Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles .35 Whelen Deer Load..................

Looking for a .35 Whelen handload for whitetail, shots will be under 100 yds. What's your favorite?

You do not say what weight bullet you are using.

I use a 200 grain bullet and IMR-3031 powder,about 53.0 grains.

I don't have my book in the house i will look in the morning.

Sierra 225 GK and Re-15. To steal from JOC, if this won't shoot in your 35 Whelen, sell the gun.

I get outstanding accuracy with 200gr. Hornady RN and 54.0 gr. IMR 3031, 100yd. three shot gorups that can be covered with a quarter. Took a KY 7pt. buck with this load, a quartering shot at 100yds., the recovered bullet was well mushroomed and weighed 122gr.. I've also had great results with Sierra 225gr. GK and IMR 4064, RL-15 was a close second accuracywise.

Loaded up some Remington 200gr PSP's over some Varget.

Mild but very accurate.

It would appear you answered your own question, no?

I see I'm not alone in wondering.

Always seeking new and different info from others experiences. Do either of you have anything to contribute?

http://noebulletmolds.com/NV/product_info.php?cPath=35_313&products_id=3221

This bullet, cast at Brinell about 12, with about 5% tin, does very well on game. 3031 is my preferred powder. They don't cycle in my action due to the WFN, but I've never needed more than one at a time.

It also does well in 357 Mag cases, loaded with H110/296 in the longer cylinder of a RBH. Even on moose. Again, never needed more than one at a time.

Before it sank in that you were asking the question here, I was actually going to refer you to your earlier post about the good results you had.

Although I don't use cast bullets on game, my load for WFN cast bullets 200-220 gr. is 15.0 gr. of Unique, easy shooting and accurate.

I've killed three caribou cows, similar in size to a large whitetail buck, with the 250 grain Nosler Partition. Excellent wound channel, very little blood shot meat. I know the 250 is plenty for deer and you certainly don't need a 35 caliber Partition to kill a deer, but they work very well on caribou cows. I cannot imagine they wouldn't do a good job on a Whitetail.

Seems to me pretty much anything out of a 35 Whelen will kill deer just fine, including pistol bullets at modest speeds.

I sold my Whelan a few years ago but my 2 favorate bullets were Hornady 200 gr SP and Speer 220 gr FP

H4895 and 250 grain Hornady SP or 250 grain Speer. Will work well for most anything deer and larger

An old hunting pard has been using 200-250 grain cast bullets in a couple .35 Whelen's, cast at around 12 bhn (from wheelweights) and driven at 1800fps or so to kill deer for the last 30 years or so in MD, VA, and PA without a hiccup. 'Tain't rocket science. A .35 bullet that'll expand, driven anywhere from .357 Mag velocities on up, will kill whitetail deer.

Thanks for the positive informational input. Can you offer any insight as to velocity of a 200gr./15.0 gr. Unique load? I have been shooting this load for years as a plinking/practice load, don't remember where I found the data. I switched to Unique when SR 4759 was discontinued.

This was a good excuse to call my buddy (who has lived and breathed .35 Whelen since Regan was president) and he told me that in his experience the 200/15 Unique load should generate around 1700 fps. It's a load he too used long ago with fine results both at the range and in the woods. He said also he wouldn't go over around 19 grains Unique, which would generate 1900 fps- not that pressure gets too high for a good bolt gun but that you're starting to reach the elastic limits of wheelweight alloy. (Neither of us breaches the 2000fps level with soft alloys like that, it's not needed for deer killing and leading often starts and accuracy falls off beyond that. Harder alloys of course fix that but then terminal expansion decreases too. Anecdotally my favorite hunting load for both .30-30 and .303 Savage is a 190 flat nosed soft cast bullet over 28 grains 3031 which chronos 2030fps out of a 24" Winchester M54 barrel.)

Since he and I both have pretty much a lifetime supply of 4759 neither of us use Unique for very much cast bullet rifle shooting these days, and Tommy uses 4759 for the bulk of his Whelen work. (When discontinuance was rumored we scoured the internet and brick and mortar stores for miles around for stray cans of that powder.)

Frankly, if you don't want to tread higher with Unique, I would look at 3031 for mid-range cast bullet deer loads in the 2000fps region. I suspect there's joy to be found there.

Beyond the little I've transmitted here, my advice would be to consult Hodgdon's load data, or Lyman's cast bullet manual. (I have a copy somewhere, if you need me to I'll dig it out and look up something.)

IMR 4064 used to be my powder of choice with jacketed bullets, read a Ken Waters piece on the Whelen and switched to IMR 3031 with 200gr. Hornady and this is now my deer load having proved itself on this fall's buck. Never thought of trying IMR 3031 with cast bullets in the Whelen although if my memory serves me right I recall using it with cast bullets in .30-30 that's over 40 yrs. ago. As regards the Unique load, I'm perfectly satisfied with 15.0gr. and won't go any higher. I am shooting a Randall Redman rebored pre'64 M/70 and intend to sell my other centerfires and use the Whelen for all my hunting.

For WT at 100 yards or less I'd be all in on the 220 grain Speer. I'd use Reloader 15 (58.0ish grains) for a bit over 2500 fps. I used to load these for an uncle. It probably accounted for 2 dozen deer out to 200 or so yards. It was an absolute hammer on deer with reasonable recoil and cost. Never been a fan of 200 grain lead core bullets at Whelen velocity, though I've never tried the Accubond.