Hi Jerry,
Raimey has called me out! I have about a 1/2 dozen guns in the 9.3x72R chambering & over 500 rnds of ammo & brass and I have a habit of collecting vintage ammo as well as guns, so I went up into the loading room and pulled 4 boxes of factory vintage ammo for measurements, my measurements were just taken with a pair of Brown & Sharp dial calipers so not exact. 1st recomendation is to get a copy of the 3 part article Mike Ford wrote for the GGCA and read it carefully as it is stuffed with lots of info for this fine cartridge. Let me start by saying the same factory cartridges will not fit in all my guns and I always drop each round from the selected box into the chamber of the rifle I am going to use it in so I don't end up with any suprises in the woods.If I were to grab one of my tight chambered early guns I found that the vintage old Norma 10 rnd boxes of 9.3x72R D with the red labels usually seemed to be the most universal in fitting all the guns, so taking these measurements even suprised me a bit. Measurements were, rim dia., then each 1" increment toward the mouth, then case mouth dia., & last bullet dia.
DWM 9.3x72R .483 .425 .403 .382 .380 .363 bullet
RWS 9.3x72R .483 .425 .405 .382 .382 .367 bullet
Gedaco9.3x72R NORM .483 .423 .400 .385 .383 .365 bullet
Norma 9.3x72R D .480 .427 .405 .385 .382 .365 bullet
DWM Handload .483 .425 .403 .383 .384 .364 bullet
I geuss the biggest lesson learned in this little exercise is that just a couple of thousands of an inch dia. in a long slow tapering case such as this makes a big difference in fitting the chamber and that ammo specifications at the turn of the century were not as exact as todays expectation. Folks were able to purchase manufacturers brand of ammo that the chamber was cut to and the gun regulated to! 100 years later and halfway around the world we have to learn to accept this and experiment and test various available ammo or take a good casting & have dies made for the chamber being used today. Get a good casting & slug your bore & take notes, once you know what you have and obtain you components its time for the fun to start! Feel free to contact me if I can be of any assistance.
M-4
