NOE 358009 boolit and a 35 whelen

[TXGunNut]

You too, my friend. Pork butt's on the smoker, ribs going on in a couple of hours.

[Yodogsandman]

I finally got to shoot today, it's been windy and gusty from the tropical depression Arthur. It was still 10-20 mph with gusts. I only shot 10 rounds of 35 Whelen. I felt that I wasn't doing my part. The single shot 30-30 is a beast to shoot. Can you imagine a youth model with a 13 3/4" length of pull? The stocks all wrong, the triggers too heavy and have to use extra stuff on the bags to raise the barrel to the target. When I got behind the Whelen, I was still frustrated from the 30-30 and had to hurry and leave quick to get to work. So, the group opened to about 3"-3 1/2". Half that could have been my fault.

[35 shooter]

Yea, shooting when your in a semi rush or on short time is definitely not the best conditions to shoot under, but sometimes you just want to squeeze some shootin in anyway. Did that a couple of sessions ago myself but i still had a good time shooting.
Picked up a lb. of h4350 to try this coming weekend although the imr is doing quite well. Also picked up some 4759 to up my stock on that and a lb. of imr4227 to try with the plain base 358009. I'll be using a filler this time with the 4759 and also the 4227 and get serious with the pb. Now if they only had 2400 in stock, but no such luck this time. No unique either.

[Yodogsandman]

I'll have to go looking for powder soon....Haven't bought much since Clinton was in office and the prices went up due to the shortage. This too shall pass. I have what I need but, not as much as I want in the cabinet. There's powder around, you just have to drive to go get it. An hour and a half to be told that it's a one pound limit! It's a shock when you go from $13. a pound to $30. I used to shoot a lot of surplus powder but, my supplier passed away 20 years ago. When the mail order places catch up, I'll probably do that again. 8 pound jugs are just so cool!

That's great that you found some of what you needed! Got to keep the experiments going!

BTW; I haven't seen any 2400 either. I think the powder manufacturers have to catch up on their most popular powders first and then we'll start seeing more and more of the other stuff.

[35 shooter]

I've noticed a definite upswing on availability of powder in my area for the last 3 months. Not everything you want but enough of really good powders to keep you going, especially rifle powders. One bit of a good sign i've noticed too,is that it stays on the shelves a bit longer now and replacement time is much quicker when they run out.
I've got everything i need to finish load development with the 358009 for sure.

[Yodogsandman]

Lets hope the wind subsides enough to shoot this weekend. I missed a short break in the wind this afternoon when I was working.

[TXGunNut]

Hope ya'll get some shooting done, will be cheering you on from the sidelines. Temps will be be near or above 100 by the time I get my yardwork done so I won't even get Ol' Ugly out of the safe.
Will be trying on a few shotguns, tho.

[35 shooter]

We'll see how it goes, i think rain is in the forecast, but it changes day to day lately. I do have quite a few loads ready to try with both the gc and pb boolit. Most will be 3 shot groups just looking for accuracy indications. Gonna try and chrono a couple of imr 4350 loads just to see where i'm at on speed.
I've got the pb loaded with 4759 and a filler up to about 1750 fps and the gc loaded over some h4350.

BTW...the shotguns sound like fun!

[Yodogsandman]

I shot and had dismal results yesterday. I didn't bother to measure the groups but, at 50.0gr IMR4064 about a 6" and at 51.0gr, an 8" group. I think I found the point where I'm stripping the lands with too much velocity. Skidded right off the runway! Too bad, the loading density was close to 100%. I'm guessing about 2200 FPS. Can't figure out how to harden the alloy more without brittleness.

Powder coating might be the next step to try. I'm chompin to try it since the electrostatic PC system was delivered last week. I've done some playing with it and I think I can do it now, if I can decide on a color!

[35 shooter]

Good day at the range today except for the fact it's getting too hot for 5 shot groups. LOL i went back to the car several times today to put the rifle next to the air condition vents just to try to cool it down a bit. I noticed that on 5 shot groups no matter if i waited 2 min. between shots, the last 2 shots were at least 1/2 to 1" high of the group with my encore. It was especially true with h4350 and less so with imr4350. I guess h4350 heated the bbl. quicker.

Chrono results with imr 4350...280 gr. gc boolit:
48 gr. imr 4350 5 shots in 1.368"
(1) 1962 fps.
(2) 1949 fps.
(3) 1941 fps.
(4) 1961 fps.
(5) 1975 fps.



54 gr. imr 4350..280 gr. boolit:
5 shots in 2.028"
(1) 2205 fps.
(2) 2203 fps.
(3) 2193 fps.
(4) 2224 fps.
(5) 2225 fps.

H4350 didn't go as well as i had hoped and i only shot 3 shot groups just looking for accuracy potential.
(1) 50 gr. 1.927"
(2) 52 gr. 1.468"
(3) 53 gr. 4.181"
(4) 54 gr. 2.552"

The 52 gr. load has potential and actually so does the 54 gr. load as i'm pretty sure i pulled the last shot 2" left straight across from the first two. I called it when i shot it. The first two shots in both of those loads were only about a half inch apart side by side.

Today Ben's Red put the very first shot dead center of the group after running a wet ATF patch then one dry patch through the bore before shooting. Letting the bbl. cool a bit between groups it continued to put the first shots centered in each group.
Each time i quit shooting for the day i run a wet atf patch in the chamber and bore just to get the fouling out and leave the bbl. wet. When i go back to the range to shoot i run a wet patch of atf followed by one dry patch through chamber and bore and the first shots are in the group in MY rifle. Usually dead center. It's working for me!

[35 shooter]

I shot and had dismal results yesterday. I didn't bother to measure the groups but, at 50.0gr IMR4064 about a 6" and at 51.0gr, an 8" group. I think I found the point where I'm stripping the lands with too much velocity. Skidded right off the runway! Too bad, the loading density was close to 100%. I'm guessing about 2200 FPS. Can't figure out how to harden the alloy more without brittleness.

Powder coating might be the next step to try. I'm chompin to try it since the electrostatic PC system was delivered last week. I've done some playing with it and I think I can do it now, if I can decide on a color!

It does look like you went past the point of no return somewhere after the 48 gr. load, which by the way sounded like it might be a good load? Maybe a little tweaking around the 48 gr. point? I'm gonna work with seating depth a bit now that i kind of found out what the parameters seem to be with 4350.

[Yodogsandman]

2200 FPS is rockin it! In all reality, hunting wise, 1950 FPS is probably all you'll ever need for anything unless you go to Africa. Good to see the numbers for those loads. Does your chony give ES and SD? It seems like the better those numbers are, the more likely they are to keep repeating good groups. I believe I read somewhere that the 35 Whelen is the most balanced centerfire cartridge. The most absolute power for the least amount of grains of powder.


I have another head scratcher... my measurements were off on the boolit engraving the lands. The boolit doesn't seem to even engrave any more, like they shrunk. I've been running my O.A.L. to 3.125" which seats the GC at about the bottom of the shoulder, some lead exposed to gases. I just tried to bottom them out by barely seating them and couldn't do it. I switched to the .361" unsized boolits and got marking from the leade. The front driving band touches the leade at about 3.250" but I can easily push it in at my magazine maximum (3.420") and beyond. Still thinking.....

[35 shooter]

Yodogsandman i have an f1 chrony and it just gives speed as far as i know. I just figure every thing else out by averages. By the way the rifle recoils with the 54 gr. imr 4350 load i would have bet on 2300 fps., but that's how your shoulder can fool you. It is a very solid 2200 fps though and i'm pretty happy with it.
I think for most hunting i'll go with the 48 gr. load and an average of 1958 fps...that really is a sweet shooting load.
However the 2200 fps. load strikes about 3 1/2" high @ 100 yds. when sighted in for my 200 gr. loads which gives that load very close to a 200 yard zero if i remember right. Pretty neat when you can pull either load from your vest pocket and make the shot without touching the scope.

As far as seating depth, i usually start out touching the lands if i can and usually find the best accuracy there. Once i find the best load though i usually try backing off the lands 5 thou. at a time and usually find another sweet spot at a shorter seating depth, then use which ever depth shoots best.
I think TxGuNut is right about 5 shot groups in this heat...bbl. will just not cool back down. I noticed with three shot groups it stayed fairly cool with about 10 min. between groups. I don't mind shooting 3 shot groups with a hunting rifle as long as i can super impose the targets over each other and all shots are within the pre determined group.

[Yodogsandman]

I have no where near your heat, 84 degrees yesterday, and it took twenty minutes for the barrel to cool between groups.

[TXGunNut]

I have no where near your heat, 84 degrees yesterday, and it took twenty minutes for the barrel to cool between groups.

Not a chance around here today, temps hit 95 well before noon so rifle shooting was over quite early. I know one rifle shooter who has an air tank and an adapter to cool off his barrel. I'm not dragging an air tank around to shoot on these 95+ degree days. If ambient temps won't allow a barrel to cool I won't shoot. Rifle range was a bit busy today anyway, good thing I've retired my rifles for a month or two.

[Yodogsandman]

I rarely have anyone else sharing the range now, even on a Sunday afternoon. A few years back, I never wanted to shoot on the weekends because of all the shooters. That's with about 1500 active members! Everyone's out of ammo or hoarding what they have now. The few I meet there are mostly all handloaders. Very few of them, too. There will be a bunch though, sighting in just before the deer season. I won't use the range then.

I think my boolits shrunk! Wondering if I screwed up the alloy mix in the last batch, could I have got a couple of pure lead ingots in there? I mark my COWW ingots with a chisel but, the buckets are next to each other. I had light engraving on the bore riding section, now I don't.

[35 shooter]

Yodogsandman did you size to .360 or .359? I have heard of boolits shrinking in dia. a bit over time but have never noticed it with mine, but then again, i've never really checked like a month later or anything. Never noticed any change after ht either, but that may be a possibility? Sure does seem weird that they were engaging but now their not. Maybe you did get a lead ingot in with the mix? Maybe run up some more from straight ww and check them just to make sure? Hope you get that figured out.

[Yodogsandman]

I sized those to .359", I have a .360" sizer coming on backorder, 5-7 weeks. I did get 10% off and free shipping with it at Optics Planet.

I started a thread over on the "lead and alloys" sub-group and the guys over there say the boolit would be smaller in diameter if I got some pure lead in there somehow. They also concure that over time they do shrink. At first they increase in size and then decrease over time. I don't know, it's only been two months since I cast them. I'm leaning more towards me screwing it up. I did find that I can take full advantage of my magazine and seat out to 3.375", the box is 3.420" long. I might have been hamstringing myself! I tried some at that length and they still feed slick. Although the first one from the magazine is a little gritty. For right now, I'm going to play with the O.A.L. and try some powder coated. I'm wondering if I can get more velocity with the powder coating and still retain accuracy. Plus, I'm all set up now for electrostatic powder coating (ES PC) and I want to play with that some. ES PC would also increase the nose by about .002". Hmmm, what color should a 35 Whelen boolit be? It won't be that ugly cream color that Nosler makes thier .35 cal, 225gr Balistic Tips!

Still looking for my tripod for the chrony. I have the master beta one. Bet the batteries are dead after 5-6 years, too. I'll have to re-read the instuctions, I think!

[35 shooter]

Yodogsandman i just found my chrony after hiding it from myself for about 7 years lol. The battery was still working and was what i used last weekend. I bought a new one to take with me just in case, but didn't need it.

As for what color a whelen boolit should be.....silver to grey with Ben's Red in the lube grooves!

[TXGunNut]

One of my favorite golden age activities; hiding stuff from myself. Glad you enjoy it as well. I forgot my spare battery last trip, battery was too low. Found the spare as soon as I bought another pair.