Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Express Rifles and Big Bores Only 400 Whelen in progress

Well, I like it.

About 4 years ago I looked hard at the .411" cartridges, the 400 Whelen sat on top among my interests...

The other one that I really liked was the 411 RYAN, a straightened 240 Weatherby..

Anyway, I look forward to following you through this Mart.

Qual-Cartridge makes properly headstamped 400 Whelen brass.

To fire form, you put in a full load for a 300 gr bullet, seat a jacketed 41 S&W revolver bullet BACKWARDS so that it bites into the lands. Bolt should take some effort to close.
BANG and you'll have a case exactly fitted to your chamber.
Then send the cases (3) to Redding and have them make you a neck sizing die. You'll be set for life.

It's also a great gopher load out to 50 yards or so.

I have 40 Qual-Cartridge cases in 400 Whelen plus am prepping a bunch of brass to make more. At $40 for 20 rounds I won't be buying a lot of their brass. It is good but 40 properly headstamped will be enough for me to test and if I ever get to go to Africa I will buy a few more. I ordered a set of dies from CH4D based on cases fired in my gunsmiths rifle. He cut his chamber with the same reamer he is using for mine. The dies are not here yet so have been cleaning and prepping military brass.

Mart

I am enjoying this read, Marty! It is almost like you are back here again and we are yakkin over some mexican food at El Sombrero. I hope you get some serious moose blood on this over the next few years.

I can't wait to see how this works out. Pretty cool cartridge IMHO.

Mark,

I got back from the Whittier 26 Glacier cruise tonight and found my Midway order in the mailbox. Mom is here for a visit so we did the glacier cruise.

I don't know which was better.

This.



Or coming home to find this.



Also had a message on my machine that my gunsmith has my action barreled and ready to test fire. Woohoo.

Sounds like a good day all the way around, Marty. Good to hear of the good guys winning sometimes.

Mart, please keep this going. Its a very interesting project.

Will do. My gunsmith is test firing the rifle tonight I believe. I have to go back to work tomorrow (I work a week on/week off 12 hour days)so won't get any range time. I may be able to get it inlet into the stock this week in the evenings. Although after 12 hours of convicts I may not have the energy to work on anything when I get home.

I plan to form half the cases with an expander die, when it gets here, and the other half with the COW method to compare. I have most of the brass annealed in preparation for expanding and fireforming. A few more tonight and they will be all done. With any luck I will be putting lead down range next week off. I don't have a lot of time on the next week because we are headed down to the Kenai for our annual red salmon dipnetting pilgrimage.

I will keep it updated though as things happen.

Mart

Mart..,

I'm really enjoying watching this evolve.

Any word from your gunsmith concerning the test firing.?

No not yet. He works nights and I am on days this week. I rotate between days and nights with my schedule. A week of days, a week off, a week of nights, a week off and repeat 13 times a year. I expect he will call in the next day or two. I will update as soon as I know anything.

Mart

Its off to the range tomorrow. The barrel is on, it's been test fired and I hogged out the barrel channel on the old stock to receive the new barrel. I formed a few cases with the COW method but it was too much noise and mess firing into a long box filled with paper in my garage. I will fire a few rounds with some Hornaday 300 grain flat points to start the break in process then a bunch of military 30-06 and 35 Whelen (that was originally military 06) loaded with 16 grains of Bullseye and topped with corn meal and paper wadding or crayons. I tried 12 and fifteen grains in the garage but they didn't quite fill out the 06 cases. I tried some crayons in the 06 cases at the recommendation of a a member here. That is slick. Just push it in to the case mouth and break it off. Way faster than paper.

I'll post some pics tomorrow after I get back.

Mart

The 400 made it's maiden voyage to the range today. I only had eight rounds loaded with 300 grain Hornady flat points. The rest were loaded with 16.4 grains of Bullseye, topped with corn meal and some paper wadding or crayons depending on whether it was 35 Whelen or 30-06. I fired five rounds cleaning between each shot then fired a three round group at 100 yards. A two inch group, not bad for starting off. Then about 80 rounds of corn meal fire forming. I had a few failures, 10% to be exact. It seems to me that the 16.4 grains filled out the military brass that had been originally expanded to 35 Whelen and the factory 35 Whelen a little better than the regular 06 cases.

The recoil with the 300 grain flat points and 54 grains of 3031 was noticeable but not significantly more than my 35 Whelen. I am sure the 400 grain bullets will be a different story.

Here's a few pics.



Left is brass from the 54grains of 3031 and 300 grain bullet, middle is a former 35 Whelen and right is a former 30-06.


Ended up with 48 out of 50 on the 30-06


The 35 Whelens had a few more casualties but they had been loaded and fired a time or two as 35 Whelens.


And of course a few failures.


All in all it went pretty well for my first go at the COW method of fireforming. I used 16.4 grains because I was trying to get close to 16 grains after trying a few loads at 12 and 15 and not getting quite the fill out I wanted. My Little Dandy powder measure throws 8.2 grains with a number 15 rotor so I threw two charges in each case.

I'm now waiting on the dies and the expander die so I can try that method of making cases and compare the two.

Mart

hey mart, looks like your making great progress.
what does the "expander" die do/expand ?

Youre not the Gordie from Walla Walla that Marty and I know, are you?

Marty, lookin GOOD there with the custom rifle! I like the project even more! Bullwinkle had better be asceered.

gordie,

The expander dies takes the case from 30 caliber to, in this case, .416 diamter so that I can neck it down to .411 and create a shoulder to headspace on. Cases come out of an expander die looking a little ugly but one trip through the chamber with a decent load and they look all pretty again.

Mark,

It has a ways to go yet. The stock is the original Winchester that I hogged out to fit the new barrel. The barrel still needs to have the front sight (NECG) and the barrel band sling swivel (Gentry) installed. Also have to get next to a jeweler to engrave the caliber in the barrel and then have it blued. I have stock on order. It should be here any day. It will be a winter project getting it inlet, finished and checkered. I am working of finding a Lyman 48 receiver sight for it as well.

I am fast running out of weeks off to work on loads before hunting season. This week it's off to the Kenai for some dip netting for reds. The next week off I need to button up a few projects before the hunting season, like stacking 6 cord of firewood I have already split. Caribou and sheep starts on August 10th. Moose a couple of weeks later. I may not get to hunt with it this year but it will be seeing some serious action next year.

I am keeping an eye on this .400 Whelen subject!

65 grains of RL-15 and the 300 TSX is a dandy...in R-P 35 Whelen cases.

I've got a wildcat question that this thread brought to mind. Someone in my family has a wildcat rifle in the collection, a Mauser action. The brass in the cabinet for it is .300H&H, there's four or five boxes of .404" jacketed round nose bullets in there too. Anyone heard of this mix? It's from the '70s.

My next wildcat will be a Capstick .470, it's unavoidable.

No telling, you sure they are 404 diameter bullets? 404 Jeffery for example is a .423 diameter bullet.

How about the bore?

There was a 404 BJ Express.