Thursday, April 25, 2024

Carry On Down The Nile: Calibre Confusion



WL Emery has just accepted a prestigious commission from the Royal Geographical Society. At the last symposium of the world’s great anthropologists the question was asked: is there intelligent life on the world’s deepest, darkest continent? The Crown - and the world’s greatest explorer, novelist and man about town -intends to find out! With us will be the renowned naturalist - Arthur Sido - whose legendary works on chimp and primate behaviour rivals and even surpasses that of Jane Goodall. Quartermain, Cederq, JL and Chutes will be along as expendable heroes and NPC’s. Logistics for the expedition fall to me - and I’m currently evaluating the world’s most advanced firearms that we will need for the job.  I’ve already run afoul of WL once on this thorny subject. I cancelled his order for some Maxim machine guns and subbed in some Lewis guns instead.  WL is still fuming about it! I’d better tread lightly going forward! 
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Of course he has the upper hand on long arms with his .275’s, .416’s and .505 Rigby’s and Gibbs rifles… but unfortunately the rest of us don’t have the lavish taste in firearms or the trust funds that WL has. Hrrrrrrmmmm… what do you gentlemen make of this 1895 Winchester? Apparently it has something of a reputation in Africa…  that .40-70-330 looks interesting, does it not? If that follows old world calibre notation, that’s a 330 grain bullet, .40 calibre, sitting on 70 grains of black powder… putting it close to the legendary .45-70 in power and ballistics. 

I wonder if I’m having a brain fart? I coulda swore they were chambering these in .303 Brit and .401 Winchester. Is that .401 a re-branding of the .40-70-330?  

Rest assured that I’ll figure it all out and that our intrepid team will be ready for everything from monkeyshines to quicksand! 

We still have slots to fill for this expedition! If you’re interested (and expendable) please leave your name, qualifications and firearm recommendations in the comments.

Carry on!

Filthie




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1 comment:

  1. AnonymousApril 25, 2024 at 12:58 AM

    dad always liked soft nose bullets. then too, he also showed me how to dum dum them the right way. he had a old 44-40 colt and he used a 3/8 drill bit to make the hole and then crossed it with a
    old razor blade about half way down the hole. anytime he shot some critter with that, they always dropped right there.
    I took up bullet casting based on that. there is still a lot to be said about soft nose bullets. might be right useful in the coming sporty times.

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