What is a 23X40?

Someone - I think it was Mike Bryant - posted this a long time back.

This is an old and marked up reamer drawing of a 23-40. It was originally marked as a 22-40, but the file name is 23-40?? This is an old drawing and I hope someone that shot this cartridge can comment more about it.

Anyway, from what I was told, a 23-40 is a .223 with a 40 degree shoulder set back enough to form a longer neck like the .222 has...

FWIW,
 

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A 23X40 is an old BR cartridge, basically a .223 Rem. with a 40 degree shoulder. It differs from todays Ackley improved .223 in that it retains a lot of the body taper of the .223 Rem. The .223 AI has the body blown out more and has a little more capacity. A couple of years ago I had a bench gun in 23x40 that was an excellent shooter, beyond my (and some other peoples) expectations.
 

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The .23-40 that Red Cornelison shot so well for so long even competing against and beating the PPC's is a .223 case with the shoulder moved back slightly making a longer neck than the parent .223. The 40 on the designation of the cartridge is for the 40 degree shoulder. When I was selling Red's chambering reamers for Bonnie, I bought his .23-40 reamers. There were 4 or 5 different variations of the reamer with different freebore, body and neck dimensions. Unfortunately, the reamers weren't marked as to which reamer was the one that Red liked to use the best. I chambered a barrel for one once, but have not pursued it any further. I had planned to build a rifle dedicated to the .23-40 to give it a good shot to try to figure out which reamer would work the best, but it's been pretty well buried for awhile. Maybe once we have our house finished, I'll be able to get back on that project. Still have a few customers rifles to get out that come first though before I start on my own projects. By the way, we put the last of the tarpaper on the roof of the house last week and we are more or less in the dry on the house. More or less because a little snow still blew into it last night, but at least its in the dry from rain as long as it's not blowing in sideways.
 
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Thanks Guys

Seems this little rifle I have found could be a alright varminter... Xp-100 action etc.... It could spit out those 40 grainers at a pretty good speed to I'd assume!

Cheers
AI
 
Mike

Red also had the 23-40 Stepped Neck. I have a bunch of brass from him for that one.

Al

There is also the 23-45 and, of course, all of the same shoulder angles (35, 40, 45) on the 222 and 222 Rem Mag cases. Then take the 6x47 and do the same thing all over again.:cool:

Ray
 
I guess it just goes to show there are several versions of the 23x40. My version was from Wally Siebert’s reamer. Mine would chamber and fireform a .223 rem case, and the neck was not longer. No case forming dies needed. Mine also had more capacity than yours because I was getting 3600 plus fps using a 52 Barts.
 
I use a 23-40 of my own design, actually not much different than others.
The shoulders on 223 cases are pushed back in a std 222 die, with
the die backed off for correct headspace to chamber. Neck length
accounted for. The body is ackley but the neck is 245 and a bit
longer, enough so to make it user and die friendly. Case capacity
is not more than std 223, but its a better case for us
 
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