Excerpted from:
Reprinted courtesy of Petersen’s Rifle Shooter Magazine December, 2000
and Wayne van Zwoll.
Several years ago on a trip through Casper Wyoming I met Fred Zeglin. A young man with a gun shop now known as Z-Hat Custom and a rust-riddled Suburban. He had a frank open manner and a soft smile. "I'm about to build some rifles for Hawk cartridges." he said. Zeglin explained that the Hawks were wildcats based on the 30-06 case with the shoulder blown forward "Similar to the old Gibbs rounds only without the radically sharp shoulder." Zeglin envisioned 25-degree shoulders for some Hawk cartridges and neck lengths close to caliber.
Envisioned was the right word, because at that time he had built only a
couple of rifles with Hawk chambers One was a 358 that went to his hunting
partner Graydon Snapp. I met Snapp on my next visit. Like Zeglin he was an
enthusiastic rifleman ever talking about new loads and better case shapes.
Snapp bubbled with praise for his .358 Hawk which fills the ballistic slot
between the .35 Whelen and .358 Norma Magnum. According to Snapp his rifle
performs more like the Norma. And to prove that he wasn't all hat with no
cattle, he invited me to try the rifle. I did.
The long-barreled Mauser spat 200-grain bullets faster than my .35 Whelen improved reaching 2800 fps with 200-grain spitzers. The Hawk name is derived from a of big-game bullets developed by Bob Fulton of Glenrock Wyoming. Fulton has since sold his bullet business which is now run from New Jersey' But he's been a big help to Zeglin in designing and testing Hawk cartridges.
My first Hawk was a .411--not because I needed a .411 and certainly not
because there's a great selection of bullets. "It's about all the
horsepower you can get in a .30-06 case Zeglin observed." I pointed
out that there wasn't much shoulder. "Just enough" he said. It was
such an improbable cartridge that I had to see what it would do. I sent Zeglin a
commercial Mauser in .30-06. He replaced the barrel with a Douglas XX and fitted
it to a stick of curly maple. He finished it nicely. To maintain the rifle's
maverick demeanor Ashley Emerson engineered one of his compact receiver sights
for the bridge.
Zeglin's predictions proved out. After forming cases by ironing out the shoulder then necking the hull to. 411 and fire-forming we worked up loads slowly using Hawk and Swift bullets. We found that the shoulders didn't fully conform to the chamber until we used full-power loads. We also discovered that full-power loads gave the .411 Hawk all the muzzle energy of a .375 H&H. With 300-grain Hawks clocking 2500 fps we had more sauce than many popular black powder cartridges once used for elephant hunting. I shot a caribou with the .411 a feat akin to winning a bicycle race with a Harley Sportster.
THE .240 HAWK
Meanwhile Zeglin was blue-printing other Hawk cartridges down to .240. I suggested that bullets smaller than .30 were pretty well served by existing hulls increasing .30-06 case capacity makes sense for the huge 411 bullet and for .375s .358s and 338s even for .308s. But smaller bores showed smaller advantage. The .270 Winchester and .280 Remington have plenty of room in their fuel tanks and some shooters call the .25-06 overbore. That is there's more powder capacity than can be used efficiently in the tiny bore. As for the .240 well it seemed about as useful as a rocket powered Schwinn.
So Zeglin, (www.z-hat.com) built me a .240 Hawk. To be sure I've not paid for this rifle yet. Priced by the pound it will be expensive. The 700 Remington action is slave to a 28-inch octagon barrel heavy enough to anchor a small destroyer. There's an H-S Precision stock fitted painstakingly to the flats and that praise be fits my hand and cheek just like other H-S Precision stocks. It is red a color I specified out of spite when Zeglin informed me of the chambering.
But they don't make it in red he protested. Then maybe you'll have to change the barrel I sniped back. Alas the folks at H-S Precision managed to scrounge some red paint and the .240 barrel stayed. Not that I'm still complaining.
Preliminary shooting showed this Zeglin rifle to be a nail-driver one of those rare rifles that wants to shoot into one hole. In fact at the bench my first two fouling shots did go into one hole. I've never shot a more accurate 6mm rifle. If you put a nickel over the first hole you make with any load odds are the next bullet will hit it.
I was especially impressed with the metal finish on the .240 a satin blue that didn't look ordinary and wasn't. Phil Filing who has operated a bluing service in Glenrock for the past seven years gave this rifle his Teflon treatment. It's a baked-on finish more durable than blue he explained and costs just a little more. Now we can even offer it in five colors.
Filing told me that the process works on any metal alloy. The surface must have some texture he said. But not much. We bead-blasted this rifle with aluminum oxide; it's as fine as baking soda. We get a lovely satin look that way. Some companies use coarse glass beads that make the surface rough. He added that he finishes all Talley mounts (produced in the shop next door) and is now doing work for Freedom Arms. He can be reached at 307/436-2330 or www.gunbluing.com.
I scoped the .240 with a 6-20x Weaver Grand Slam a new scope series that is so popular there was a shortage this spring. The fine crosswire gave me an incredibly sharp view of the target. If you were a prairie dog you would not want to be in this picture. Talley rings matched the scope finish well and added a touch of class. The .240's recoil was almost non-existent and the report far enough from my ear that it sounded like someone else shooting.
The
.240 Hawk holds a little more powder than the elegant flat-shooting .240
Weatherby which pushes 90-grain bullets at 3500 fps. Zeglin and I had talked of
tickling 4000 fps with 60-grain bullets. We'll have to wait though because I
managed to blow the extractor off this rifle not long after I got it. It was the
second batch of cartridges. The first loads were cream puffs that nudged bullets
along at idle some only on par with the .243 Winchester.
Editors Note: Not many writers these days share their failures. It’s refreshing to hear that even the most experienced shooter/reloader can make a mistake.
The first round in the second box told me to stop shooting. But I was so convinced my loads were in bounds that I didn't heed the warning signs early enough. The chronograph registered 3591 with an 80-grain Remington hollowpoint ahead of a 54 grains of Winchester 760 and the bolt opened easily enough. But two shots later two primers were gone and the third flattened and a black crack had appeared in front of the case webs. The problem of course was excessive headspace and until I track it down and replace the extractor the .240 project is on hold. As I've fired many rounds in this rifle without any such problems I'm convinced the fault lies in my loading procedures. This particular lot of brass is apparently out of dimension.
Editors Note: Wayne and I have discussed this in detail and tracked the problem to Die setup. Follow up testing proved this out.
Stay tuned. Click here for Part II
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Born on:
October 27, 2000
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