WEAPONS & BALLISTICS: The .284 Winchester caliber. One of the biggest regrets of my life was that I missed the opportunity to buy a beautiful, yet rare, Winchester model 100 De Lux semi-automatic rifle in Winchester caliber 284.
About twenty years ago a gunsmith, who by the way was also a dear friend, insisted a lot on selling it to me but I just didn't want to know. Thinking back, I don't even remember what excuse I found for not buying it, what is certain is that at the time I did not have the necessary experience to be able to appreciate the value of the weapon - ammunition combination. In those days, “ballistic” misinformation reigned supreme, especially as regards driven hunts with rifled barrels. When a wild boar hunter decided to buy a rifle, the watchword was: "Big, heavy and powerful". Those were the golden years of 30.06 with 220 grain Round Nose bullets, the 300 Winchester Magnum, the 338 WM, the 444 Marlin and the 9,3 x 74 R. "Small" seven millimeters. Yes, because the 284 Winchester is a full-fledged seven millimeter (7,21 x 55,12 mm), which has a power very similar to that of its super-tested European "cousins": the 7 x 57 Mauser and the 7 x 64 Brenneke, these calibers with which all the wild that populate the Old Continent have been cleanly killed.
I'm sure the good 284 Winchester would have been able to do the same. It is a fairly recent ammunition (it is even younger than myself!), Having just been born in 1963. We can easily define it as the progenitor of the Short Magnum calibers which are so fashionable today, because it adopts a short and "stocky" but very large case. The Americans call that cartridge case "Rimmles rebated" because it has a Rimmles type caseback but with a smaller diameter collar than the body itself. This simple trick allows you to use standard actions and shutters (such as those of 308, 270 and 30.06 to be clear), to keep the length of the ammunition contained and at the same time to have a cartridge case with a decent internal volume. Strange but true, in the case of the 284 Winchester the cartridge case was more successful than the caliber itself. Many “wildcat” ammunition (experimental and / or artisanal) was created from it by only widening or narrowing the collar to .22, 6mm, .25, 6,5, .30 and .35.
The most famous are: the 6,5 Express (designed by Ralph Payne), the 6,5 Reindeer (by EL Eickhorn), the .224 Torres (designed by the great Trentino gunsmith Celestino Torresani) and the 6,5 - 284 Norma. The Winchester technicians, in the wake of the success achieved by Remington (the eternal competitor) with its semiautomatic and lever action rifles model 742 and 760, not to be outdone they designed the Carbines model 100 and 88. They were convinced that they would be able to arouse the curiosity and interest of North American hunters by proposing them in the new 284 Winchester. Unfortunately they had a bitter surprise because, despite everything, even the 284 W like the 280 Remington (the antagonist!) Never achieved the deserved success. I believe that this phenomenon is mainly due to the fact that, apart from the very large 7 mm Remington magnum, in the States the seven millimeters have never had great admirers. The 284 Winchester was (and still is) an excellent caliber for the genre of weapons in which it was originally proposed; it is powerful enough, has a limited length, is precise and generates a fairly contained recoil. I have read that the Ruger (M77), the Savage (M99) and the Browning (BLR) have also produced few examples in this caliber, but I believe that immediately after that bizarre commercial initiative they must have turned to more popular and appreciated calibers such as the 243 and the 308 W. The 284 Winchester caliber was created expressly for driven hunts or in the thick of it, but it has such ballistic characteristics that it would not make it disfigured even in hunting medium-sized game at long range. It looks a lot like the 7mm - 08 Remington which, having been adopted by several guns, has been more successful.
Personally I know of only one hunter who uses a 100 caliber Winchester 284 rifle with original and reloaded 150 grain bullets (Nosler Partition) for boar hunting. Often hunting with him, I have witnessed instant killing even against large specimens and, according to the owner, the operation of the weapon has always been flawless. Originally the 284 W was only offered by the parent company in two commercial loads: one with a 125-grain Power Point bullet (957 m / s) and the other with a 150-grain PP bullet (872 m / s). Later (1985), the production of the 125-grain cartridges was inexplicably interrupted, and today the only original 150-grain ammunition (X2842) is unfortunately not always readily available. Anyone who owns a nice Winchester mod. 100 or mod. 88 and wants to continue to use it, he must absolutely obtain the recalibrator Dies and keep them carefully, otherwise he runs the risk of finding himself one day with the weapon unusable because it ran out of ammunition. Fortunately, all the equipment needed for reloading is still quite widespread, including Dies and exclusively Winchester production cases.
Personally I reload the 284 Winchester very rarely and I have always used the original cases. If I ever could no longer find them, I'm sure I could get them starting from the 6,5-284 Norma caliber ones. The choice of 7,2mm (284 ”) caliber bullets is truly remarkable; they are found in all shapes and with grains ranging from light 100 to heavy 177 grains. The canonical weights with which the 284 W gives its maximum and with which the weapons in it chamber work best are 140 - 150 grains, it being understood that excellent cartridges can also be obtained using 125 and 160 grain bullets. For the primers I would opt for the Large Rifle Standard even when we will use very progressive powders and heavy bullets such as 160 grains. The total length of the finished ammunition (OAL) should never exceed 70 - 71 millimeters to minimize malfunctions in Winchester rifle bifilar magazines. I will list some refill doses extrapolated from the best manuals, they are to be considered as MAXIMUM and therefore must be reached gradually starting from weights lower than about 5%.
POWDER DOSE (in grains) BALL (in grains) SPEED (ft / sec)
Hercules R15 51,5 120 3.235
Hercules R15 48 139 2.975
Hercules R15 46,7 145 2.855
Hercules R19 60,5 120 3.265
Hercules R19 55 145 2.940
Hercules R19 55 150 2.930
Hercules R19 54 160 2.885
Hercules R22 58,5 139 3.030
Hercules R22 55 140 2.900
Hercules R22 55 150 2.840
Hercules R22 52 160 2.680
Hodgdon H 4831 59 120 3.036
Hodgdon H 4831 58 140 2.954
Hodgdon H 4831 57 160 2.803
Hodgdon H 4350 56 120 3.090
Hodgdon H 4350 54 140 2.957
Hodgdon H 4350 52 160 2.754
Hodgdon H 380 51 120 3.023
Hodgdon H 380 48 140 2.856
Hodgdon H 380 46 160 2.675
IMR 4320 52,3 120 3.200
IMR 4320 50,9 139 3.000
IMR 4320 54.5 154 2.900
IMR 4350 58 120 3.200
IMR 4350 57,1 139 3.100
IMR 4350 54,5 154 2.900
MRP 64 130 standard 3.111
MRP 62 145 standard 2.928
MRP 60 160 standard 2.799
WW 760 56 130 3.003
WW 760 54 145 2.846
WW 760 52 160 2.703
Viht. N 140 46 120 2.935
Viht. N 160 50 130 2.872
We also wanted to dedicate a small article to the very few lucky ones who own a Xnumx Winchester. If anyone wants to sell yours Winchester Model 100 De Lux, maybe the one with the whole stock without a plate on the barrel, with the “reddish” finish and the checkering with a crossed wicker basket and oak leaves, call our editorial team and ask for myself.
I thank LUCIO CHEMELLO owner of the armory of the same name in Schio (VI) tel. 0445500081 for providing the material used during the tests.
Mark Benecchi