Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters 35 Whelen with modern powder and bullets...?

Great pic! Hope I can say that someday...

I guess it would depend on what and where one was hunting. I only hunt elk anymore and I've had to take shots as far as 350 yards. The 225 gr. Barnes TSX does a right nice job at 2710 at the muzzle. I'll admit that might be a bit much for deer but I'll bet meat damage would be small, the bullet exiting and the deer layig down and saying, "You've killed me."

As a matter if fact, that 225 gr. TSX cost me on of the nicest Mule Deer bucks I've ever seen. I could have shot him easily enough but there were a bunch of does and smaller deer behind him. If I'd have taken the shot I'd have killed him and probably killed or wounded two or three more in the process. I never did get a deer that year.
Paul B.

I'm building an AI version on a 24" barreled commercial Maueser FN. Nosler and Hodgon both list Varget and 8208 as best group or best speed for most bullets, esp 225 and lighter.

A 225TTSX at 2750-2800+ would be all I could hope for or stand!
2600+ any load, with good accuracy, would be enough.

Thanks all for the various thoughts on the 35 Whelen and modern loads. One thing that's undoubtedly true about the Whelen is that it's one of the most versatile rounds in terms of available loads. Everything from cast pistol bullet plinking loads, to reduced recoil/power loads with light bullets, to "traditional" SAAMI loads on the lighter side, to the modern +P loads that sometimes exceed four thousand foot-pounds of energy are available.

This post is mainly about a few representative bullets I personally find interesting. There are several more that look good for +P applications but this is mainly to lay out a case for the Whelen as a general-purpose hunting round rather than dismissing it when ranges open up a bit. I did leave out the 250 gr. Partition because ballistically it's very similar to the Speer 250.

I should mention that I'd never run across the Hawk bullets before, and they look intriguing - if fairly expensive. The deal of the century has to be the Speer 250s at under $17 per 50. In the test data I found (the last table in the post) it's a standout, and is apparently well vetted in terms of retaining weight and expanding reliably. Speer even rates it as a "dangerous game" bullet.

All that said, the 265 grain Hawk spitzer looks like a potential star. I'd love to see some real world results from that one... One thing that could be better is that Hawk provides no BC values so I just made some up (heh)...if anyone knows of any based on real data, please speak up.

Despite the allure of the heavier bullets, once I have my shiny new Whelen in hand, I think I'll start with the 200 TTSX for +P development. It seems as though it'll do anything I need, perhaps unless I intentionally target dangerous game. Truthfully I'd feel adequately armed with that bullet even in brown bear territory (see test data below). Is anyone here running it at 2900 FPS or over out of a regular 35 Whelen?

The main point is really ballistic performance out to 400 yards. That's the important thing for the vast majority of hunters. If you regularly need to reach out beyond 400 yards for big game, the 35 Whelen isn't your best choice. The 500 and 600 yard data is included mainly for amusement purposes. All ballistic data was generated using the Ballistic app for iOS.

(Sidebar: BBCODE is supposed to support tables, but they don't seem to work here...could that please be fixed? I'm using the "code" tag instead to get a fixed size font, but it's a lot uglier and more painful to work with.)

35 Whelen Trajectories:


35 Whelen Energies:


I found some .358 bullet test data at https://www.marlinowners.com/forum/...-tests-focus-30-cal-190-hawk-35-rem.html, preserved here for posterity.

Test setup: One inch of "soaked magazines", 1/2" fiber board (to simulate "tough bone"), and then many inches of "soaked magazines". I added the columns for percent expansion and percent retained weight . Notes here are from the original post. Velocity in FPS, sizes in inches, weights in grains.

.358 bullet test data, mainly at 35 Remington velocities:

Note that this data didn't include any Nosler bullets, or the heavier Hawk bullets. I'd sure like to see similar tests run with full bore Whelen loads and a good selection of current bullets.

I have some takeaways from this:

• The 35 Whelen is a fine all-around big game cartridge as long as you don't mind some stout recoil - and even that is optional depending on how you load it.
• Some 35 Whelen +P loads are flat shooting enough to keep up with the 30-06 out to 400+ yards. That's certainly not how most folk think about the 35 Whelen.
• With suitable bullets loads can be developed that will do for any dangerous game that might fall victim to the 9.3x62 or other similar rounds.

What say the gun writers? <-- Test to see if anyone reads this far...haha.

(edited for a little better wording here and there...)

What is all this about Whelen +P loads? +P is a SAAMI standard for certain cartridges, and does not exist for the Whelen. Whelen loads are either full power, too hot, or something less.

Well SAAMI standard for the .35 Whelen is a bit on the puny side thanks to Remington screwing up once more. Those of us who do load the Whelen for top performance should be able to call them Plus P or whatever the hell else they want. If my 225 gr. TSX load at 2710 FPS MV isn't a plus P load, what else would I call it? It kills elk very dead, is safe in my rifle so I guess I'll just consider it a Plul P load.
Paul B.

If that's what makes you happy, sure. I would call it a full power load, same as what I use.

I prefer calling them '65k psi' loads. The potential to knock on the door of 2700fps with 250gr has been there as long as W760 has existed, and a modern rifle has worn a 24" barrel.
Cheers...
Con

2,840 fps with said bullet in my 22" Whelen. IMR-3031 - a couple grains over book max (57.5) I'd be curious what QuickLoad says about that one. I tried one of the Vunderpowders - CFE 223 - and could get anywhere near published velocities.

I tried CFE223 under 225's in an Improved; no bueno

The notion is, indeed, intriguing... but my shoulder doth protest.

FC

OT. I forgot to mention I used to own a Whelen in a Remington 760. It hit with authority but it went to a dealer at a gun show. I wanted the cash for something else. Don't even remember what! I have some 366s and some .358s and as we talked I have two projects for JES to 358 Win. Will let Whelennut know when it happens. But this thread and another makes me want to go up to the Petrov's 400 Whelen in an FN Mauser rebuild. I Better get the 358 Win.s done first. "Hi. My name is Rustyzipper and I'm a medium bore slut." …………….

Hi folks, long time lurker, first time poster.....

I just wanted to pipe up on this 35 Whelen thread - I've been playing with a new Hawkeye starting off with the 225 Sierra, and just wasn't impressed with the the "traditional" powders. Achieved so-so accuracy and velocity with the standards, so tried Alliant Varmit. Accuracy immediately improved to the ~1-1.25 range with velocities approaching 2700 in my 22" barrel. Looks like a keeper in my rifle, but I'm early in the development process. Just my .02 worth.

Great thread!

Welcome to the 'fire, KLD.

In my Improved model, I've found 225 SGKs over Re-15 (Re-12, too, if you have any; it's discontinued) to be extremely accurate.

With the 225gr. Sierra the powder that give the best accuracy in my rebored M/70 is IMR 4064.

About that...I've had a heck of a time finding the current SAAMI 35 Whelen pressure spec. Sorry it's taken so long to respond.

However, with some inspired searching this morning I hit pay dirt!

https://saami.org/wp-content/upload...CFR-Approved-2015-12-14-Posting-Copy.pdf

Right from the horses mouth! It lists a Maximum Average Pressure (MAP) of 52,000 CUP (more on that below). It also helpfully lists some representative velocities of:

So, given that SAAMI expects a 200 gr bullet to run at 2,660 FPS versus 2,900, and the 250 gr bullet to run at under 2,400 FPS instead of 2,700, it looks like the "hot" Whelen loads are well above SAAMI spec. I'd say "+P" is entirely apt for those hot loads, whether or not SAAMI is abdicating whatever responsibility it has for that term. It also seems to me the only saving grace for Whelen pump and autoloader owners is that they must generally be knowledgeable shooters, given some of the hot loads available.

Now back to that MAP pressure in CUP. What in the world is CUP doing in any current pressure specification? It's simply outdated. IMO the industry should bulk convert legacy data from CUP to PSI in a safe way, and exactly zero new anything should be published in CUP.

Here's a good link on CUP versus PSI:
http://bulletin.accurateshooter.com...the-difference-in-pressure-measurements/

As that article says, the CUP number doesn't correlate well with PSI for several well known cartridges. The .223 is listed as 52,000 CUP and 55,000 PSI. The .308 is listed as 52,000 CUP and 62,000 PSI. So what does 52,000 CUP mean for the 35 Whelen? Apparently under 60K PSI. Perhaps a Quickload owner could guesstimate pressure in PSI based on the SAAMI estimated velocities and a 24 inch barrel...?

The other thing that surprised me is the amount of load data published with no pressure data. Nosler, for instance, doesn't include pressure data. I guess given the decent interior ballistics software around today one could double check that way...

I hope it was interesting!

Now I am down to two rifles, a .270W and a 338WM. If I wanted to mess with another Whelen ( such an outstanding round!) I'd probably try a pump standard Whelen and set it up with a receiver sight for heavy snow days. As it is, I like loading my 338WM up and down for what I used the Whelen AI for.

WhelenNut - what knife is in the rib cage picture? It looks like a good one.

Some inaccuracies here and some good data. Since the OP requested NEW powders I'll stick to that.
I have worked extensively with PP 2000-MR and PP-Varmint in the 35 Whelen AI (which only gains maybe 50 fps over the standard at the same pressures).
My rifle is a commercial Husqvarna Mauser with a 23" barrel and a long throat such that the 3.4" magazine is the limiting factor, so I load everything to 3.375 and still jump over .100" to the lands.

SAMMI max for the Whelen is 62K PSI, 2K above its parent of the 30-06 and 3K below the .270 Win. Remington did not "screw up" the SAMMI spec, they just loaded their ammo below it to easily function in their pumps.

I am confident Speer and Sierra did not exceed the SAMMI spec of 62K PSI in their published data for the 250 HotCor and the 225 SGK (as well as Speer's 180 and 220, which I'll get to later)
I never ended up loading as much as Speer or Sierra did, because I got such excellent performance a bit under, but still what follows exceeds anything the Whelen could safely do with earlier powders. I take case head expansion (CHE) off all these loads to help verify the pressures.

250 Partition, 65 gr 2000-MR, CCI 200, 3.375 OAL. Shot 0.50 MOA, at 2650 fps. CHE was .0002" (.0005" is considered the border of getting warm by most who use CHE as a metric)

225 TSX, 70 gr 2000-MR, CCI 200, 3.375 OAL. Shot 1.0 MOA at 2800 fps. CHE was also .0002". The Sierra 225 SGK shot 0.8 MOA at the same speed with the same charge.

PP 2000-MR is too slow for 200 grain bullets in the Whelen. You just can't get enough in the case to reach its potential. I used the slightly faster PP Varmint for the 200 TTSX. There is no published Varmint data for the 200 (that I could find, but Speer has data for the 180 and the 220, which allows for an easy interpolation indicating a max of 67 gr Varmint for about 3000 fps in the standard Whelen. I needed an extra grain for the slightly increased case capacity of my AI.

200 TTSX, 68 gr PP Varmint, CCI 200, 3.375 OAL. Shot 0.75 MOA at 2975 fps. CHE on this was .0004", appropriate since I was closer to what should be a "max" than the first two loads listed above. I am confident the Varmint load does not exceed the 62K SAMMI max and estimate the other two are right about 60K.

Remember my rifle has a long throat and is the AI version, nevertheless what I wrote about is well below the published max for the standard Whelen for the 2000-MR loads and right about max for the Varmint.

Best of luck,
Rex

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.