Blammer
04-22-2009, 08:41 PM
Things finally came together. Got my Marlin XL 7 in a month or so ago, finally snagged some glass off of another rifle and put it on, or at least attempted to, until I discovered I had no rings.
So next trip to Wally world produced some Luepold rings along with a box of 20ga slug ammo.
In the duration of putting this together it dawned on me I don’t have any dies, so somewhere along the way I scrounged, bought or somehow came into a set of RCBS 35 Whelen dies. Next chore was to find some appropriate brass. Since the Whelen is a descendant of the 30-06 I just merely had to rummage through my several thousand boxes to find my 30-06 stuff. Along the way I discovered I have a bag of NEW 30-06 Winchester brass, I’ll have to put that aside for later. (As I did the first time and then misplaced it for such a time that I completely forgot about it, the first time.) I found some factory once fired Winchester brass that was to be the victims. Ran through the sizer nicely and then realized I needed to flair the case mouth to seat Boolits. Well my 357 mag die set has a neck sizer flair die. It was a bit short in the die but when applying for feel on the case it worked fine.
Rounded up some WLP’s and primed them.
So I’ve been working on all this for off and on again for a month or so. Yesterday, a local friend, whom I met here at CB gave me a call and asks if I want to go shooting at a local range that’s close by. OH YEA! So 10am was the set out to time. Now I had to get to work and find a load and shoot some Boolits!
I have hundreds, nay, THOUSANDS of 35 cal Boolits, and of course NONE are sized or lubed, except for a handful. After finishing all of my house chores it was late and I was in a “rush”, if you will; to load some ammo for the next day. I settled on the 220gr RCBS 35 clone that I have received samples of from a gracious member here, forget who, but thanks! They were sized to .359 or .360, with GC and some lube that resembled speed green. I decided these will work as I am basically fire forming the brass and just wanting to find out if the rifle will shoot or not.
In the midst of developing the load, I discovered that I have a very nice, nay I say, GREAT lead. It’s gently sloping at approx a 1 to 1.5 degree on the lands, until full dia. Hard to explain but none the less it’s nice!
The wind was blowing at about 25mph and in gusts, so it’d be dead calm then start up and get to 25 mph then slow down to zero with gusts and stuff randomly intermitten. Ok it was a crappy day to try to shoot groups. I was just happy to get out to pull the trigger on my new rifle and if I could hit the 8.5x11 paper at 100 yds I’d be happy!
I bore sighted at the range, then shot a few, after 4 shots I was pretty much dialed in. Then shot 2 shots fairly quick while the wind was dead. I was SHOCKED at what I saw! 2 shots touching!
So changed to a fresh target and proceeded to shoot more. Checked intermittently for leading, NONE. Yea! I then managed to shoot 2 more 2 shot groups really close to each other. I like 5 shot groups but the wind was horrible. 2tite, who was the person who invited me to shoot, declared that there was a 3” wind drift today. He shot 2 shots touching with his cast boolit gun then waited till the wind was in full force, then shot and his 3rd shot landed 3” to the left of the first 2.
Anyway I had a GREAT day! Plus I shot my 20ga NEF slug gun with lots of loads and will report on that later.
Here are some 35 whelen boolit hole pics.
The other shots are me zeroing the rifle. The two touching or really close are the first 2 I shot for a "group"
http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g81/blammer8mm/Targets/File0099.jpg
Here is a new target and trying to shoot a group in the wind is not fun but hey I was happy to pull the trigger and also found that my first load seems to be a good one!
http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g81/blammer8mm/Targets/File0100.jpg
So next trip to Wally world produced some Luepold rings along with a box of 20ga slug ammo.
In the duration of putting this together it dawned on me I don’t have any dies, so somewhere along the way I scrounged, bought or somehow came into a set of RCBS 35 Whelen dies. Next chore was to find some appropriate brass. Since the Whelen is a descendant of the 30-06 I just merely had to rummage through my several thousand boxes to find my 30-06 stuff. Along the way I discovered I have a bag of NEW 30-06 Winchester brass, I’ll have to put that aside for later. (As I did the first time and then misplaced it for such a time that I completely forgot about it, the first time.) I found some factory once fired Winchester brass that was to be the victims. Ran through the sizer nicely and then realized I needed to flair the case mouth to seat Boolits. Well my 357 mag die set has a neck sizer flair die. It was a bit short in the die but when applying for feel on the case it worked fine.
Rounded up some WLP’s and primed them.
So I’ve been working on all this for off and on again for a month or so. Yesterday, a local friend, whom I met here at CB gave me a call and asks if I want to go shooting at a local range that’s close by. OH YEA! So 10am was the set out to time. Now I had to get to work and find a load and shoot some Boolits!
I have hundreds, nay, THOUSANDS of 35 cal Boolits, and of course NONE are sized or lubed, except for a handful. After finishing all of my house chores it was late and I was in a “rush”, if you will; to load some ammo for the next day. I settled on the 220gr RCBS 35 clone that I have received samples of from a gracious member here, forget who, but thanks! They were sized to .359 or .360, with GC and some lube that resembled speed green. I decided these will work as I am basically fire forming the brass and just wanting to find out if the rifle will shoot or not.
In the midst of developing the load, I discovered that I have a very nice, nay I say, GREAT lead. It’s gently sloping at approx a 1 to 1.5 degree on the lands, until full dia. Hard to explain but none the less it’s nice!
The wind was blowing at about 25mph and in gusts, so it’d be dead calm then start up and get to 25 mph then slow down to zero with gusts and stuff randomly intermitten. Ok it was a crappy day to try to shoot groups. I was just happy to get out to pull the trigger on my new rifle and if I could hit the 8.5x11 paper at 100 yds I’d be happy!
I bore sighted at the range, then shot a few, after 4 shots I was pretty much dialed in. Then shot 2 shots fairly quick while the wind was dead. I was SHOCKED at what I saw! 2 shots touching!
So changed to a fresh target and proceeded to shoot more. Checked intermittently for leading, NONE. Yea! I then managed to shoot 2 more 2 shot groups really close to each other. I like 5 shot groups but the wind was horrible. 2tite, who was the person who invited me to shoot, declared that there was a 3” wind drift today. He shot 2 shots touching with his cast boolit gun then waited till the wind was in full force, then shot and his 3rd shot landed 3” to the left of the first 2.
Anyway I had a GREAT day! Plus I shot my 20ga NEF slug gun with lots of loads and will report on that later.
Here are some 35 whelen boolit hole pics.
The other shots are me zeroing the rifle. The two touching or really close are the first 2 I shot for a "group"
http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g81/blammer8mm/Targets/File0099.jpg
Here is a new target and trying to shoot a group in the wind is not fun but hey I was happy to pull the trigger and also found that my first load seems to be a good one!
http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g81/blammer8mm/Targets/File0100.jpg