Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Custom Rifles & Wildcats Short Barreled Whelen

Thinking about a 35 Whelen with a 18" barrel anyone have one? I know that with 225 gr bullets 2700 fps is safely possible in a 22" barrel with an 18" I'm thinking 2600+ fps should be doable. A left hand Remington 700 with a McMillan Edge is what I'm thinking about. I have a 35 Whelen already but I would like to rebarrel it to a heavy barrel 6.5x55 as a fun target rifle. Since that gun is heavy to begin with and would need a lot of work to get it where I want it to be I would like to start fresh with a new Whelen. Thinking a short barrel Whelen would be very useful to me for moose and black bears and timber goat hunting.

I have a 19" barreled Whelen, 250's are 2500'ish, haven't sent any 225's across the screen since the chop job.

You will be surprised the remaining velocity of the Whelen after 18" of travel.

It's large diameter bullet requires a very large case to make good use of the longer tubes.....such cartridges as the .358 Norma supply the needed powder but the .35 Whelen will survive very little loss in the shorter barrels.

The Whelen makes for a very fine Mannlicher as well.

Yes it do....

Nice looking gun Steelie

Pretty sure it wouldn't lose much speed compared to other rounds the gun I'm thinking about would be the ultimate timber gun (to me) but with the ability to reach out to at least 300 yards Thinking it should weigh about 7 1/2 pounds scoped or less since my 24" Rem 700 264 WM comes in at 7 lbs 14 oz all done up.

I have a .375-284 with an 18" barrel, have not shot it over chrony, but it does seem to perform very well.

I have an 18" M7600 Remington 35 Whelen . I shoot bucks at about 50 yards so there has never been a time that I worried about velocity loss due to a short barrel. If I was shooting 250-300 yards ,I would have left it as an 22" one. I'd guess. Web

.........I can`t offer comments on any shorter barreled velocity losses from the 35 Whelen as I don`t own one. But I can comment on my own chrony experiments, which were based on velocity comparisons using identical reloads between two 24" 300 WSMs owned by friends vs my own 16.5" barreled 300 WSM Ruger compact.

Across the board, the average overall velocity loss ranged from 4.2% to 4.5% depending on the loads that were chrony`d for comparison. The velocity loss for every inch of shorter barrel length, was between 16 fps and 22 fps. I did all the reloading and used various powders and bullets for the experiment which took several weeks to complete.

For comparison, I also duplicated and then chrony`d a load from my 20" barreled 375 Ruger Alaskan that I read about. It showed 2875 fps with a 270 gr Hornady SP from the 23" barreled 375 Ruger African. That exact loading got me 2808 fps, or an overall loss of 2.34% which is a loss of 67 fps or 22.3 fps for every inch of shorter barrel length.

I don`t know how the 35 Whelen would do if put through the same experiment, but going from 22" down to 18" I would assume that your loss would be around the same; around maybe 20 fps for every inch of shorter barrel length or a total of 80 fps. Could average a little higher or maybe a little lower.

Whether from a 22" barrel or from an 18"er. I don`t think you`ll have any game dropping issues.

If you are concerned about weight and overall length, why not consider one of the short action medium bore calibers like 338 Federal or 358 Winchester? With a short action, you could have another inch or two of barrel.

My Whelen also has a full length stock with 20 inch barrel. It shoots 225 gr. partitions at 2610 fps. So far it has been fast enough.

The 35 Whelen is one of my favorite cartridges, while the 338 Fed and 358 Win are fine rounds I have no desire to get either. It's the Whelen or nothing for me

My Ruger 375 with the 20" barrel is what got me thinking about an even shorter rifle, my 375 handles very nicely this gun would be even better since my Rem 700 264 WM with the Edge stock fits me so well.

I'd have to admit I too am intrigued. I have fallen in love with a 30-06 M77 MKII International at the local hock, and my daydreams are filled with 35 Whelen conversions. Admittedly, accuracy is the first concern and velocity a close second, but I have no plans to shoot over MRT with it and for a 35 Whelen that's about 125 yards at any barrel length.