NOE 358009 boolit and a 35 whelen

[35 shooter]

I recently finished some load work up with a 200 gr. noe in the whelen using imr 4350 powder. I've been wanting to work with a true heavyweight and after having such good luck with the 200 gr. i ordered a 358009 280 gr. noe mould double cavity with one pb and one gc.

I'm truly excited about this boolit. Could'nt have asked for a better fit in the throat and bore....seated in rem. cases trimmed to 2.486" i wound up with a overall seating depth of 3.182". This keeps the bottom of gc even with the base of the neck and gives .151" contact with rifling on the bore riding nose and also keeps about half of the nose band contacting in throat. The cases are full length sized for the most part, but the die is backed off about 1/2 turn.
This depth puts about 1/3 of top lube groove sticking out of case. I took the flare off the case mouth after seating. but used no crimp.

Boolits are sized to .360" and lubed with Ben's Red. This boolit has 3 grooves but i only lubed two. I can seat to the nose band on this boolit and still have good fit, but i lose a good bit of nose band contact doing that. Since this is for a single shot rifle (tc encore), i went for all the contact i could get and still not pull boolits when unloading.
I've only had two range trips with it so far but had very good luck with the first load i tried with 4350....Haven't chronoed anything yet, but will in the near future.

So far with the gc boolit: All loads shot at 100yds.
(1) 29 gr. 4759 no filler...about 3" 5 shot group....supposed to be about 1811 fps.
(2)30 gr. 4759 no filler... about 3.5" 5 shot group...no joy so far.

(3) 48 gr. imr 4350...1.354" 5 shots with foul shot....then 4 shots in 1.070"
There was hardly any to absolutely no case stretch with this load.

Next range trip i forgot to take the flare off case mouths and didn't realize it till i got to the range and noticed they chambered a bit tighter. Figured with that kind of line up in the chamber they would shoot even better but no such luck.
(1)48 gr.imr 4350... 5 shots 1.662"
(2)49 gr imr 4350...5 shots about 1 3/4"
(3)50 gr. imr 4350...5 shots about 3"
(4)51 gr.imr 4350...5 shots in 3.5"
(5)52 gr. imr 4350...5 shots in 2.2" I'm going to shoot this one again without the flare.
With the 200 gr. boolits imr 4350 shot really well at 50 gr. and then again at 54.5 gr. So i'm hoping the same thing happens with the 280 gr. and it shoots well again at 52.5 gr which would be 4.5 gr. up from the 48 gr. load. That would be the same 4.5 gr. spread as with the 200 gr. boolits. We'll see.

The most fun came with the pb boolit and 10 gr. of unique...5 shots in 2.278" @ 100 yds.

btw...rifle twist rate is 1:14

[richhodg66]

I have the 358009. I never got it (or much of anything else) to shoot well in a Remington 700 I had, but I'm going to give it a try in my .358 at some point. Unless I'm lucky enough to draw one of the few tags Kansas issues for elk each year, I doubt I'll ever have need of it, but it'll be interesting seeing what it will do.

That 358009 is a freight train! Despite the fact that it was a beefy rifle and I didn't hit max loads, recoil was pretty unpleasant from a bench. I really can't see me wanting more bullet in a .35 than this RCBS clone I'm working with will provide.

[Yodogsandman]

I've been reading your about your work with the 200 gr with great interest, thanks for sharing your results. Your information's been great. I'm looking forward to seeing more on how you do with the heavier boolits. I'm wondering how you're removing the flare from the case mouth. On my dies, the case mouth flare is removed as part of the bullet seating process. I adjust the die down to just before it starts to crimp on the mouth. Are you using a separate die for removing the flare... as a separate operation? If you are, what's the purpose?

[TXGunNut]

With the 200 gr. boolits imr 4350 shot really well at 50 gr. and then again at 54.5 gr. So i'm hoping the same thing happens with the 280 gr. and it shoots well again at 52.5 gr which would be 4.5 gr. up from the 48 gr. load. That would be the same 4.5 gr. spread as with the 200 gr. boolits. We'll see.-35 shooter

Very interesting, I'm finding very similar behavior in my boolits and rifle. I found a very narrow sweet spot with the 250grn boolit at a very sedate speed and I'm hoping to find a bit wider one a few steps up the ladder.
I'm thinking work with that PB boolit will be very rewarding, that boolit may not need a GC to be an effective hunting boolit.

[Ben]

A brick in the side of the head doesn't have to be moving too fast to be deadly.

Ben

[35 shooter]

Richhodg 66 you are absolutely correct. That 200 gr. will get the job done on anything you take on. I don't have real experience with cast hunting in rifles, but i know for sure what 250 gr. 44 cal. pistol boolits will do at only 900 to 1250 fps....nothing ever went very far after being hit with one.
When i was researching a bit on the 358009 boolit, i saw a few posts on shooting it in the .358 win. You might wind up with the gc below the neck but lots of folks seem to do that with some boolit designs anyway. Anyway, it's just such an old classic, i had to try it.

Yodogsandman yes, i'm using a lee factory crimp die as a seperate step on crimping. I used to use my regular rcbs seating die to seat and crimp either in seperate steps or at the same time. There was really no particular reason for going to the lee fcd except i just wanted to try one. So far i like the lee tool for rifle use. I like seating and crimping seperately to make sure i don't shave lead while doing it all in one step. I admit i've never had a problem doing it all in one step though. If i'm just removing flare i've been doing that with the lee too and it seems to work well for that too. Of course if they were widely flared i'd probably just use my seater die.

[35 shooter]

With the 200 gr. boolits imr 4350 shot really well at 50 gr. and then again at 54.5 gr. So i'm hoping the same thing happens with the 280 gr. and it shoots well again at 52.5 gr which would be 4.5 gr. up from the 48 gr. load. That would be the same 4.5 gr. spread as with the 200 gr. boolits. We'll see.-35 shooter

Very interesting, I'm finding very similar behavior in my boolits and rifle. I found a very narrow sweet spot with the 250grn boolit at a very sedate speed and I'm hoping to find a bit wider one a few steps up the ladder.
I'm thinking work with that PB boolit will be very rewarding, that boolit may not need a GC to be an effective hunting boolit.

I think your right. I found that same narrow window with 4350 in 3 different spots with the 200 gr. I couldn't move it a half gr. either way. Then 4 gr. or so up the ladder and it would come in again. The 3rd time was at 56 gr imr 4350 with the 200 gr. noe but i didn't go any further because i didn't think the straight ww ht was gonna take much more. I'll try it again one day just to see. So far it seems to be showing that same pattern with the 300 gr. I'm hoping i'll find out this wk. end.

And yes... the pb is too much fun, Ben's right about the brick thing...it doesn't have to move very fast. I didn't realize on my last range session that one load i tried with 4759 was right at 1400 fps. I didn't mean to shoot it that fast on the first time out. No leading though.

[Yodogsandman]

Thanks 35 shooter, that makes sense to me now. I got a Lee fcd... just to try out, for the SKS's and haven't used it yet.

Good work on your use of IMR4350, very informative. I have a partial can of it that I'll have to save to try it out.

Have you tried to dig a slug out of the banking yet? I tried to get one of my 300 gr at the beginning of spring. I reached in the hole about a foot but the frost kept me from getting to it.

[Shuz]

FWIW--I've been using the Lyman 358009 for 15 years with 3:1(COWW's:lino) heat treated to Bhn 22+, and 48g of AA4064. Velocity chrono's @ 2150fps. This load shoots a little over 1" at 100 yds and has accounted for 2 bull moose and 1 bull elk, as well as many white tailed deer. I've only recovered one boolit during that time, and it had absolutely no expansion, nor did I expect any, but it also still weighed 275g! The twist rate on this .35 Whelen 700, is 1:12". Hope this may be of some help to you .35 Whelen and 358009 fans out there!--Shuz

[35 shooter]

Yodogsandman i did try to recover some lol. They do bore quite a hole. Think i'll have to take a shovel to get to em. Btw the load work i did with 4350 on the 200 gr. boolits was just standing on 357maximum's shoulders. I did a lot of research here and found his old tests with it and it worked out great. I found where some used it with the 280's also but not much load data at all, so kinda on my own with this one, but at least had a vague idea on a starting point with 4350.

[35 shooter]

FWIW--I've been using the Lyman 358009 for 15 years with 3:1(COWW's:lino) heat treated to Bhn 22+, and 48g of AA4064. Velocity chrono's @ 2150fps. This load shoots a little over 1" at 100 yds and has accounted for 2 bull moose and 1 bull elk, as well as many white tailed deer. I've only recovered one boolit during that time, and it had absolutely no expansion, nor did I expect any, but it also still weighed 275g! The twist rate on this .35 Whelen 700, is 1:12". Hope this may be of some help to you .35 Whelen and 358009 fans out there!--Shuz

Shuz i'd be very interested to hear a bit more on the reactions you got when hunting with your alloy. In other words did you get many drt's or short blood trails and etc?
I've been a bit worried about that as i ht ww @ 465* because that's what shoots best so far in my whelen. I had it tested at 27 bhn by someone else as i didn't have a tester. I'm sure not looking for any expansion from it either but it sounds like yours is working just fine without it.
What about the wound channel size and exit holes? I've only used cast to hunt with in revolvers or muzzle loaders so i'm new to center fire rifles with it.

[Blammer]

my suggestion would be to water drop them, it should make getting groups easier.

with WW alloy they will still be soft enough to do the job for hunting.

[35 shooter]

Blammer thanks. I've been meaning to try it and see if it does as well. I started ht when i couldn't seem to get much past 1800 fps with any accuracy with straight ww. Guess i could try lower temp in oven too to get em down some. Been so busy working loads since last year and didn't want to change what was working. At least now though, i'll have something to compare with accuracy wise when i start changing bhn. I'll give it a try.

[Shuz]

35 shooter--The two bull moose I shot with the 358009 in my .35 Whelen, were taken in British Columbia in different years.The outfitter did the gutting and skinning chores and was more interested in getting the jobs done, than doing a post mortem on the boolits! He did recover one boolit that was lodged just in the hide of the off side and presented it to me after finding it whilst skinning. The elk I shot, was coming right at me and the boolit passed all the way thru and was never recovered. Same with the White tails, boolits pass on thru. IMHO, a boolit of this weight and diameter doesn't need to expand to kill quickly. I heat treat to get the accuracy I want at 2150 to 2200 fps. I also heat treat vs water drop to obtain consistency in the end product. If you have ever had boolits cling to either side of a mould when it is opened, you know that they are hitting the water at different temperatures. Also, articles that I have read that have been written by metalurgists, claim that sizing boolits after quenching makes the sides of the boolits touched by the dies, "work softened", even tho the center of the boolit is still hard. I want the sides to be tough to grip the rifling. I size, heat treat, and then apply lube in a slightly larger die. sometimes I even use the same die, and so far have not had any appreciable difference that I could detect. YMMV.

[Yodogsandman]

Shuz, Please accept my apologies if this wasn't you but, I seem to remember that the one boolit that was recovered had broke the bulls large shoulder ball on the near side, traveled through the chest and was found under the hide on the oft side. I only remember the story because I had the same result on a bull from a 250gr Nosler partition at 2500 ft/sec. Hit the shoulder ball and bullet was found under the oft side hide. I was very impressed by your terminal results. I also have no experience with using cast boolits in rifles on game, just my old .58 minnie balls in the muzzle loader. I'd love to use a boolit on my next moose. Thanks for sharing your experience with them. The 358009 appears to work real well for the job.

[TXGunNut]

My hunting boolits are mostly HT 50/50. I use that alloy as a step between ACCOWW and HTCOWW. I think it gives me a little more expansion and toughness than either of the COWW options but have only killed critters using the HT 50/50 alloy so can't say for sure. I didn't recover the boolits that didn't exit but a high percentage of DRT's is a good sign.
358009 is a classic hunting boolit, an alloy that gives good accuracy and holds together in game should be an awesome performer for you.

[35 shooter]

Thanks guys for all the info on what your doing with your alloys and the terminal results.
Now that i have good loads with my 200 gr. boolits kind of locked down, i can experiment a bit on boolit hardness and alloy mix and have something already "known" to compare too.

That comparison of Shuz's results to a nosler partition was very interesting.
Hope to get some shooting in tommorrow.

[Shuz]

Yodogsandman--I don't really remember if if the recovered boolit was the one you mentioned or not. One bull was killed in 1999, and the other was 2004, so there's been a bit of water passed over the dam since! There's no question in my mind that the 358009 is an excellent killer with good shot placement, but that can be said of a lot of other boolits as well.

[35 shooter]

Slipped out very early before church this morning. I was at the range and set up by 6:30 this morning. Kind of ran through everything quickly so i could get back in time.
First up were the plain base boolits: all shots @ 100 yds.
10 gr. unique...5 shots in 3.959"...so that load didn't hold up
10.5 gr. unique...5 in 3.242"
11 gr. unique...5 in 2.847"...gettin better
12 gr. unique...4 in .249" center to center best i could measure it. Stars lined up on this one. The only shot out was 1.738". The 4th shot chambered tight and i extracted it. You could tell when it was sized the top punch caught it pretty good on one side and gouged it. It was grabbing the rifling hard on one side but i shot it anyway. Don't know how i missed it when i was loading it, but i did. Think this is gonna be a good load, but doubt the stars will line up quite that well again.
13 gr. Red Dot...5 in 2.675"
Not sure what max would be with red dot and the 280 gr.....15 gr.?

Next up the gas check boolit:
52.5 gr. imr4350...5 in 3.959"
53 gr. imr4350...5 in 2.461"...but 2,3 and 4th shots were in .820"...i know i pulled the first shot big time. 5th shot was about 1.5" out from center so not too bad really. Bbl. was smoking hot on this group too, so i really think i need to shoot this one again. When "old contrary" shoots 1.5" or less, it usually holds up, so i'm hoping. Primers were beginning to flatten just a bit but still rounded edges and plenty of room left in the pocket. Recoil is beginning to make itself known, but not bad.
May have found a couple of loads on this trip...i'm thinking re-shoot 52 and 53 gr. of 4350 and definitely 12 gr. of unique. The 48 gr. load of 4350 has already gone in the log book. Gotta make sure next time i'm not in a rush...that doesn't work very well for me.

[TXGunNut]

Sounds good, private range I shoot on doesn't allow shooting that early but at least you did your part to get the neighbors up in time for church, lol.
My top punch likes to buggar up a boolit now and then and it does seem to make a difference. Weighing boolits seems to cut down on fliers, light boolits possibly contain voids. Sounds like you have some good prospects for further tweaking.