A new .19 Caliber

[Reed1911]

Fred Zeglin over at Z-Hat custom (www.z-hat.com) has come up with a new wildcat cartridge. Based on the 7.62x39 case necked down to .19 caliber with little other change. The case retains the taper for ease of feeding and actually ended up have the desired capacity without blowing it out. It is a very efficient case and seems like it will allow for a long barrel and accuracy life. The name is the .19 Hawk (yes he's already made the 20cal version as well) and launches a 30g (might be a 32g) at 3800FPS for best accuracy. He has other loads as well, I just don't remember them offhand. Before it gets asked, the .19 caliber has a better SD and BC then the .20 cal weight for weight. Although as he and I both thought the .20 cal version will likely be more popular considering the bullet selection is better.

  Also his new book is in stock and ready to ship. "Wildcat Cartridges" is a must have if any of you are thinking about creating your own caliber, and it's a good read. He covers all the basics of caliber creation as well as calculations, history of the more popular wildcats, reamer and die making, and a bunch of other stuff. I'm only about halfway through my copy and at this point if it went no further it would have been well worth the cost.

[Catfish]

Ron,
   I really don`t think that the .19 will ever amount to much. Calhoon is the only one I know of makeing .19 cal. bollets. James does make some nice bullets and I shot several groups under 1/2 moa with his 19 gn. bullets in my .17 AH.
    I don`t know why Fred is building a .19 cal. rifle, but I do have a .411 Hawk he bulit and it is a real sweet gun, on a m-77 Ruger action.
   As you menitioned the .19 cal. has a better SD and BC than the .20 cal., but then the .14 cal. has a better SD and BC than the .19 cal. in the same bullet weights. The smaller the cal. the higher the SD and BC for a given bullet weight and the faster the twist rate needed to stablize it. Wander when Fred will come out with a .14 cal. round??? I think you see more intrest in it than the .19 cal. in the next 5 years. The .19 and .20 are just to close.

[Reed1911]

Fred and I have been discussing the .14 cal for sometime now. The main holdup is a source for good .14 cal bullets that don't cost too much.
Yup, Calhoon is the only source that we know of.

The 19 cal has a better SD and BC than the 20 cal without raising pressure much. As you go down in caliber size (weight for weight) either the velocity has to drop or the pressure will climb through the roof. The .19 and .20 are close enough that you can keep them pretty even and allow the better ballistics to shine.

I mainly say this for everyone else reading that may not be educated with it.

I agree, as does Fred that the .19 will not sell nearly as well as the .20, but what the hey, it's his cartridge right? :lol:

As for his workman ship, I don't like it much; I love it. He does a wonderful job and holds such tight tolerances on his dies and rifles he could likely charge 30% more and it would still be worth the money.

[Catfish]

Just to be different, I took the .411 Hawk to the off hand rifle matches at the local club. I was useing fire form ammo loaded with 210 gn.  .410 dia handgun bullets and still managed to place in acouple of shoots, think I even won 1. It was great, that big hole make a very low frequicency, but loud boom. Sound like a shoulder killer, but recoil is more like a BB gun with lite loads.