Recently reading the history of the 22-250 in I believe Rifle or handloader mag, and was surprised it came about from a Savage round, hense the name. Just never occurred to me that savage had such a profound effect on cartridges. I kinda always thought of the savage rounds as ones that never caught on.
After buying my 250 savage I did some research on the caliber. The person responsible for the 250-3000 was Charles Newton, he developed several wildcats back in his day, and what I have read thus far was ahead of his time. I am still searching for information on him. Savage's calibers were very good in there day.
Newton was a pioneer in creating rounds that were considered screamers in their day. My granfather was a gunsmith...one of his prized possession was a rifle in the 30 Newton round. I just remember that as a kid the cartridge looked as big as grandads fingers. I never fired it though. It's much like a fatter 30/06 round and while it was quite potent...with the 300 H&H 300 Weatherby and others of that ilk..there was little reason for the 30 Newton......
Charles Newton was a very interesting guy. He did develope the 250-3000 Savage as well as the 22 Hi-Power round for Savage. He built a line of rifles that incorporated some interesting design ideas but was never able to really get them off the ground. His first planned mass production rifle was supposed to be the .256 Newton, an early 6.5mm beltless magnum based on the 30-06 basic case. The caliber was decided on in large part because of the easy availability of German 6.5 barrels. Unfortunately, the war got in the way and barrels were no longer available. After the war his financiers turned thier backs on him and he was left high and dry. All of the Newton cartridges surpass thier parent '06 wildcats and a Newton rifle brings a very pretty penny on the collector market.
Who knew the history of a 22-250?
