Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Custom Rifles & Wildcats 411 Hawk

Hey to All,

Anybody here used one? Looking to maybe rebuild my 1903A3 into one. I've read just about everything on ZHat website, just looking for more opinions and info.

Thanks, Tom

I don't know if anyone other than ZHat builds the 411 Hawk. The Petrov 400 Whelen (the 400 Whelen in it's original form) reamer is readily available and many smiths can chamber a rifle thus. For what it's worth there isn't 5% difference in case capacity or performance between the 400 Whelen, 400 Brown Whelen and 411 Hawk.

I had an FN action rebarreled to .411 Hawk by Z-Hat about fifteen years ago. I used it with cast bullets only; shot it a lot for a while, lost interest and sold it. Cases are easy to form. Anything specific you wanted to know?

There's an old article in HANDLOADER #227 about this cartridge.

Basically I just wanted to get general information. Ease of brass forming, loads mild to wild, etc. I want something different to hunt with, but not completely difficult. I was thinking of a Elk, Hog, Grizzly rifle, receiver sighted 200-225 yard or so max range. Throwback nostalgia type rifle, hence the 03A3 action.

Thanks for any info you can provide. Tom

I don't recall the details of brass forming, but it was no big job. I purchased RCBS loading dies from Z-Hat when I had the barrel work done.

I'm unfamiliar with jacketed bullets available for this round, but all four of the cast bullets I used (ranging in weight from around 330 - 385 grains) probably had poor ballistic coefficients. Nevertheless, with the right load, any would have been adequate for 200-yard game shots.

Also, consider recoil. While it's a subjective assessment, 300+ grain bullets at decent hunting muzzle velocities can produce considerable recoil.

For bullets you have Hornady's two 300 grain bullets, a FP and a spitzer, both pretty stubby but accurate in my 400 Whelen. Hornady also offers their 400 grain .410 bullets. The 411 Hawk/400 Whelen have a .411 groove diameter but the Hornady .410 bullets shoot fine. Woodleigh offers their round nose soft point and FMJ, North Fork a 300 and 360 grain, Swift a 350 and 400 grain A frame, Hawk a 300, 350 and 400 grain round nose, and Barnes, a 300 grain TSX.

Cases are easy to form for either round. Quality Cartridge has 400 Whelen headstamped brass that is actually 30-06 cylindrical. Just run it in to the die and trim to length. If you watch the auction sites, every now and then some Norma 30-06 cylindrical comes up for sale. If you don't go with either of these, then forming brass from 30-06, 280, 270, or 35 Whelen will work fine. I have a bunch of LC match brass I fireformed that I use with my cast bullet loads. I have an expander die now so I don't fireform with Cream of Wheat anymore.

My 400 loves cast bullets. I had Accurate Molds cut a mold that throws a 320 and 400 grain bullet. With 54 grains of AA2495 behind a 400 grain cast, it runs 2000 fps and is one of my most accurate loads.

Here's a couple of pictures of my 400. Feel free to shoot me a PM.

Mart- that four-hundy Whelen is SICK!!!! Rcvr sight, barrel band swivel.... just right up my alley!
To the Op- go with the Whelen. You lose SO little to any of the others, and if you ever wanna part with it, there are nostalgia guys like me that would be interested ONLY if it were a Whelen. The other stuff comes and goes. Nothing really new under the sun any more when it comes to cartridges. Blue, Walnut and a classic caliber. Just my 2 cents and worth just what you paid.



Regards, now back under my rock.
Greg in West Mitten

Greg,

Thanks. It has become my favorite big game rifle. I have to agree that the 400 Whelen will probably appeal to a larger crowd than the 411 Hawk, but anyone looking for a 40 caliber bolt gun would be well served with any of the three aforementioned. My original intent was to build a 411 Hawk, until I met Michael Petrov. His work convinced me to go with the Whelen but I don't think I would have been disappointed with the Hawk.

Thank you Gentlemen. This is the type of info I'm looking for. And yes mart, your 400 Whelen is exactly what I'm looking to do with mine.

Thanks again, Tom

Mart got me thinking back to the early seventies. Mr. Petrov discounts "improperly chambered 400 Whelens". But there were always two ways to do these wildcats. If you just wanted to pick up fired brass, anneal, and open the necks up to a few thousandths less than .411", you could do a 2R chamber using a 30-06 finish reamer, followed by a DIY neck throat reamer.

These are the "snake chambers" Petrov was speaking of. They have to head space on their case mouths, just like a 45 acp does. Lead slugs can't take much neck compression, and there's only a taper crimp at the most. So these were creatures, made for the old 405 Win's. jacketed bullets.

The angle here is that the sizing die can be made with a 30-06 roughing reamer, and by using a .408" hole reamed out to the end, with the die blank, set up in a lathe. Reading Petrov's account carefully, I think he used an oversized chamber. FWIW, only the 9.3 x 62 brass is close to this. Its pretty far out of tolerance for standard 30-06 Brass.

My source on this dilemma was the late Dr. William Williams, an orthopedic surgeon, who used a 400 Whelen sizing die to size round balls for a muzzle loader which I purchased from him, about 1973. I could never get him to sell me the sizing die, so I guessed that someone in his family had a 400 Whelen, in their closet. This old bone doctor was also the Idaho State Pistol Champion from 1947 to 1956. So he was pretty well versed in how these things worked.

When you neck a 30-06 case up to .411" it shrinks back a bit. If you have to head space it on its case mouth, you have to account for this shrinkage, in your chamber. The good news is that you can also face off your sizing die in your lathe, to equal this shrinkage.

Dr. Williams' 400 Whelen sizing die looked like an extra long Lee pan lube bullet sizer. In some of these crude chambers, the resized 30-06 became the No Go gauge, and then you trimmed back the cases, a couple of thousandths, to make your Go gauge.

I'll leave it for you to decide, but in the late Twenties to Pearl Harbor, even these "snake chambered" 400 Whelens would put down North Idaho Grizzlies. But they never broke free of their problems, like the smaller 35 Whelen did.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^What Mart said^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Rent you a Petrov reamer and get some 400 Whelen Quality cartridge cylindrical brass from midway usa and a set of dies from CH4D.

That's the route I took and am able to fire 400 gr Woodleigh softs and solids to 2255 fps with CFE-223 powder, the loads are very accurate and both softs and solids group nicely together at 100 yards.

The 1.5-5 Leupold is in a set of QD rings with the iron express sight filed to a dead on 50 yard zero, a very pleasant, yet I believe VERY effective poor mans safari rifle.

Gunner

My buddy finished his .400 Whelen this last year, he was lucky enough to actually get a lot of help Michael Petrov before he passed. Mr Petrov even loaned him his own personal reamers for the build. He's looking for a G&H patterned stock to finish off the rifle.

That's a cool story and build Taylorce, here's hoping your Bud finds a nice stick for completion, PM me if you/your Bud wants my load data to make those 400's safely sing on the North end of 2250 fps.

Mine does it with only 22"s of barrel length.

Hey Mart, JES did your 400, correct? Obviously no problem with his chambers?

No. JES did my 375 Whelen and no problems with that chamber at all. My 400 is a model 70 with a Shilen barrel. It was barreled by a local hobby gunsmith who does excellent work. I won't put his name out because he doesn't want to get inundated with calls for work. He works on projects he wants to for whom he wants to on his schedule. He has a 400 Whelen reamer of the Petrov dimensions.

Andy Fields did the rest of the work, sweating on the barrel band swivel and front sight, drilling and tapping for the Lyman 48 and rust bluing.

I wonder how JES 400 Whelen rebores are

I'm guessing they would be fine. I sure wouldn't be afraid to send him a rifle to rebore to 400 Whelen. When I was looking for a left handed rifle to build on, I considered one of the Zastavas in 9.3x62 as a rebore candidate. I really wanted to stay American on the action though and in fact found a Sedgley Springfield 30-06, converted to left hand. It ended up going for way more than I was willing to pay. A week later I found my Winchester, it appeared unfired and was priced right. Needless to say I wasted no time haggling and nearly ripped the pocket of my pants getting my wallet out.