224 Eaden Magnum Rifle

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wing1546
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224 Eaden Magnum Rifle

Post by wing1546 » Fri Dec 16, 2016 7:33 am

Anyone ever heard of Harlon Eaden 224 Magnum based on Remington 700, looking for step down dies. Near as I can tell based on 30-06 case. Thanks
Last edited by wing1546 on Sat Dec 17, 2016 7:52 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: 224 Eaden Magnum Rifle

Post by ron » Fri Dec 16, 2016 6:27 pm

wing1546 wrote:Anyone ever heard of Harlon Eaden 224 Magnum based on Remington 700, looking for step down dies. Thanks
By "step down" dies do you mean forming dies or re-sizing dies? To form cases, you'd first have to know what the parent case was, and while I have dealt with a lot of wildcat cartridges over the years, this is one I've never heard of, and nothing comes up on Google after using a number of search terms. The only 224 "magnum" I've ever heard of is the 224 Weatherby Magnum and if that's what it is, a small odd-sized belted magnum, you should be able to find both dies and brass for it, except that the fact that it has different name suggests that it's something other than a 224 Weatherby magnum.

So you're going to have to take a chamber measurement and worst-case scenario, if the "Harlon Eaden 224 Magnum" is based on a large belted magnum case (Which you should be able to tell looking at the size if the bolt face) and is something that no one has dies for, and then you'd either have to have custom dies made or re-barrel the rifle which would probably be cheaper, though you might have to change the bolt, too, but only IF the bolt face is opened up for a large belted magnum. If not, re-barreling to 22-250 or 220 Swift would make your life a lot easier.

The only reason I could think of that some guy named Harlon Eaden would name his creation a magnum besides necking down a large magnum case, would be that he considered it a beltless magnum by virtue of it's case capacity such as if it were based on a 243 or a 6mm Remington case, both of which have more case capacity than a 220 swift.

Back in the 50's and 60's people did this kind of thing quite a bit and back then labor costs were lower for both gunsmithing and having custom dies made. But sometimes people will get a wild hair up their rear end to do some project that the3y're bound and determined to doand they don't care how much it costs them.
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Re: 224 Eaden Magnum Rifle

Post by Call Turner » Fri Dec 16, 2016 8:56 pm

Do a chamber cast or have one done and send it to RCBS and they will make what you want. ;)
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Re: 224 Eaden Magnum Rifle

Post by ron » Fri Dec 16, 2016 10:58 pm

Call Turner wrote:Do a chamber cast or have one done and send it to RCBS and they will make what you want. ;)

Doing a chamber cast would be the best place to start, but according to the RCBS 2014 special order catalog -

" RCBS no longer produces unique, one-of-a-kind, custom dies or custom bullet moulds. RCBS still offers approximately 650 special order die
sets and 350 case form sets in this special order catalog. RCBS offers more than 1,000 other calibers, reloading die sets and case form sets
which are not listed in this catalog. For more information, email rcbs.tech@atk.com or call 1 (800) 379-1732"

But before you do anything else, you might want to give them a call and see if they've heard of this 224 magnum (assuming that's what's stamped on teh barrel) and see if they have dies for it. if not, do a chamber cast and get some accurate measurements from it and call them back and see if they have any Idea of what it might be.

Here's an example of chamber dimensions for a 22-250:

Image
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Re: 224 Eaden Magnum Rifle

Post by Call Turner » Sat Dec 17, 2016 3:35 am

Well if RCBS cannot help you after the chamber cast , maybe Pacific Tool and Gauge in Oregon can direct you . They build all kinds of firearm related tools.

http://pacifictoolandgauge.com/314-guns ... tools-jigs
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Re: 224 Eaden Magnum Rifle

Post by ron » Sat Dec 17, 2016 3:47 pm

Call Turner wrote:Well if RCBS cannot help you after the chamber cast , maybe Pacific Tool and Gauge in Oregon can direct you . They build all kinds of firearm related tools.

http://pacifictoolandgauge.com/314-guns ... tools-jigs
Depends on what the guy who posted this question finds out after calling RCBS, and that's IF the person who posted the question hasn't left town since he hasn't responded yet, even with all our helpful advice.


As far as having to order custom dies for it I still think he'd be better off re-barreling. Because worst-case scenario, if he had to pay pacific tool and die to make a set of custom reloading AND forming dies, which would likely cost $3-400 dollars or more, it would cost less to re-barrel the gun to something like 22-250 or 220 Swift and that way you have a new barrel chambered for something for which inexpensive dies and brass and factory ammo are readily available. And mor4e important, without a borescope there's no telling how old this gun is and what the condition of the existing barrel is. All we know is that it's built on a Remington 700 action unless it's actually a necked-down 6.5 Remington magnum built on a Remington 600 action.

It's an interesting challenge, though, and I've seen people run into this problem before, of a gun chambered for an "*Unknown" wildcat cartridge like a 300 Apex or .270 ICL Magnum. And there were two versions of the 300 Apex. One was called the 300 Apex one was called the 300 Apex Super and the super was based on a full length blown out 300 H&H case while the standard Apex was based on a shortened 300 H&H case similar to the 308 Norma or 30-338 but was invented before Winchester came out with the 300 win mag. I remember seeing a gun on a rack at all American guns stamped 300 Apex and talked to Terry Rodgers the owner who had to research it to find out what it was and if anyone made dies for it. (RCBS does)

And what's interesting is that I was able to find information using Google on all of these other oddball wildcats that I remember from back in the day but I couldn't find anything on the Harlon Eaden 224 Magnum. And somewhere I have a book printed in the early 1950's that lists dozens of oddball 22 centerfire wild cats (including the 22-250 AKA 22 Varminter or the .22 Wotkyns Original Swift which was a wildcat until 1965) but there was no mention of the Harlon Eaden 224 Magnum whixh still doesn't mean it couldn't have been a one-off made by an unknown gunsmith.

http://benchrest.com/showthread.php?66184-300-Apex

http://www.midwayusa.com/product/768060 ... pex-magnum

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICL_cartridges

http://pacifictoolandgauge.com/260-cal- ... eamer.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICL_cartr ... ICL_Magnum
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Re: 224 Eaden Magnum Rifle

Post by Call Turner » Sat Dec 17, 2016 5:57 pm

Ya , it could be a can of worms. Or it could be as simple as running a chamber reamer in it and turning it back into a simple caliber that you could buy dies and brass for. I would be curious as to what cartridge this was taken from. Chamber casts can be like Christmas day :lol:
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Re: 224 Eaden Magnum Rifle

Post by wing1546 » Sun Dec 18, 2016 7:21 am

Thanks for all the info the case is a 30/06 will be contacting RCBS next week, been pretty busy, will probably end up rebarreling it. Thanks again wing 1546.

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Re: 224 Eaden Magnum Rifle

Post by ron » Sun Dec 18, 2016 1:36 pm

wing1546 wrote:Thanks for all the info the case is a 30/06 will be contacting RCBS next week, been pretty busy, will probably end up rebarreling it. Thanks again wing 1546.
Thanks for the update and let us know what RCBS says and what you finally decide to do with the rifle and what caliber you re-barrel it to. If it's a full length 30-06 case necked down to .22, I can see why the guy who created it called it a magnum.
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Re: 224 Eaden Magnum Rifle

Post by high country » Thu Jan 05, 2017 4:55 pm

May I suggest that you have a borescope stuffed in there to look at the throat before you buy dies. A 224TTH is about 15 grains less powder and will cook a throat in under 1000 rounds, some don't make it to 500.

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