I settled on the 225gn Accubond in my Whelen over 58gn of Varget. Nosler data shows 60.5gn as max. But my Whelen is a Ruger Hawkeye in walnut with the thin red rubber pad. It's the same pad on a couple of my Roberts rifles. It works fine with Roberts recoil but it hurt a bit with the Whelen. I've since replaced the stock with an HS Precision with a much thicker pad but I haven't changed the load. I don't know if it will kill any better with two grains more powder. Hmmmm.
Hard to say about the killing, but I can share my experience with the same bullet and Varget vs. 2000-MR
225 NAB, 60 gr Varget, CCI 200, 3.385 OAL. Shot 0.69" at 2706 fps
225 NAB, 69 gr 2000-MR, CCI 200, 3.385 OAL. Shot 0.68" at 2828 fps
This is in the same rifle I posted above, 35 WAI, 23" barrel, long throat, though both these loads are below published max for the basic Whelen.
Varget may be more temperature stable, I've yet to see much data on the stability of 2000-MR, and living in Tucson, it's hard to generate my own data on that subject.
I can say that when I changed out the thin hard pad on my rifle (which only weighs 7.6 pounds) to a Decelerator, it made a world of difference shooting from the bench. It was pretty brutal before and much more pleasant now.
Cheers,
Rex
