By Wayne van Zwoll

Hawk Wildcat Cartridges

Reprinted here by permission of Petersen's Rifle Shooter magazine & Wayne van Zwoll this article originally appeared in the June 98 issue of Petersen's Rifle Shooter.

Once in a while someone comes up with a wildcat cartridge that has uncommon utility or performs to an unexpected level. The Hawk stable includes four big game rounds that meet both these criteria Hawk cartridges were developed recently by Bob Fulton and Fred Zeglin. Bob, a resident of Glenrock, Wyoming, designed the Hawk hunting bullet some years back. Fred is an energetic young gunsmith and die maker from nearby Casper. Neither man relishes belted cases or bullets driven at melt-down velocities. Both were eager to milk more power from the .30-06 case.

"It was a practical project," says Bob, who initiated the effort. "Anyone can buy .30-06 cases, and we wanted the rounds to feed in any .30-06 magazine. Some wildcats demand special brass and actions. That's nonsense." Hawk magnums make efficient use of rifles and components available to shooters of average means.

Fred, a graduate of Lassen gunsmithing school, agrees. He has chambered several rifles for Hawk cartridges. "Almost all of the people who buy my custom rifles hunt them hard. They expect accuracy and reliability. Hawk cartridges provide an extra margin of power"

One of those customers is Graydon Snapp, a local rifleman who initially asked Fred for a.411 Hawk. The cartridge performed so well that Graydon followed up with a .358. Graciously. he loaned both to me for load tests. Fred pitched in a .338 Hawk. Both shooters affirm that these and the .375 Hawk/Scovill are the best of the Hawk line.

"I also have blueprints for Hawk cartridges in .243, .257, .264, .270, .284, .300 and .323," Fred says. 'Frankly, those smaller than .270 bore don't make good use of the extra case capacity. I designed them mainly because somebody else would otherwise, and we'd done all the work on the big bores." The .270, .284 and .300 offer a little more punch than Ackley Improved versions of factory rounds. But for thin-skinned game you don't need that. The proliferation of better bullets in .33, .35 and .375, with Hawk and Swift bullets in .411, make conversions worthwhile because these are bullets normally reserved for magnum cases and game bigger than deer.

High-performance 06 case aren't new. Years ago Rocky Gibbs came up with his eight wildcats, .240 to .338. They shared minimum body taper, short (quarter-inch) necks and shoulder angles of 35 degrees. Alaskan C. Norman Brown apparently designed the .35 Brown-Whelen. JGS Die & Machine of Coos Bay, Oregon, has fashioned reamers for a Brown series of cartridges in .284, .308, .338,.358 and .375. All have the Gibbs shoulder, though neck lengths vary. (Dimensional variations within a chambering are common among wildcats, too, as there may be no standard drawing, and reamer makers don't all work from the same sheet.)

Besides having more members than either the Gibbs or the Brown family of wildcats, the Hawk clan differs in that shoulder angles on the .338, .358, .375 and.411 are all 17 degrees, 15 minutes (essentially that of the .30-06). Sub-.338 bores feature 25-degree shoulders. Shoulder diameter is .454, up .013 from the .30~06's. Neck length falls just shy of matching bore diameter on the big-mouthed Hawks. Grip on the bullets appears sufficient.

Save for the .358, .375 and .411, shooters can form cases from .35 Whelen brass simply by necking down to form a false shoulder, then fire-forming. Fred makes cases for the big-bores by running a .424 expander plug into hulls with smaller mouths to form a case that's essentially straight. Then he necks down. He doesn't like the old Gibbs method of headspacing unformed cases by seating bullets out to kiss the rifling.

I questioned whether the .411 would offer enough shoulder for sure headspace, especially given its gentle 17-degree angle. Apparently it does. I experienced no problems with two .411 rifles I've fired; a Mauser and a Ruger Number One. Some shooters avoid using a "slam-feed" bolt action with such a round, preferring instead a Mauser type whose extractor engages at the magazine and needn't jam the cartridge forward to jump the rim as the bolt is turned into battery.

Fred's introduction to the Hawk line came with a .375 Hawk/Scovill reamer Clymer had on sale. (Dave Scovill, editor of RIFLE magazine, had a hand in the development and testing of that round.) The rifle worked so well Fred promptly bought a .358 reamer But he chambered his own hunting rifle in .338 Hawk. "It's versatile, and it meets my demand for a cartridge with a 300-yard point-blank range," he says. Dies for other Hawk cartridges were so long in coming that Fred began making his own. His "Z-hat" dies feature a large-diameter section on top of the one-piece decapping rod to help the rod self-center in the die.

Alas, shooting conditions on the three days I chronographed the big-bore Hawks rendered group sizes meaningless. But chronograph readings and case head inspections kept my spirits  up. The Hawk line should appeal to big game hunters.

You can reach Fred Zeglin at, Z-Hat Custom,  4010 A South Poplar St., PMB 75,  Casper, WY 82601; e-mail: Rifle.Builder@Z-Hat.com.  

And you can shop the Z-Hat online catalog here...