Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Express Rifles and Big Bores Only Question for the .400 Whelen Crowd

LOL, no Sir, i'm most happy to watch from the sidelines at what you guys can get done with the 400gr Hammers, that said, and having heard about someone taking them to Africa this fall for buffalo, should something happen to that hunt, i'd be more than happy to buy some and try them on cape buffalo on my hunt, can get it on film too, that is of course with your approval, i already told you i'd use the 450gr TSX's you graciously gave me on buffalo in my 458 WM+ .

CFE-223 will be the bomb under those ex-partitions, can easily load and shoot out to 3.340" in that rifle, the pointier nose will give more room than the bulbous nosed Woodleighs, i should check with Qual-Cart and get some new cases just for the 400gr partitions you made me, at roughly 2250 fps they will penetrate for weeks!

RC,

That 410/404 , is that the wildcat dcpd has talked about? using 450/400 dies? I'm also VERY tempted to try that as well. As I understand it he just uses a 450-400 reamer into the .410 bbl. I have a spare M70 375 just sitting around waiting for a new barrel, it was between that and the 400 h&h but dang are those dies pricey

Sir Jerry,
I knew you would understand.
You da man with the plan for the 450-gr TSX.



Yes, that is the one, ".410/404 Jeffery Rimless Nitro Express" aka the .410/404 JRNE aka the ".410 Journey."
It was quite the journey.
Use 404 Jeffery Rimless brass from Norma or Hornady and the 450/400 NE 3-Inch handloading dies from Hornady.
Treat it just like the 400 Whelen by fire-forming with backwards handgun bullets.
Shoulder step may be bigger but it is only about 7.5-degree hemi-angle compared to stronger 23-degree angle on the Whelen.

Just back to find a box on the porch, many Thanks Sir Ron, i called old 'Smith that built my rifle back in 2015, he informed me i had a 14 twist Kreiger barrel, ran a twist calc over a Berger bullets, seems the now 1.485 long .410" bullet with what i gave a .425 b.c. fired at 2255 fps from 14 twist barrel at +555' sea level okleehoma is spun up plenty tight with stability number SG 2.83..................that'll keep 'em boring straight for all they're worth!

Many Thanks again Sir, the new bullet boxes look very nice, Oh, BTW, i could learn a thing or 1000 from You on shipping contents/container's!

My idea with that one was have the barrel stamped 400 Jeffrey Rimless and have RCC brass custom stamp their 404 Jeff as 400 Jeff. easy peasy if you need to travel with the rifle!

Sir Jerry,

Do the bullets measure .411" or .410" by your caliper ?

Might get by with "410/404 RNE" on the barrel if sticking to Norma brass that is head-stamped "404 RNE."
Or maybe "400/404 Jeffery" on the barrel if sticking with Hornady brass with "404 Jeffery" head stamp.
Both are good brass.

Good evening Sir Ron, X-partitions mic at .410.5" for me, perfect! iirc those four boxes of 400gr A Frames out on the shelf are .410, they shot perfect in my 400 H&H, these X-partitons will fly well for either rifle, lucky i guess, but both are really accurate rifles.

Thanks again Sir.

Good.
400-gr/.416 Nosler Partitions are easier to push through the dies than 400-gr/.416 TSX bullets.
I was getting about 0.4115" after the .410" die,
and about 0.4105" after the .409" die, though that was just eyeballing between the lines.
So, I bit the bullet and called that last one 0.411" to the nearest thou, not a hard decision.
I had not done any Nosler Partitions before.
Easier to push through the dies, spring back about 0.0015" instead of 0.002" with the TSX.
Good learning experience for me.
Buy a donkey for the educational opportunity, Sir Jerry.

Just got an email notification that midway has 350 grain .416 TSX in stock for those interested in them. I am going to hold off on resizing anything other then cast until I absolutely have to.

Good to know Sir Ron, i spose were one in a bind they could draw down the .416 cal 350gr TSX to .410/.411 for shooting in the 400 Whelen or 400 H&H if no suitable Hammer bullets are made, you're most welcome Sir, and many buy a donkeys to you too LOL.

These are the light .411s, made from shortened Barnes .411 TSX bullets.
I have 270,240 and 210 grainers, they all shoot well out of my .405B [belted]
I like choices!

Is there a current list of Dies and reamers that go together?

BS2 very cool! I was thinking of trying to cut down the North Fork solids so they'd actually fit, but I don't have a good saw to accurately cut them down.

Nice work BS2.
We at Bubba Bullet Metamorphosis Technologies, Ltd. (very limited) applaud your work.
I like the BBMT 480-gr eX-TSX made by grinding the nose tip off of a Barnes 500-gr/.458-cal TSX.
There is now little call for the BBMT 400-gr eX-TSX may by chopping off the base of same 500-grainer,
what with the 400-gr/.458-cal Hammer Shock being available now.

The .400 Whelen-Petrov reamer is available from JGS, PT&G, and Manson Precision.
Both RCBS and CH4D make excellent dies to match the proper reamer.

"The .400 Whelen-Petrov reamer is available from JGS, PT&G, and Manson Precision.
Both RCBS and CH4D make excellent dies to match the proper reamer."

Added to my 400 Whelen File!

Thanks for the Kind Words!

The reamer is also available here…

https://4drentals.com/product/400-whelen-petrov/

I used 4D for my .30 Gibbs and they were excellent to work with.

You might be interested in an article that John Krinfield wrote regarding the 400 Brown Whelen.
BTW: when I had a 35 Brown Whelen I compared the fired cases to 280AI cases - as far as I could see or measure the cases were close to identical except for the neck diameter.

Definitely interested. Any links to the article?

It’s in a book that I have titled something like “Big Bore Rifles and Cartridges”, most of the articles in this book are from “Handloader” or “Rifle” it seems to me. I’m laid up right now (just had back surgery and didn’t take my med’s this morning so as to get a rifle to USPS.) - I’ll get more info to you later.

I did a search on the internet, the following is an answer to a question regarding the 400 Brown Whelen on another forum “Graybeard Outdoors.”

I sort of expected that this article would have come originally from another source.


“Big Bore Rifles and Cartridges"by Wolf Publishing has an article on the .400 Brown Whelen it. In this case the author (John Kronfeld) did not find any problem with headspace in an older Ruger M77 (not a controlled feed version) and seems to have concluded that (my words not his) in a properly chambered and loaded .400 Brown Whelen headspaceing is not a problem. YMMV.

Results 300g Barnes Spitzers at 2370fps and 400 Barnes RN at 2200fps (best loads. 22" barrel.

Not a bad little gun. Good cruncher and a M98 / M77 / M70 M700 etc that is chambered for the 30-06 can be converted. With the added advantage of having one or two more rounds in the chamber then a standard belted mag.

Example my .35 Brown Whelen drives a 250 Sierra at 2600fps from a 20.5" and holds one up the spout and at least 5 in the mag. Not many .338 Win/Whby mags will do that.
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Grendel