Gents,
Owning a few rifles in straight wall pistol calibers, has me wondering how much, if any taper is really needed on non bottlenecked cases such as 38-55, and 444? What is the minimum?
Thanks
Juan

Juan;

The reason that taper is necessary on all cases is that many actions, including those operated by fingers (singleshots) is the initial force exerted on the case will "free" the entire case if there is present, rather than require "drag" for the entire length of the case without it. Most of these designs came after several hundred years of experiments, and all cases seem to have taper.

dclark