Wildcat cartridges are not in regular factory production. Most wildcats come about because a gunsmith or rifle enthusiast seeks to create a cartridge out of existing components to fill a niche that no commercial factory loaded cartridge quite accommodates, or to perform a certain task better than an existing option.
I have three wildcats in my rifle collection - a .243 Ackley Improved, .25 Durham Jet (DJ) and .22-250 Improved. I am at a point in my hunting career to be looking at something different for hunting rifles.
Some would say that only the .25 DJ is a true wildcat and the other two are merely improved cartridges. For the past five years or so I have had a growing interest in cartridges that were ‘different’, but I never went down that road as I was unsure about the idea of a gunsmith rechambering barrels. How do you obtain non-factory dies and work out loads safely for something not found in a normal reloading manual?
This all changed when I went hunting with a new friend who had an older Tikka, rechambered in .257 Roberts Ackley Improved. He is a contractor who targets wild dogs and often needs to take long shots on these cunning predators. On the trip I asked him about his
