Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Express Rifles and Big Bores Only Finally made it to the range with the 400 Whelen today.

Mossy rock I am flowing your project pretty close. Thank you for the updates and everything. I'm looking for a Pre64 or Classic to have made into a 400 Whelen. Mart's info and load data looks excellent and your rifle sounds like it is going to be a nice thumper as well. Again, thank you for the updates.

Mossy,

Awesome. Your gonno really enjoy that 400. Best use ever of a 30-06 case.

Marty,

I think the hardest part will be deciding which rifle gets which '06 cases between the five 30-06's, the .35 Whelen and now the .400. I am itching to try the COW fireforming method on the .400.

It worked really well. I annealed the case necks before I formed them. Wow! With 5 30-06s you have enough to have one rebored to 375 Whelen, 9.3X62, 338-6 and 8mm-06 and still have one 30-06 left over.

OK, rebarreled .400 Whelen '03 Sporter in hand. Opened up the barrel channel and got everything put together. Assembled 30 rounds of '06 brass to reform using the COW method. Stepped outside and touched one off. The horses, dogs, and neighbors were not impressed. That's ok...I got a perfectly formed case out of the deal! :-) Onward!

I formed my first cases that way. It worked well. I tried a long box full of insulation in my garage. That was a mess. Ended up going to the range to do my forming. I have since found enough of the Norma cylindrical and Qual Cart brass to keep me running for a long time.

What bullets are you going to try? My favorite is the 400 grain round nose from Woodleigh but the Swift 350 A Frame is showing great promise.

Mart

Well, at this point I am going to start out with the Hornady 300 grain spire points. I can grab a box locally. My intent is to run through a box of those and work from there. For a 400 grainer, I will probably order a box of Hornadys from Midway.

I still have a good bit of gunsmithing work to do, to include adding sights and rust bluing. I am also not thrilled with the scope mount that came of the rifle. It is never a good sign when you remove one out of three screws, and the one piece mount goes "sproing!" as it flexes back to a horizonal position. Also, none of the three screws holding the mount down are the same size with the same threading. I suppose when you buy an already-built rifle, you take your chances.

MosseyRock, You can tame down the COW real easy. Buy a 5 gal. plastic bucket with its lid, from a local store bakery. Find some carpet scrap ends and cover the bottom, insides and lay one piece over the coil of carpet so the top has a layer. Punch a hole in the lid, with a smallish hole in the top piece of the carpet scrap.

Now you can stick your barrel down into the bucket and your COW won't make much noise at all. But with the barrel pointed downwards, you need to keep the grain back against the over powder wad, with some "fluff" stuffing. An old stuffed toy will give up plenty of this, or you can buy some at a Walmart. I know that blowing out my own 44-356BB cases, I still needed to run an expander in to finish off the belled inwards case mouths.

Just remember that its the kinetic energy imparted to the grain which irons out the brass from the inside of the case. Its not just the pressures, as when you shoot a bullet, jammed into the lands of the riflings, to make an improved case, by blowing out the shoulders.

Mart, what kind of a rig did you use to swage down the Speer Mag Tips? I noted from digging a couple out of a stump, that their bases were tapered inside, and the lead cores were only about .375 at the rear. That's a lot of solid brass to swage down to get a box of .411 bullets.

When I finish shooting out my heavy target barrel in my new 6mm wildcatted 300 RCM, I've determined that I can recut it to the .430 caliber and use 444 Marlin bullets in a rimless package. So I've been watching this thread of yours, for that reason. My capacity will be close to 70 grains of water to the case mouth at 6mm. At the 44x300RCM diameter, I think I can get close to 76 grains of water. Then recoil will become fierce with the heavier bullets.

This old 26 inch long take off target barrel is too heavy to pack around the hills all day, so this may make a good finale for it, in one of my four Mauser M-98 actions.

But for any lurkers out there, using a stock 300 RCM reamer with an oversized pilot bushing, and sticking to the stock shoulders and GO gauge, will give a better shoulder. They pop up out of my CRF magazines, just about the same, as my wildcat's 17 minutes of tapered case walls. I already will have my shoulders and head space, so just re-cutting, and neck throating to the 44 caliber, will do it for me. I can live with these small shoulders, by putting in witness marks before I unscrew the present barrel.

Sadly, I can't see putting one of these 44 RCM's in any lever action, that I would want to buy for a donor. This RCM case won't make a 450 caliber, with the factory case taper left in.

I used a Lee push through cast bullet sizer. I tried a .411 sizer first but got some spring back, enough that chambering was difficult. I switched to a .410 sizer and had no more trouble. I have since abandoned the Speers. With Swift's excellent 350 grain A Frame and North Fork's 360 grain, there are adequate bullet choices with out the the headache of drawing the Speer 416's.

Mart

Good idea on the bucket! I will have to try that!

Put a couple of dummy rounds together using the Hornady 300gr flat points. While they will feed off the right side of the action, from the left side they jam straight into the extractor cut. In addition to the flat point, they are stubby little buggers. I have to say that swaging down the Speer 350gr .416s is intriguing. Marty, where did you get the .410 Lee sizing die, and what did you use for lube?

I found the same issue with the Hornady FP's. Even the SP in the same weight is pretty stubby and gave some feeding issues in my rifle. They're the only bullets my rifle won't feed with 100% reliability. They both shoot great in my gun though.

I got the .410 from Lee and the .411 from Ranchdog when he was still in business. Because I'm in Alaska and the Alox won't ship by air, I had to order the individual parts from Lee for the .410. Ranchdog was selling just sizers with no Alox so shipping wasn't an issue. I have some Corbin swaging lube so I used that. I tried RCBS case lube and Hornady Unique lube. They all worked. I think the Corbin lube worked a little better. The die has to be near the end of the press stroke to work the best. It really was a pain the backside. CH4D has bullet sizers but I haven't tried theirs. I don't know if it would be easier to use than the Lee or not. I have several of their reloading dies and am well pleased with them.

I'd stick with the Swift A Frames. They have them in 350 and 400 grain. The North Fork 360 is another good bullet, albeit an expensive one. If one is keeps an eye out there are even some of the old Barnes X bullets still available. I have a few boxes I found last summer. They are a very long bullet though and have to be seated pretty deep in the case.

I have a partial box of the Speers left. There are 33 of them and they mike right at .411. If you are interested I'll make you a good deal on them.

Mart

Sure! PM inbound.

One thing I am finding with this cartridge, when it comes to bullet selection, is that there are really no "plinker" bullets. The Hornady 300 grainers come the closest, and they don't feed worth a hoot. I see some cast bullet experiments in my future.

You are right. almost every bullet available for the 400 is a premium. Have you tried the Hornady SP. It's a stubby little 300 grain spire point. They feed a little better in my rifle but still give the occasional hang up.

I had Accurate Molds make a mold for me that throws a 320 and 400 grain bullet in the same block. Beautiful mold and makes nice bullets. I haven't had a chance to do much work with the cast loads but the few I have tried have shown great promise.

Mart

I have some 300gr Spire Hornys inbound. We will see how they do. I suspect they will jam into the extractor cut when feeding off the left side.

Well, I got the cases fire formed. Out of 55, I only lost two, both of them being Federal commercial cases. They are currently in the tumbler getting polished up. I will go through them again to see if I missed any bad ones. Then I need to trim them all to length, neck size them in a .41 Magnum sizing die, and start load development.

Mossyrock,

I used 41 mag dies before I got my 400 dies. It worked fine but to allow my press to have an accurate stop, I used used a 1" lock ring with a set screw on the ram to keep from inadvertently going too far into the die. I can't back my dies far enough out in my press to go to the end of the stroke in a pistol die when sizing a rifle case neck. The lock ring and 41 mag dies worked great but it was nice to finally get the right dies.

Mart

Mart,

Could you do me a favor? My dies showed up the other day, and I am noticing something, and I would like to see what yours do. Here's the deal.... The only fired cases I have on hand are the ones I fire-formed using the COW method. The shoulder of those cases measures .458" in diameter. When I run one of the Quality Cartridges .400 Whelen basic cases through the CH4D die, it comes out with a shoulder measuring .456" in diameter. I get the same measurement after running one of my fire-formed cases through the die. The die is obviously reducing the diameter of the shoulder. Could you please measure one of your fired cases and then measure it again after you resize it? I'm curious.... Thanks!