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

Welcome.

Soft lead alloy bullets might have no spring-back and stay at the nominal size of the sizer.

My hard alloy (BHN 25) springs back by 0.001".
I push them through a 0.460" sizer die and they come out as 0.461".
That is a happy thing.

Most .458 WinMag rifles have a groove diameter of 0.459".
SAAMI standard is 0.458" MINIMUM groove diameter, so 0.459" groove diameter is "in spec."

LOL, man i knew it Sir Ron, couldn't figure on how a rifle that sweet just sit there unused, cant wait to see the finished product, it's going to be a dandy.

Again, thanks for all the help. Lots of new territory for me on this project. Not quite ready to start casting my own but the number of .416 cast bullets available seems pretty decent and most are pretty heavy.

Was getting my specs ready for pac-nor and thought a discussion about twist rate might be helpful. Pac-nor only offers an 8 groove 1:16". I believe Shilen only offers 1:14". I have been exchanging PMs with a fellow that had a re-bore done at 1:18" and his shoots everything well up to 400 grains. He indicate that Fred Zeglins 411 Hawke was spec'd at 1:20.

Is there a twist rate that doesn't work, lol?

Anybody having trouble with heavies in a 1:16?

Looking at cast options, I called Montana Bullet Works (www.montanabulletworks.com). They have a couple good looking .416 diameter bullets in 350 and 400 grains. I ordered 100 of each to resize to .412 or .413.

Bruce at MBW recommended NOE bullet molds (www.noebulletmolds.com) as a source for economical sizing dies that will work with a single stage press. He said they use them in their commercial operation. One die body, a push rod and then whatever bushing you want in .001 increments. I ordered the die body, push rod and 5 bushings for $118.75 and they were in stock. Cast should be simple. Will see how they work on a well lubed jacketed bullet.

MedRiver,

I do not recall gunner500's twist, or whether it is a JES rebore or what.
Maybe he will remind us?

Rusty McGee and I went through the same thing you are going through on the barrel selection.
Shilen was it for us.
No. 5 sporter, 1:14" twist, just because.
First was chromoly.
Second one they slipped up and made a No. 4 stainless one for me.
Strangely they decided they would not do that anymore.
Maybe they got wind of my +2400 fps 400-gr Woodleigh proof load ?

I once got excited about getting some N.O.E. sizers, but they did not have anything I needed at the time,
since I did not know about them when I was collecting sizers from LEE and CH4D.
I am going to keep them in mind for future,
as well as checking out their moulds for the .400 Whelen.

A-Team all the way.
I gotta think about a backup to my .458 WinMag.
The .400 Whelen will be a nice one for old age.

This looks a lot like the mould Rusty McGee has had good results with:




This could be a great fire-former, bison-killer, silhouetter:




They are .412" in clip-on WW alloy.
Would be .413" to .414" cast in my hard alloy, maybe even .415" after PC-painted.
That would be perfect for sizing down to .413" for smokeless cast bullet loads.
My previous comments on bullet sizing were about smokeless loads, of course.
BPCR and paper-patching is a different kettle of fish.
Bill Bagwell and gunner500 taught me all I know about that.
I still have plenty to learn about that.

Sir Ron, paper patch bullets can be used with smokeless powder as well. Several years ago Ross Seyfried wrote an article about using paper patch bullets in smokeless rifle cartridges

Good work MedRiver, my 400 Whelen barrel is a 16 twist Kreiger, no problems at all with 400gr Woodleigh bullets, FWIW, my 40 cal Sharps rifles have 16 twist, they'll easily stabilize 425gr bullets even with low black powder velocities of 1300 fps, i cant see you having any trouble with 16 twist.

16 twist Kreiger Sir.

Agreed, Saint Bagwell worked up both paper patch and grease groove loads with 3031 powder for folks with 40-65 and 45-70 rifles, one was a guy that lived in Alaska and used the load in his '86 Winchester to kill several bears and caribou, the other was a lady hunter in Texas with a red dot sight on her Marlin lever action, low recoil, very effective load for her.

What the heck is with all the sir, saint and lady stuff?

Sir is for the Knights Of The Square table.

That flatnose one should kill well but I wouldn't waste any money on the pointy one for any reason but plinking. You guys use .416" Hornady gascheks?..mb

What jwp475 aka Sir John said.
Knights of the Square Table are champions of the .458 Winchester Magnum.
Saint is for those Knights gone on to the happy Hunting Ground.
Lady is just for good manners, not all is tongue in cheek.

BTW, Sir John,
Not saying smokeless won't work with paper patched bullets.
It is just a different kettle of fish regarding bullet diameters and whether the bullets are
heavy-for-caliber and soft versus light-for-caliber and hard,
and other variations to boot,
including jacketed versus cast lead, and BP versus smokeless.

I do have an article by Ross Seyfried filed away, pertinent to paper patch and smokeless loads:
"Paper Patched Bullets" HANDLOADER 220 Dec-Jan 2003, pp. 58-65.

"Modern rifles are often quite happy to use patched bullets.
Once again, where it might be difficult to get reasonable accuracy
from a .30-06 with bare lead bullets and velocity over 2000 fps,
it can be very easy to approach the magical inch groups with paper patches.
Further, while I have not pushed the system as far,
others have achieved reasonable accuracy out of 'magnums' with velocity over 3,000 fps.
I had a stock Ruger No. 1 .458 Winchester Magnum that was absolutely in love with patched bullets.
Inch groups were the norm at 2,100 to 2,200 fps, even with pure lead bullets.

"One more bizarre use of paper patches, in conjunction with 'modern rifles'
is making undersize jacketed bullets fit the rifle.
I have successfully fitted .458-inch bullets to .470 Nitro rifles ..."

Rusty McGee used Hornady .416 gas checks on his cast bullets sized to .413".
Better to be a few thou bigger than a thou or two too small with the gas checks.

Sir Ron, should have known you were way ahead of me.

Thanks for the twist rate feedback! I will get the barrel ordered tomorrow. No real loyalty to pac-nor…they are just the only ones willing to do a lighter contour. Can’t quite bring myself to warm up to the idea of packing around a #5.

PacNor makes good barrels

Mines a 24” #5 Shilen. I haven’t minded packing it. It wouldn’t be my choice for a sheep hunt but I pack it caribou and moose hunting.

Perhaps you might consider an extra bowl of wheaties on occasion. 😁