Reloading the .35 Whelen.

[Badger]

I finally got a .35 Whelen. A neighbor bought a Remington 700 BDL Classic in 1988 and never got around to shooting it. He sold it to me for what the hang tag said.

I got a set of RCBS dies and some 200 and 225 grain spitzers and began reloading. I had a few boxes of once fired nickel .30-06 brass that became 35Whelen handloads. I put a 4X Leupold on the rifle and found some accuracy loads with IMR4895.

Anyone have a favorite .35 Whelen load to share?

Badger

[southtexas]

Dang. A new 264 and now a new Whelen. You're on a roll, Badger!

[Badger]

southtexas,

Yep, the Whelen was new in the box and unfired. It came to a good home in the vault right next to the .264WM.

Badger

[Bushman]

And the Krag too. Now you have me thinking about that mint Pre-64 M70 .30-06 that I saw at Gander Mountain today that would be really nice turned into a Whelen. That would sure make into a fine moose rifle. Don might have some suggestions on Whelen loads. What gives me pause is the story he wrote about shooting a deer with the Whelen and it not working very well.

[Alan R McDaniel Jr]

I have a 35 Whelen. I made it on a 98 action. It shoots a load (I'll have to go look later) with 250 gr Hornadys best, but I did have a bit of trouble killing a buck with it once. I had a terrible time finding him, in fact, I'm still looking for him. Without going into the whole story again, I shot him twice, once up the chute and once through the shoulders at 125 -150 yrds. Knocked him down both times. Never found him. I think the 200 gr bullets would be better for deer. I have killed some deer and hogs with it with the 250s but nothing with the 200s.

Alan

[Alan R McDaniel Jr]

53 gr IMR 4895
250 gr Hornady RN



I think this is too much bullet for even a big WT. I think the 200 gr bullets will expand better on a deer but it's like a lot of other rounds. If you hit them right you'll usually get your deer.

Alan

[southtexas]

Hey, Alan. If a Whelen won't knock 'em down, you obviously need more power. Maybe get yerself a 375!? :)

[Alan R McDaniel Jr]

I was considering that but I wasn't sure the 375 would handle it. I figured a 458 Lott or a 460 Wby would be more in line. After the sighting in process I'd probably have so much brain damage that it wouldn't matter if it killed a deer or not.

Alan

[dave-t.]

I would think that the 180-200's would be the ideal bullet for deer in the Whelen. 30-06 180's have killed piles of deer, and you can get the 180's going faster in the Whelen, so expansion shouldn't be a problem.

[Phil T]

My next-door neighbor has used a Whelen for years. He always claims the powder to start and stay with is Reloader 15.

[Badger]

Alan,

I have had very good groups with IMR4895 and 200 and 225 grain bullets.

Badger

[Smitty5]

I like 3031, 4320, AA2520 in my Whelen with presently the AA2520 getting most of the real work. I load the 200 gr. Remington round nose core lokts to 2500 fps for deer. Perfect I think. I like the 250 grain Speer hotcor for all else but have played with the 250 gr. Hornady RN which did not feed well from my Mauser 98. Might have to do some tweaking but it's not that important.

[Badger]

Smitty5,

Welcome to the Forum; I see this is your first post.

Do you make your Whelen cases out of .30-06 brass? I am working up cast loads for my Whelen at present.

Again, welcome to this site.

Badger

[300hnh]

Badger,

Congrats on the new Whelen. I have a Thompson Encore rifle in 35 Whelen.

I got my first chance to shoot it a couple of weeks ago. I liked it a lot. Since I reload for my 35 Remington I have plenty of 180 gr and 200 grain bullets. I used IMR 4895 in both loads. I will post the exact loads this evening when I get home.

[Whelen Nut]

Badger

A load that has worked well for me in several M700 Classic's in 35W is:

200gr Hornady PSP IL with 57.6gr IMR4064 at 3.180"


Note that it is seated longer than normal--which I think is the key with this bullet/load combo.

WN

[300hnh]

Hi Badger,

Sorry it took me a couple of days to get back to you.

All of the brass I used for these loads was Remington 30-06 brass. I pulled the 220 grain 30 cal bullets from it for my 300 H&H. I then resized the brass leaving in the factory primers.

I only loaded about 3 or 4 rounds of each load just to see how they would shoot. All of them were very comfortable and at 50 yards were hitting soda pop cans with no trouble.

1.) Speer 180 gr. flat nose bullets with 55.5 grains of of IMR 4895
2.) Hornady 180 gr. spire bullets with 55.5 grains of of IMR 4895
3.) 200 gr Sierra round nose bullets with 58.5 grains of of IMR 4895
4.) 200 gr Hornady spire point bullets with 58.5 grains of of IMR 4895

All of loads are fairly mid range in power and showed no over pressure signs. They would all be good deer rounds. They would also be good for elk, if you were hunting in timber.

On Monday I picked up some Speer 250 grain spitzer points and will have to see what loads I can work up.

Bill

[Bushman]

I'm just remembering from back in my reloading days, but isn't IMR 4895 a little fast burning for heavy bullets in a larger case like a Whelen? I liked it in my .308 though. Don't quote me, but I would think that slower burning powders like 4350 or 4831 would build up less pressure.

[rimrock]

http://www.reloadammo.com/35whelenload.htm

http://www.handloads.org/loaddata/default.asp?Caliber=35%20Whelen%20Improved&Weight=All&type=Rifle&Order=Powder&Source=



the 250 speer bullet and 215 federal primer and ww748,imr 4895 and imr 4320 and varget all work just fine in my slide action remington

[T2133]

Hello Everyone
Hey Badger congratulations on that .35 Whelen, I have a Ruger that does well with IMR 3031.

[Badger]

T2133,

Welcome to this Forum; I see this is your first post.

I have used IMR4895 so far for my Whelen. I will get around to trying 3031 and other powders now that the haying is all done.

Again, welcome to this site.

Badger

[300hnh]

Here is some reloading data and results for the 35 Whelen. These rounds were fired through a Thompson Center Encore Pro-Hunter with a 26 inch barrel. I got the idea of testing for the maximum load your rifle can safely shoot from the Barnes Reloading manual #3. In it the author of the article talks about loading several rounds for a particular caliber and powder. You increase the powder charge by 1 grain until you reach signs of over pressure. The most common sign the author uses is when your bolt gets hard to open or it is hard to extract the round from the chamber. I never reached any signs of over pressure with these rounds in my 35 Whelen. Oh one other note, I do not have a chronograph so I do not know what my velocities were with these loads.

The first rounds I testing were:
Remington 30-06 brass,
CCI 250 Large Rifle Magnum primers,
Reloader 15 powder
Speer 250 grain spitzer and 250 grain round nose bullets. Note; Speer discontinued making the 250 grain round nose bullets, but my local gun shop had a few boxes still in stock. I know they still have 1 or 2 boxes left so if anyone wants a box of the Speer 250 grain round nose bullets, I will be happy to be your hands and feet on the ground to get you a box. Send me a P-M.

I started with 54 grains of Reloader 15 and stepped up to 55, 56, 56.5 and 57 grains. I loaded 2 rounds of each powder change with 2 bullets of each design (spitzer and round nose) for a total of 4 rounds per change

To be quite honest with you I never made it past the 56 grain powder load. The Thompson Encore is not a heavy rifle, and even with the Encore recoil reducing stock, I was getting a head ache from the recoil. :(

None of the rounds showed any over pressure signs and the extractor lifted the fired brass out of the chamber with no trouble.

Each of the rounds was pretty accurate. This evening I loaded up 25 rounds of each of the spitzer and round nose bullets with 55 grains of Reloaded 15. I will use these for elk this fall.

I ran the same experiment using:
Winchester Super–X 30-06 brass,
CCI 200 Large Rifle primers,
IMR 3031 powder
Sierra 200 grain round nose bullets
and
Hornady 200 grain spitzer bullets.

I used IMR 3031 power starting with 52 grains and stepping up to 53, 54 and 55 grains.
Again none of these loads showed any over pressure signs, and again they all had pretty good recoil. Accuracy was also good with these loads.

The one powder I would like to try is IMR 4895, but finding it in Denver is like looking for a blond in down town Tokyo. What gives, why is IMR 4895 in such short supply? :confused:

[Smitty5]

I am using AA 2520 right now and am pushing the 200 gr. Hornady Spire points and Rem RN corelokts to around 2400 fps for my deer load. I have also used H380, 3031 and 4320 with fine results. All my shots at deer are at less than 150 yards so I don't need anymore speed and recoil is real reasonable. My 250 grain loads used 4320 to get 2500 fps and the one feral hog I killed with this load was dropped to a roll running flat out. This was the Speer Hotcor. My 250 gr. Hornady RN bullets are pre interlok and seem pretty soft to me, maybe the newer ones are tougher.

[Smitty5]

Smitty5,

Welcome to the Forum; I see this is your first post.

Do you make your Whelen cases out of .30-06 brass? I am working up cast loads for my Whelen at present.

Again, welcome to this site.

Badger

Thanks, I was a regular on the forum in the past under rickt30 but couldn't get that to work so I re registered. I recently ordered a mould, the RCBS 200 gr. Flat nose and want to get a 2000 fps or so load worked up for it. I haven't picked up any gas checks yet, looking for the non crimp on lyman style. I figure to start with IMR 4198 or eve 4227 when I get the GC's. I do make my cases out of 30-06 brass, usually Federal. I don't have any Whelen dies so I use RCBS 358 Winchester dies to neck the cases up with. In fact I do all my whelen loading with these dies. I only neck size of course but have had no problems.

[rimrock]

h380,
imr 4350,
imr 4064,
h414
ww748
are also decent powder choices in some 35 whelen loads

[Alan R McDaniel Jr]

250 grain round nose bullets. Note; Speer discontinued making the 250 grain round nose bullets,

I found three boxes of these on sale once about 4 years ago. They will not feed in my rifle. Hornady 250 gr RNs feed perfectly but no amount of adjustments in seating depth will make the Speers feed without jamming.

Alan

[Smitty5]

Your action rails may need a bit of polishing. Most 30-06 length actions such as my FN Mauser are designed for less blunt bullets and often the big round noses will hit the low right edge of the chamber when coming from the left side and vice versa when coming from the right side of the magazine. There is a bit of a shoulder at the front of the action rail that can be polished to less of an angle or moved forward a bit to cure your problem.

[hiredgun]

52.0 grns IMR 4064
250 grn Hornady Spire Points
Winchester LR primer
Seated at the cannelure

This is a 1.0" -1.5" load from my Remington 7600 in 35 Whelen. I believe it will actually shoot better than I can. This load will feed from the magazine and full cartridges will eject/unload from the 7600's ejection port. According to the Hornady Manual #6, this load is below max and should be about 2300 fps. Works well for me. Based on this thread I will try some IMR 4895, I did try H380 with the same bullets but IMR 4064 is still the best I have tried so far.

[Hi Ball]

Badger I have an old recipe that might make your Whelen shine at the range!

Powder is IMR-3031 at 51grns, using a 250 grn bullet = Velocity is 2500fps.
Recoil is 24 pounds.

Powder is H-380 at 55 grns, using a 250 grn bullet = Velocity is 2400fps

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Powder is IMR-4320 at 58 grns, using a 200 grn bullet = Velocity is 2700fps

Powder is H380 at 58 grns, using a 200 grn bullet = Velocity is 2600fps

Powder is IMR-3031 at 47.5 grns, using a 200 grn bullet = Velocity is 2400fps

[rimrock]

those 250 speer spire points have both a ballistic shape and expansion characteristics that are a near perfect match to the 35 whelens velocity range, and the game like ELK and larger deer that its designed for, I really wish they produced the BLR in 35 whelen........my 7600 rem is ok , but a BLR would be so much nicer in my opinion, but the 358 win they do come in is fairly close so I guess Ill just need to be satisfied with that

[Hi Ball]

Rimrock........I agree 100% with that BLR idea!!! Yep, I would be quick to purchase a .35 Whelen in a BLR you betcha.:D

[postoak]

I took my .35 Whelen out to the range for the first time today. I shot the 250 grain Remington Core-Lokt, which I imagine have as much recoil as any factory load out there, and was pleasantly surprized at the amount of kick. Gotta love the entire .30-06 based line of cartridges for having tolerable recoil.

[blaze]

If my memory serves me correctly.. Don Wald (rest his soul), had posted several times on his results with his 35 Whelan handloads, and he was not impressed with the results of the 250 Hornady. From what he said, it did not expand and acted too much like a solid on the 2 or 3 whitetails he shot with it.

[Smitty5]

Postoak, those Remington factory loads are pretty slow only getting 2350fps out of my 35 Whelen but the brass is good enough. A good round for most jobs though. Push a 250 gr. bullet out above 2500fps and recoil is a bit more noticable but still not bad.

[Alan R McDaniel Jr]

If my memory serves me correctly.. Don Wald (rest his soul), had posted several times on his results with his 35 Whelan handloads, and he was not impressed with the results of the 250 Hornady. From what he said, it did not expand and acted too much like a solid on the 2 or 3 whitetails he shot with it.

I will add a concurring +1 to the "did not expand and acted too much like a solid" in my experience with Whitetails. It's really too much gun for deer, but I imagine it would work very nicely on something with a bit more substance. I am pleased with their accuracy.

Alan

[postoak]

I used the 250s to do initial sighting in and accuracy testing with the Ruger (3 shot groups varied from 1" to 2 1/8" at 100 yards, but I shot one 2" group at 200 yards).

For Africa, I'm using the Barnes 225 gr. TSX bullet.

The 250s drop like a stone. I sighted in 2" high at 100 and am 3" low at 200. The books say I'll be 9" low at 250.