35 whelen

[243]

I cant find any bullets to try for paper patching a 35 whelen. So heres what I am going to try.

I am going to purchase a 11/32 drill bit. .34379
Drill a piece of metal 1.1 inches deep.
Using a dowel and fine grit polish the inside of the mold.
Wrap in computer paper. Mine measures about .016 for 4 pieces.

How far of am I?
What am I doing wrong?

[pdawg_shooter]

You need to start with a .351/.3515 bullet. Size down a standard .358, wrap it with 2 wraps of 16# paper. Lube it and run through a .360 die, or as large as will fit your throat.

[leftiye]

You might not like the nose design that an unaltered drill produces. The drill can be modified to cut a pointed ogival design though. I wouldn't get too carried away with the lapping either as the roughness of the drilled mold makes boolits that hold the paper better. Plus, if your hole ends up a little oversize you can just run it through a sizer and that will make it smooth. Try a letter size "S" drill (drills tend to drill oversize a little), and see how that works. A metric 8.8 (I think) drill is .350 or thereabouts. You can order these metric sizes through MSC.

[leftiye]

An addendum to my previous post. You will want to drill your hole oversize by about .003" so that with shrinkage you get the correct size boolit. So you may want a drill that makes a hole as big as .355 as that should throw a .352 boolit that can be sized as you want. Another way (and possibly what you had in mind originally) to get a nice boolit nose is to find a mold (say for a .338) that has a nose design that you like, and just drill it out with the correct size drill. This is a little hard at this diameter, but a 9mm drill should give you about .355, and an 8.9mm should go about .352 or 3". This method should create a shoulder ridge about .008" per side at the base of the ogive.

[windrider919]

I have made several PP moulds by modifying existing moulds. Lee aluminum moulds are cheap at around $20.00 and easy to modify. I took a drill bit, put it in a elec. drill and used a bench grinder to shape the nose I wanted. Note: run the drill so the work moves against the direction of the grind stone, not with it. Then you have to grind the relief in the cutting edge of the drill so it cuts. Just takes a few min w/ a Dremel tool. I then used a drill-mill to center over the old hole, drill down to the desired depth. The drill marks are NOT harmful. Yes, a perfectly smooth bulet might gain a point or so of BC but you or I will never be able to tell the diff. And, if you are shooting smokeless you need a little 'roughness' like the drill marks to hold the paper patch on as it fires. Too smooth a bullet with PP just will not group - Thats in my experience. Shooting BP the bullet seems to bump up and compress / lock the paper to the bullet. On one mould I made, gowing from .308 150 gr to .350 190 gr the dia was .001 too small. I used the 'Leementing' process as described elsewhere bu mounting a cast bullet on a mandrell, applying Commet and polishing the mould cavity out to the desired dia. It smoothed out most of the drill marks as i moved the spinning bullet into and out of the mould (that would not work on a grooved bullet).

2nd Note; Mu personal experience is that I need .001 to .003 over bore then PP for best smokeless accuracy. Ex: .450 for BP but .451 to .453 for smokeless but patched the same, two wraps adding .008 to bullet diameter. Be aware your chamber size is critical here, my .458 chamber has a throat of .463 and PP needs to be .460 / .461. The PP bullet does not build up as much pressure and the .461 dia shoots with normal pressure and 1" accuracy at 100yds. Test your rifle to see what you need to do.

[243]

Thank You for your input.

Per you information heres what I think I will do.

1. Using a 8.9MM bit drill a hole 1.2 inches deep. .5 of this will be my nose. Not a very flattering nose design but but my goal is a 300+ grainer. I have a 1 in 12 twist. Velocity will be limited to 2300 or less so this will be a short to medium range bullet.

2. Next, enlarge the 8.9MM hole with a 9MM for .7 inches deep. The .7 inches was determined as the distance from the case neck base to the rifling. At this time trying to save room for powder. This will be my bearing surface and the length I want to apply my patch. I choose to go with the larger diameter and allow for shrinkage. I can get thinner paper if need be.

The shoulder created for the nose at .7 inches deep should make a great place for the paper to overhang and engage the rifling. If the .7 depth isn't deep enough for a bearing surface I can drill it out a little deeper until I get success.

I actually have an inventory of Barnes 300 grain originals, Nosler Partitions, etc. All very fine bullets for larger game. Just think it would be more satisfying to role and shoot my own.

My rifle is a Whitworth Mark X bolt action. It started life as a 270 Win but my brother passed 14 years ago and left me his 270 Win. I liked the idea of a 35 Whelen so sent it to Cliff LaBounty in Washington State. I had no idea what I was doing But Cliff asked a lot of questions and did his work. I remember telling him I was going to shoot heavy bullets.

Little did I know Cliff put a 1 in 12 twist in the barrel. I know it will shoot 300 grainers well. I expect it will shoot 325 grainers well and intend to find out if I have success with paper patching.

I think Remengton made theirs with a 1 in 16 twist and hear 250 grains is about the limit. To bad. In my humble opinion a major screw up.

How are we doing?

[leftiye]

You might have trouble with that sharp shoulder when it comes to wrapping the patches - just a thought.