A Gage of little use.

Ammunition, reloading, shooting, etc
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butlersrangers
Posts: 9827
Joined: Wed Oct 07, 2009 11:35 pm
Location: Below the Bridge, Michigan

A Gage of little use.

Post by butlersrangers »

Recently, I picked-up a Wilson "Cartridge Case Gage" for .30-40 caliber.

I thought it might prove useful for detecting loaded rounds and empty cartridge-cases that might be too long, from base to shoulder, to chamber without forcing the shoulder back.

This proved to be a thinking error on my part. The Wilson Gage is only a case length gage.
It only checks to determine if .30-40 case falls within their minimum and maximum case length specifications.

It is manufactured so that the case-shoulder never comes into contact with the gage interior.

Also, my example is machined for a .535 inch rim diameter. It will only work with my Winchester brass.
Remington and Graf brass has .543 inch and .540 inch rim diameters. These makes of brass cases cannot fit fully into the gage.

Wilson should have made their gage to accept a .545 inch diameter rim, the SAAMI maximum rim diameter specification.

IMHO a regular Vernier-Caliper is far more useful than the Wilson "Cartridge Case Gage" in measuring cartridge-case lengths.

I think, if it had been made to accept all brands of .30-40 brass and to make contact with the case shoulder, at near maximum case-shoulder length, the Wilson Gage would be a useful quality check for loaded rounds.

As constructed, basically, the Wilson gage is just another paper weight! Other tools perform its functions better.
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FredC
Posts: 1991
Joined: Fri May 31, 2013 4:38 pm
Location: Dewees Texas

Re: A Gage of little use.

Post by FredC »

Hope you bought it at a garage sale for $2.00. It would have been nice if it would have detected our Graf's shoulder problem.

Glad you are back there was a detectable vacuum on the forum for a couple of weeks.

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