Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters JB I Just Read your article about 33s and 35s in Handloader

When I built a wildcat forerunner to the 358STA I used a 1-12 twist Krieger. Mine shot the 225's and the 250's very accurately.

If I were building a 35 cal rifle in anything 35 Whelen or up today,I would use a 12 twist..

Brad, I have not had any really bad luck, except for a Ruger SE Whelen, with 1 in 14s or 16s. However, things always seem to run a little better for me with 1 in 12s. So except for my .358 Win, with a 1 in 14 Shilen, I am running 1 in 12 Liljas on all of the rest of my 35s. And they all shoot.

They tell me that we are really going to have a few summer days for a change. I am ready for them. CP.

Nice to hear about the 1-12".

Summer finally arrived for sure. Going to be south of Whitehall on the Jefferson... should be a pretty day.

Have a .308 to wring out this evening too... has a 1-12" twist (grin).

CP,

I'm kind of confused. Did I say here or in the article that 1-16 was best in .35's?

I have 280 grain Swift A-Frame on order,my question is,with a 26" barrel is 2650 fps possible in my .358 Norma?

I haven't tried to push one that fast from a .358 Norma, but in a 26" barrel my bet is yes, it's safely possible.

I was just commenting that 1 in 12s have worked best for me. I was sparked by this comment �Even curiousier is the fact that none of the Winchester .35's needed a 1-12 twist. All could have gotten by quite well with a 1-16!." CP.

I would put your success with 1-12 twists down to chance, then, along with the excellent balance of most of today's rifle bullets.

I've gotten excellent accuracy from 1-12, 1-14 and 1-16 twists in various .35's from .35 Remington up to .358 Shooting Times Alaskan. Unless the twist wasn't so slow that it wouldn't fully stabilize the bullet, then just about any bullet has shot well in about any twist. Some rifles preferred different bullets, but I've never seen a trend toward any twist rate. And yes, I've owned multiple .35's in all chamberings except .358 Norma and .358 STA, where I've only owned one of each.

This is also the general trend I've seen with all other bullet diameters: If the twist was adequate, then excellent accuracy could be obtained with just about any bullet weight/length. Accuracy depended more on the rifle, barrel and bullet than the twist.

When I had my 358STA made, I wanted a Shilen barrel and it only came in 1-14 twist. I really wanted a 1-12 because I thought I would want to shoot the 280-310gr bullets. I've now shot many animals with the 250gr NP and see no need to go to a heavier bullet. Maybe if I was to use it in Africa in a country that it would be legal for dangerous game, but I just don't see any need for anything heavier than the 250gr NP.

I recovered a bullet from my moose last year under the skin on the off side shoulder that weighed 227gr. Hard to beat the performance. One day I may try the 225gr TSX, but not because the NP is lacking.

My experience is that a 1-14 will work very well for any .35 cartridge made today. I did have a .358 STA barrel made with a 1-12 twist, but it was unnecessary, even with the really heavy bullets. My .358 Norma shoots very well with just about any .35 rifle bullet, and it has a 1-14 twist.

john,

I've not read the article in question, as yet, but I look forward to it. I am a confirmed medium bore lover. I've owned perhaps six .358 Win's all with 1~12" twist except one. A Ruger #3 that I specified in my innocence, 1~16. That will be the last 1~16 I will ever specify. All the 1~12's shot well.

I've owned 4 .35 Whelens, all with 1~16" and all shot well. And two .350 Rem Mags all with 1~16".

The above not-with-standing, I am going to build one more .358 Win. this one will have a 1~14". If for no other reason than I've never before tried that. I know it's an example of one, but I was greatly dis-appointed with the 1~16" in the .358.

Edwe

Well, my next 358Win will have a light barrel at 20-22" and a 1:12". It'll be on a Stevens 200, so I may have a 338Federal done at the same time just to compare. It will also have a 375/08 barrel as that wildcat was real fun to play with!
Cheers...
Con

Con-

My comment about the 1-12" twist was in reference to the .35 Winchester, which was initially chambered in the M1895. If Winchester intended the 1-12" twist to permit use of bullets longer than their 250-grain, they failed to manufacture those cartridges. Perhaps they were looking forward to chambering their M1885 single shot in .35 Winchester and did not want to set up rifling machines for more than one twist rate?

The .35 Whelen was developed a full twenty years later than the .35 Winchester. It would be interesting to know what the twist was on the early .35 Whelen rifles. In his 1940 book The Hunting Rifle, Whelen wrote as follows (p.271):

The .30-06 cartridge was necked to .35 caliber to use existing .35 caliber bullets of 200, 250, and 275 grains weight, the latter being a special bullet made by the Western Tool & Copper Works and since discontinued.

At its best, it [the .35 Whelen] is loaded with one of the 250 grain soft point or open point bullets designed for the .35 Winchester cartridge.

I'm pretty sure the .35 Whelen was not developed with the intent of making a 375 substitute. In 1922 Whelen and Howe designed the .400 Whelen cartridge as a way of putting .405 Winchester capabilities into a bolt rifle. The .405 then was only available in the M1895 and single-shot rifles, I believe. Then, the .35 Whelen was developed to solve a problem of headspacing that appeared in the .400 Whelen.

The .375 H&H was available in the US in 1922 when the Whelen cartridges appeared, but only in European and special order American rifles, which were expensive. Whelen & Howe could have necked the 30-06 to 375 rather than 35, but I'm guessing they did not consider this feasible because of the lack of 375 caliber bullers in the US. And, as you say, with the 35 Whelen, a medium rifle could be obtained for the price of rebarreling.

--Bob

Bob,
Some thoughts at random.

It's a wonderful mystery isn't it?! Unfortunately we'll probably never know the true answer but not wanting to tool up for a different twist is a credible idea.

Griffin&Howe offered both 400Whelen and 35Whelen around 1923, and the 375H&H around 1926 to match Hoffman Arms' offering ... but both would have been expensive options given the times. A Hoffman built 35Whelen from the 1920s that I found reference to on the internet certainly had a 1:12" however. I believe the first reference in print to the 35Whelen was an article dated September, 15, 1923 in The American Rifleman and titled "American Heavy Caliber Rifles for Large Game: The .35 Whelen." Note ... it was already being considered as a large game rifle.

A 38Whelen had indeed preceeded the 35Whelen, references go back as far as mid-1919 in correspondence between Whelen and Fred Adolph. It used a reshaped 275gr projectile made for the 38-72WCF and support was removed when Winchester ceased production of the projectile. No idea whether any rifles were ever built but the builder was Niedner.

To add to the 35cal mystery, author S. Truesdell (The full story of the development of the big-game rifle from 1834-1943) makes reference to an American hunter in Africa in the early 1920s suggesting that the ideal medium calibre would be a 35cal throwing from 250-275gr projectile at 2600fps ... or thereabouts. He further suggested that if not possible at safe pressures, rather than chase the velocity, bullet weight should be upped. Taylor himself later on states that he'd have preferred a 35G&H with 275gr at 2600fps rather than the 375H&H.

Whilst I agree that the 35Whelen may have been best with a 250gr for Nth American game, I have this sneaking suspicion that Africa was on the back of the mind of developers when instigated.
Cheers...
Con

If the above mentioned report was in the 1920's, one wonders why the .35 Newton was not mentioned.

If I'm not mistaken, the venerable Newton cartridge came around in about 1916. The Newton was supposed to surpass 2900 f.p.s. w/ 250 gr. bullet. But I doubt that it even came close... The Speer "Wildcat" manual #4 lists loads for the .35 Newton approaching 2900 f.p.s. But I suspect that chronographs were pretty primitive when that was printed.

ONe of these days, I'm going to sacrifice 3 rounds of my original .35 Newton ammo and see just what they do clock.

The referenced hunter mentioned above would likely have been Charles "Bwana" Cottar; who was said to have used the .35 Newton on game up to and including Rhino...

GH

Not sure ... I can't remember the Truesdale book naming the hunter ... I'm also unsure why if it was Cottar the 35Newton wasn't named outright.

There must have been some work going on in 35cal however as when I asked Dave Manson for a reamer drawing of the 35 G&H Magnum ... he sent 4 with a question of 'Which one do you want?'
Cheers...
Con

The American hunter that made the suggestion was Leslie Simpson. I have an original edition of Simpson's book.

-Bob F.

Bob,

Thanks for clearing that up. Looks to me like there was some wisdom back in the old days...

Edw

Ooops! I need to make a correction to my comments above.

Leslie Simpson IS the American hunter that suggested a .35 caliber rifle shooting a 275 gr bullet at 2500 fps. I was mistaken about having his book, however. In his book, Truesdell does identify Leslie Simpson and shows an excerpt from a letter written by Simpson where Simpson mentions the idea about the .35 caliber rifle.

Here are Leslie Simpson's comments from the Truesdell book:



These comments by Simpson inspired Griffin & Howe to bring out the .350 G&H Magnum cartridge. (A .35 caliber based on the .375 H&H case.)


A page from the 1930 Griffin & Howe catalog:



The book I have at home, and that I was thinking of when I wrote my comments above, is "An African Holiday" by Richard L. Sutton, M.D. copyright 1924 published by The C. V. Mosby Company.

I apologize for my mistake about the book.

Cheers!
-Bob F.

I had a 35 Whelen built with a 1-8" twist. It was very accurate and produced pretty much the same velocities as other Whelens. The benefit was that expanded bullets stayed point foreward (eg did not show signs of tumbling) and tended to penetrate in a straight line. Could not say the same for 1-16's. There were obvious signs tumbling. There is much too much talk about poking holes in paper instead of testing that tells what happens after the bullet impacts a real target and expands. The amount of stability need to punch a hole in paper is not the same as the stability needed to keep the nose foreward.

I sold it because I thought it kicked about like a 375 H&H.