The .70-150 Winchester was a hypothetical centerfire rifle cartridge of American origin.
History[]
Designed sometime around 1888, the .70-150 Winchester appeared on Winchester's cartridge boards as mock-up dummy rounds. It had never made it past the proposal/experimental stage.
Allegedly, only one known weapon was made for this caliber; a variant of the Winchester Model 1887 shotgun that featured a special barrel with rifling at the last six inches forward of its bore. A small number of these weapons were manufactured and had never entered commercial production. According to some sources, one of these modified Model 1887s was made specifically for Paul S. Foster, who was the Chief Inspector of the Winchester Repeating Arms Co.'s Ammunition Division.
It was written by Foster in the 6th edition of The Gun Digest that recently discovered factory records at the time indicated that the cartridge did see production in 1888. He also reported in the article that an old Winchester employee had told him of seeing and puzzling over one of the modified Model 1887s at the old company's testing range. A cartridge dealer some years prior had two full boxes of the cartridge.[1]
The Gunsmith, a gun store based in Bedford, Virginia, began making turned brass cases to order for many obsolete calibers in the 1950s, with .70-150 Winchester having been one of them.[2]
Design Details[]
The .70-150 Winchester is a large-bore rifle cartridge. It is based on a brass 12 gauge (some sources claim 10 gauge) casing that is necked down to accept a .73" diameter bullet.
The casing has a capacity for 150 grains of propellant. The projectile weighs between 700 and 900 grains (43.5 and 58.3 grams).
Theoretically, the cartridge could achieve a muzzle velocity of 1,300 to 1,500 feet per second (396.24 to 457.2 meters per second) with a muzzle energy of nearly 3,800 ft-lbf (5,152.108 J).
Gallery[]
External Links[]
- Wikipedia article
- .70-150 WCF at Municion.org (Spanish)
- Shades Of The Past-Winchester 70-150 at Shooter's Forum
- Has anybody actually seen a 70-150 Cal. Winchester ? at SASS Wire Forum
- .70-150 Winchester reproduction at the CartridgeCollectors.org forum