Making 35 Whelen brass

[stirner]

Thanks to all . Im ordering the rcbs does today and will go with either Winchester or Hornady brass for sure . Im not a Remington brass fan at all .

Does anyone think I should Anneal brand new 30-06 brass before necking up . This will be my first time Annealing anything I've purchased all the proper things to Salt Bath Anneal and read through all the directions and warnings and watched probably 10 different videos . I feel very confident. Shoot I mould my own 44 bullets at least twice a year for target practice and hunting.

Also thinking about buying a mould for this 35 Whelen that could be fun!

Be careful using lead bullets. Buy rifle moulds, not pistol moulds. I had a brilliant idea of using 357 lead bullets for practice. Nice and cheap, and light weight for low recoil. Because they were so short, I only loaded them about 3/4 down the neck. I kept trying to get some semblance of accuracy out of them, but never could. After shooting a few hundred rounds, I noticed a slight ring on the neck of the case right at the base of where the bullet was seated. At first, I didn't think much about it, but it kept growing. I took it to my local gunsmith, and he said that this will always happen because of the short seating and using shotgun powders. When he went to move the chamber forward, past the donut, he found that the original smith reamed a sloppy chamber, and when he went to rechamber, it left a step in the chamber wall. His solution was to go to 35 Whelen AI. And that is how I became the proud owner of a 35 Whelen AI.

 

[greenejc]

Midway has brass in .35 Whelen for 1.50 apiece, 1.30 apiece and 0.80 a piece, depending on the brand. Hornaday is the cheapest, and its not bad brass.

 

[shortgrass]

Sure, you can stretch up .30/06 brass and make 35 Whelen. As I mentioned earlier, the thickness of the neck walls thins when necking up. So, you will have more clearance cartridge neck to chamber neck. When fired, the cartridge neck will expand to meet the chamber. When you re-size you will be working the brass neck more than you would with 35 Whelen head stamped brass. Using .30/06 brass necked up, you will also be sacrificing some neck tension because of the thinner neck walls. Not having the proper tension on the bullet can cause accuracy and/or ignition issues. I went thru this 26yrs ago when I built my 6.5mm/06 and started by necking up .25/06 brass. After I started necking down .270 Win brass, trimming for uniformity and reaming so I had .015" neck wall thickness, things got better immediately! Both accuracy and velocity improved markedly, as did case life. Now, I avoid necking up unless I have no other choice.

 

[nicholasjohn]

Sure, you can stretch up .30/06 brass and make 35 Whelen. As I mentioned earlier, the thickness of the neck walls thins when necking up. So, you will have more clearance cartridge neck to chamber neck. When fired, the cartridge neck will expand to meet the chamber. When you re-size you will be working the brass neck more than you would with 35 Whelen head stamped brass. Using .30/06 brass necked up, you will also be sacrificing some neck tension because of the thinner neck walls. Not having the proper tension on the bullet can cause accuracy and/or ignition issues. I went thru this 26yrs ago when I built my 6.5mm/06 and started by necking up .25/06 brass. After I started necking down .270 Win brass, trimming for uniformity and reaming so I had .015" neck wall thickness, things got better immediately! Both accuracy and velocity improved markedly, as did case life. Now, I avoid necking up unless I have no other choice.

I have always read and heard that necking down works better than necking up. I never knew why, and this explains that. Thanks.

 

[Edd]

The SAAMI spec on neck diameter is also very generous on a 35 Whelen. I had the neck diameter on my reamer made .003" smaller than SAAMI.

 

[shortgrass]

I own several reamers where the neck clearance has been reduced, because SAAMI is so generous. "No Turn" necks on those, and a 'duplicate' except in SAAMI configuration.

 

[Alibiiv]

That's what I was needing to know wasn't sure .

What bullets have performed well for medium sized game . I'd think just about anything within reason should flat out the smack down on deer and bear.

I was searching through some forums and happened to notice your posting. It was not that old so decided I would answer this question. Both my son and I black bear hunt with 35 calibers; 35 Whelen and .358 Winchesters. We use Barnes bullets for our bear hunts, 225gr Barnes TSX in the Whelen and 200gr TTSX bullets in the .358 Winchester. Everything we have shot is bang/flop performance. I've never recovered a Barnes bullet, and do not expect to after seeing what they do.

 

[greenejc]

That's what I was needing to know wasn't sure .

What bullets have performed well for medium sized game . I'd think just about anything within reason should flat out the smack down on deer and bear.

The 225 grain Sierra Gameking is a seriously accurate bullet in the Whelen and can be easily reloaded to break 2700fps. I've used it for years in my Whelen. It has gotten really pricey lately, though. My fall back bullet is the Speer 250 grain HotCor, which can easily be pushed to (again) 2700fps according to the new Speer Handloading #15. I think 2625fps is maybe better with this bullet just for controlling recoil though, as it kills on both ends when I load it past about 2650fps. RCBS dies are designed to neck up 30-06 brass from the get-go because the round was a wildcat from 1922 or so until around 1988 when Remington started making rifles for it. Nosler, Remington (sometimes), Hornaday and Federal make brass for the round. I generally use the Remington brass, because I get around 8 to 12 reloads out of it. I also neck up range brass from 30-06, because I have a pretty steady source for it. I get maybe 6 reloads with it. A source for once fired brass is /www.diamondkbrass.com, which has among other things the Remington test brass from the factory. The have a laundry list of calibers available.

 

[Alibiiv]

The 225 grain Sierra Gameking is a seriously accurate bullet in the Whelen and can be easily reloaded to break 2700fps. I've used it for years in my Whelen. It has gotten really pricey lately, though. My fall back bullet is the Speer 250 grain HotCor, which can easily be pushed to (again) 2700fps according to the new Speer Handloading #15. I think 2625fps is maybe better with this bullet just for controlling recoil though, as it kills on both ends when I load it past about 2650fps. RCBS dies are designed to neck up 30-06 brass from the get-go because the round was a wildcat from 1922 or so until around 1988 when Remington started making rifles for it. Nosler, Remington (sometimes), Hornaday and Federal make brass for the round. I generally use the Remington brass, because I get around 8 to 12 reloads out of it. I also neck up range brass from 30-06, because I have a pretty steady source for it. I get maybe 6 reloads with it. A source for once fired brass is /www.diamondkbrass.com, which has among other things the Remington test brass from the factory. The have a laundry list of calibers available.

The only time that I shoot Barnes bullets is when I am hunting. I've found the 225gr Gamekings to be extremely accurate in my Whelens; both my son's and mine. Unless you can find a sale on 35 caliber bullets, non of them run too cheep to shoot. I have found that if I start pushing 2650+ out of the Whelens we start to lose accuracy with them. My son's Whelen is more accurate than mine when it comes to a hotter load; and, both rifles were built by the same gunsmith. JES reboring did the Whelens. I have received comments that they would never use JES reboring for anything. I've had three rifles rebored from 30 caliber to 35 caliber, never had a problem with any of these rifles. Both rifles are Ruger 77s that started out in life as 30-06s, rebored to 35 Whelen. The .358 Winchesters are both a Ruger 77 tang safety and a Ruger Hawkeye.

 

[wv270wsm]

I was searching through some forums and happened to notice your posting. It was not that old so decided I would answer this question. Both my son and I black bear hunt with 35 calibers; 35 Whelen and .358 Winchesters. We use Barnes bullets for our bear hunts, 225gr Barnes TSX in the Whelen and 200gr TTSX bullets in the .358 Winchester. Everything we have shot is bang/flop performance. I've never recovered a Barnes bullet, and do not expect to after seeing what they do.

I'm considering taking my encore barrel and having it cut down to 16 inches for bear hunting. We run bear with dogs here in the great state of Wv. A lot of times were stomping brush with our hounds free casting that would make a good short brush bear busting machine I do believe. It may kick like a freight train but it wouldn't be shot a whole lot. Last year we bounced a 180 lb one up and instead of running he decided to fight my buddy shot him 6 times with his 10 mm glock. I myself would rather have a short fast handling rifle . With lots of knock down
Muzzle breaks are kinda frowned upon amongst all the guys we hunt with due to the muzzle blast hurting our dogs. I've seen twice where my buddy has backed up shot with his 460 with a break and the dogs absolutely quit for roughly 1 min which could result in a bear getting away. Or worse yet dogs getting injured trying to retreat from the blast so no break for it .

 

[greenejc]

Remington made a 760-7600 pump carbine in .35 Whelen up until about 5 years ago. It had an 18 1/2 inch barrel and carried 5 rounds in a detachable magazine. I'd just find one of those.

 

[Bigmoose2]

30-06 brass is plentiful and I use it exclusively for the 35 whelen. Anneal before sizing if you are set up for that, otherwise plenty of lube and one pass thru the die.

What type of die works well for you I have a Hornady custom grade and land up bending the pin and the end of the rod itself.I used a 338 ulta die to form them but still have the issue of them bending the rod and pin

 

[Bigmoose2]

brass

Hello how are you .I am trying to form 30.06 to become 35 Whelen.I used a 338 ultra die to help open them up otherwise they won't fit into my Hornady custom 35 whelen dies .I did a few but the 30.06 cases shrunk almost 24 thousands.After about 10 cases I ran through the Hornady dies the rod and the bent .Any help would be appreciated .

 

[anotherreloader123]

Hello how are you .I am trying to form 30.06 to become 35 Whelen.I used a 338 ultra die to help open them up otherwise they won't fit into my Hornady custom 35 whelen dies .I did a few but the 30.06 cases shrunk almost 24 thousands.After about 10 cases I ran through the Hornady dies the rod and the bent .Any help would be appreciated .

The easiest way I find to make 35 whelen is to just fireform it with pistol powder and some sort of media to fill the rest of the case like cream of wheat or corn meal. After that just patch the end of the case with a paper towel or cotton ball. I use starline 270 win brass, 10.0 gr of red dot, and corn meal and it gives me nice fireformed brass. You can also use regular large pistol primers for them because it's only 10 or so grains of pistol powder. I would start a little below 10 grs with a fast burning pistol powder just to make sure you don't get any pressure though.
Also the cases will shrink when using smaller diameter brass anyways, that's why I use 270 win. The neck thickness gets to be around .008-.010 for me.