Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Pre 64 .35 Whelen build

From more than 25 yrs. experience with a rebore I can tell you there's nothing wrong with old Winchester steel. You're getting a new bore, what could be wrong?

Thanks for all the suggestions guys! I like the matte hard chrome and will definitely consider that over Cerakote for durability.

I’m not stuck on a specific weight for this build since I have lightweight mountain rifles but I want this to be a handy, easy to carry rifle, just not necessarily an ultralight rifle. Thanks again guys. 👍

Another plus is the hard chroming is significantly cheaper. Last week I got my latest rifle back from chroming. It was $243.00 including shipping to AK.

Im glad you werent in Lyle recently. You would have snagged that pre 64 fwt 30-06 for $475.00.. i had to buy it. That would have been a good candidate for a re-bore.

Who do you guys recommend for the hard chrome treatment?

This guy:

http://www.mahovskysmetalife.com/

That’s exactly what I’d like for the project.

you might want to leave the barrel length alone at first till you see how the rifle balances out


the 35 hole will reduce the barrel weight quite a bit and you may find the shorter barrel muzzle light

Tag

I'm coming into this late but there's nothing wrong with a rebore. Cliff LaBounty rebored my 1941 model 70 to 35 Whelen and with any 250 grain bullet it thinks it's a varmint rifle. I also had JES rebore a Sedgley Springfield to 375 Whelen. He did a great job, the gun was very accurate, and it was ten days from my door back to my door. In Alaska. My late friend and hunting buddy had him do several rebores over the years and has been well pleased with every one.

I left my 35 Whelen 24 inches and have hunted some pretty tight cover with it. I never felt the longer barrel hampered me in heavy cover.

A note concerning re-boring that I'll offer is that if you care about the aesthetics of your rifle you will want to handle the re-stamping of the new caliber yourself. Some reborers make quite a mess when it comes to re-marking, XXXXing out the old caliber and hand stamping the new. I milled a shallow groove which removed the original caliber marking and re-stamped it myself. Other options would be to have it laser marked or have your engraver handle the task.

A lot of great info and suggestions and I thank you all for your input.

PAbucktail....thanks for the recommendation, I’ll be going the hard chrome route. I have been reading about Cerakote not being terribly durable and hard chrome being a great option so that’s the way I’ll be going. 👍

Mart, I appreciate your advice. I like carbine style rifles and with the Whelen I’m not gunning for velocity since it’ll be used for close in work and kept to under 300 yards. I also think I’ll work up an accurate 225gr TSX load and use that for everything. Going from boat to skiff to beach to truck, etc a compact rifle has been a bit more convenient in my experience. Very few of my rifles are 24” now that I think about it, in fact only one .308, a Model 70 in 7mm mag and my Sako .222 Rem Mag have 24” barrels. I’ll proceed slowly and with a small measure (the most I can muster 😁) of common sense before making permanent modifications to the rifle but I’m stubborn and knowing me I doubt that it’ll stay at 24”.

Gunwizzard, Thanks for your input. I was actually thinking about the re-stamping thing last night and how to do it so it didn’t look like crap. I think either milling the current stamp or carefully draw filing it would work. I’ll talk to JES and see what they recommend. I know I don’t want XXXX to indicate the change in caliber since that looks lazy and crappy.

SDgunslinger, I’ll be interested in how much weight is shaved by making the 30 caliber hole a 35 caliber hole. Like I was telling mart, I’m not real big on 24” barrel rifles except on the magnums so I’m pretty set on cutting it back to around 22” but since I’m an oddball I’m thinking that I’ll cut to 21.5”.

Thanks again to all of you for your suggestions.....keep them coming. 👍

If I figured it right it's a little over 2 1/2 ounces.

Interesting.....thanks. Having followed your posts on reloading I’d be willing to bet that you’re exactly correct. 😁. Your help, advice and opinions are always appreciated. You are selfless with your input and you’re an asset to this site. Thanks

I'd go a new tube first as well over a rebore. My buddy Justahunter had issues with a JES rebore .35 Whelen. I encourage you to talk with him, I'm not blaming anyone here but the situation probably had my buddies and JES's blood pressure elevated to say the least.

Is that the guy who's reloads blew a barrel? Maybe the problem was his fault, maybe it was Jesse's, but this is the internet after all........perhaps the best idea is to examine the general consensus. What's the ratio of JES satisfied to unsatisfied customers? I'd wager it's much better than what Kimber or some other makers have going for themselves. He's done four guns for me, and another five for friends. All have been stellar.

I’m willing to take the chance, if I don’t like it I’m not out much and can go with a new barrel. I’ve heard nothing but good things about JES and disregard the occasional flyer. 😉

Justahunter's rifle blew apart shooting factory ammunition that JES told him to use, because JES insisted he didn't know how to recognize pressure signs or measure a bore diameter. The fact was Justahunter's bore was undersized, and JES refused to think he might of made a mistake. I don't mind that JES made a mistake, I do feel he handled it very poorly and he never made an attempt to make it right.

I’ve had JES rebore a couple. I’ve had two that were a bit of a pain. My 35 Newton was rechambered/rebored from an M70 338 Win. When I first started shooting it, it was leaving rings around the case and extraction was very poor since the case was sticking so heavily. I sent it back and he needed to cut a thread and ream it all the way through. Originally he didn’t get quite enough of the chamber leaving it pretty rough. After that it was good and has shot well.

2nd was an old P64 that started out as a 300 H&H and was rechambered to 300 Wby long before I owned it. I got the rifle dirt cheap and liked the 300 Wby so I tried shooting it some. I tried every danged accuracy load under the sun and nothing would begin to shoot for beans. The rifle being very clean and such, I decided to have it rebored to 375 Wby.

Well, two weeks later it came back to me with a note that he could make it a 375 Wby and had to rechamber it to a 375 Improved. I thought, no big deal, thinking it was an Ackley... nope, Redding 375 Ackley dies didn’t work for squat but I was able to use them to size the neck to get some loads through it.



That was the first load I put on paper with it after shooting 20 rounds of handloads to get FF cases and to smooth it out a bit in order to apply DBC to the Bore. I was very happy with the accuracy of it right outta the gates. I bought a box of 300 grain Partitions from Federal and those suckers were even better.

So, I got rid of the dies I had and sent away for Whidden’s using 3 pieces of my fired brass. So it actually became quite a lot more expensive than I’d hoped but the rifle still shoots well.

I wanted to keep the factory barrel and look so a rebore was the easy way with the 375 and being a 1-10 twist it really hammers the 250 Barnes TTSX.



I carried it for elk but didn’t have any luck carrying then, but decided to try my luck with deer... it worked fine there too...



So I’d still use JES and realize it might not pan out but it’s usually an inexpensive way to try out a cartridge before investing into heavily with a Smith work.

put a new S.S. barrel on the rifle,35 Whelen is a great choice,Creole coat all the outside medal including barrel ,you only need a 22 inch barrel with a 35 caliber bore. good luck,Pete53