Quote Originally Posted by bootsmcguire View Post
Agreed Jim, however it is likely a marketing downside I for one however am glad to see the old lever guns are not left out in the modern straightwall race. Will it flop? Most Likely, but maybe it will bring another viable option for a resurging lever market.


I was thinking about something similar on my way home this evening. Maybe like a 350 Rem Mag necked up for a 375 bullet. Should be a nice little thumper.
I'm a big lever gun fan, but this new cartridge just isn't tripping my trigger. I'm getting about 2300fps out of my .375 Win with a 200gr Sierra bullet and it will put three shots in just over an inch at 100 yards when I do my part. If/when the lighter and faster 150gr load comes out for the .360 Buckhammer it might be more appealing, but it's still a low BC round nosed bullet.

If I can ever manage to catch them in stock I'd really like to try the 250gr Sierra Gameking and maybe the relatively new 250gr Hornady CX bullets. These are sleeker pointed boattail bullets so I'm not sure if they would stabilize in my 94 Big-Bore's 1-12" twist barrel at .375 Win velocities (1900-2000fps). I'd also have to test to see how expand at these lower velocities since both are primarily designed to be used at faster .375 H&H velocities. Another option would be the 255gr Barnes Original designed for the .38-55, but it's a blunt-nosed bullet so not really going to help me extend the usable range of this cartridge.

And before anyone says anything, yes - I know not to stack pointy nosed bullets in a tubular magazine. However, if I'm only loading one in the pipe and one in the magazine that concern is a non-issue.

Staying within the straight walled case parameter without having too much or too little body taper is the difficult part when it comes to dreaming up a new cartridge. Starting with a 7mm Rem Mag you have a base body diameter of 0.550" (at least on paper). Given the bullet diameter would be .375" and figuring on about a 0.009" neck wall thickness, the case mouth outer diameter would come out to roughly 0.393" resulting in the case body tapering by roughly 0.157" on the diameter, or 0.0785" on the radius. That's not much body taper and could make extracting a fired case a little more difficult necessitating more mechanical advantage from the primary extraction and/or a more robust extractor arrangement.