I've LONG been a fan of the .35 Whelen, although it wouldn't be my first choice of an elk cartridge today. The quick way to give you something of my opinion of the Whelen, here's what I wrote for the next Nosler manual's blurb on the Whelen. It may turn out to be shorter in the manual -- this is my full text:<p>.35 Whelen<p>A custom Mauser was a huge investment for a young forester in 1955, but dissatisfaction with factory rifles demanded one. The cartridge had to be carefully chosen for "the only big-game rifle I'll ever own." There weren't many good big-game cartridges to choose from. Careful comparisons narrowed the pickings to three: .333 OKH, .35 Whelen, and .375 H&H Magnum. The .375 lost out first -- cases were more expensive and less plentiful. For the otherwise highly desirable .333, there was only one bullet. A fellow with a .35 could choose among sixteen bullets. The Whelen virtually chose itself. Even friend and adviser Elmer Keith approved.<p>A 250-grain bullet for a .30-06 would be a giant-killer. A bullet 0.358 inch in diameter is in effect a .30-06 bullet "preexpanded" by just over 16 percent. With this weight and diameter, the .35 Whelen is still a great big-game cartridge at any practical velocity. Writers who hadn't tried it wrote that its shoulder was too slight for reliable headspacing. Its users found otherwise.<p>We had to load our own -- no problem. No factory .35 Whelen brass -- no problem. The .35 Whelen's only blemish was the absence of a Nosler .35 Partition bullet. Many of its fans pestered John Nosler for a .35 Partition, but God bless him, John couldn't afford the equipment to feed a potential market no larger than .35 shooters could offer. So we got along well with another company's heavy .35 bullets. In Alaska and Montana, my Whelen used only a 275-grain round-nose. Not considered a long-range bullet, it brought down two caribou with one shot at more hundred yards than I dare tell you. The 250-grains my .35 Whelen friends used in tamer states were more accurate than my 275-grain and equally deadly on their smaller big game.<p>Now we have the Nosler .35 Partition bullet that we used to wish we could get, and it's even better than the .35 Partitions that John could've made for us on the machinery in use from the late Fifties through the Seventies. At 250 grains, it's excellent for both accuracy and delivered energy at all the velocities listed in the load data.<p>Some assume that Colonel Townsend Whelen designed this cartridge, because his name's on it. The rest of us remember that (as Colonel Whelen wrote) "This cartridge was developed by James V. Howe in 1922, and was named for the writer....."
