets gave me a two-inch 50yard group from the bench using the factory open sights. That was a huge improvement. Although it is not target accuracy this isn’t a target rifle. The Winchester 94 was designed to be a medium range hunting rifle and I have noticed over the years that deer are far less critical of pinpoint accuracy than a paper target is. The moral of this story is: When buying used guns, be sure to ask questions.

Know what you are getting yourself into, and always check that the gun is actually chambered for the round it is supposed to be before you shoot it! AG