I second the notion that with today's max loads, the Whelen can be about the limit of what I do for fun off the bench. Mine is an AI (which makes little difference) and I recently acquired a Whitworth .375 H&H, and decided to swap the 1.5-5 VX3 off of my Whelen onto the .375, and I replaced it with a 1.75-6 VX3, which of course I then had to sight in.
My go-to load for the Whelen is the 225 TSX over 70 grains of 2000-MR. To save some money I loaded up the Sierra 225 GK over 70/2000-MR for the sight-in loads. Sierra's published max for their 225 SGK is 71.6/2000-MR for 2900 FPS (pretty amazing!). My rifle was getting 2870-2880' with 70/2000-MR under the 225 SGK.
Well, my .375 weighs 9.5 pounds and the Whelen weighs 7.5 pounds. I can tell you a max load with the 300 partition in the .375 was noticeably more pleasant to shoot off the bench than the 225 SGK at 2880' in my lightweight Whelen! As someone once said - "it kills on both ends!"
Interestingly, in the same Sierra manual (the latest one) in which they show 2900 FPS with the 225 in the Whelen, the highest speed they published with any powder in the .338 WM with their .338 225 SGK is 2800 FPS.
I actually think the new loads published by Speer and Sierra with CFE 223 and PP 2000-MR make the Whelen pretty darn exciting! And the 200 TTSX at just under 3000 FPS is not to be yawned at either - I get that with PP Varmint.
But I get what you mean in the title of this thread - it's an easy round to get to shoot well, that's for sure.
Cheers,
Rex
