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100 SHOOTING SPORTS MAGAZINE

WORKSHOP | WILDCATTING

Exploring and designing new wildcats usually

starts with Quick Design and Quickload ballistics

programs

With a wildcat designed then a reamer print can

be finalised to your new creation

W

ildcats - love them hate them,

what are they? Do we need them,

waste of time? All apply in some

way or other dependent on your own views

and needs as a hunter. To the vast majority

a standard factory round is more than

suffi cient and that’s fi ne, my favourite

calibres are .308 Win and .22LR but

without development and experimentation

these two great rounds would never be in

existence. They all emanated from a

wildcat at one time or other the difference

is most factory loads are just the last

development of an idea to get to the fi nal

design.

As with so many things in life people like

to push the boundaries and experiment and

improve almost anything to achieve a better

product and something truly different.

Whether this is for personal satisfaction or

derived for the need to succeed fi nancially

the end result is still the same, a sense of

being part of the process and owning

something unique.

WHAT’S A WILDCAT?

Primarily a Wildcatted round is one that has

been modifi ed to improve its performance

both in terms of accuracy and velocity,

maybe case life. You usually start by

reforming an existing cartridge case so you

can then improve its ability by both

increasing powder capacity and so speed. Or

just necking up or down so that larger or

smaller projectiles can be shot from the

parent case, to name but a few

modifi cations. True, this can seem a

Bruce Potts discusses the finer points of producing specialised (wildcat) ammunition

Pussy

Galore!

It’s a hell of a faff

but I love the pain