NOE 360-230 cycling issues

[Whelen]

Hi All,

I recently purchased an NOE 360-230 to use in my Remington 700 35 Whelen after hearing some glowing reports. After making up some dummy rounds I discovered that these things are nowhere close to actually making it into the chamber. From the left side of the stack they don't even come out of the magazine! What gives? Are you guys single loading your Whelens or am I missing something?

[BK7saum]

What about the right side of the magazine?

I have a 300 whisper built on a 223. The right side feeds fine, but the left side wanted to jam going into the chamber.

I tracked the problem down to the magazine box. The right side had more overlap of the action rail and kept the round from popping out from under the rail at the correct time.

With the action and magazine box removed, turn the action down and visualize the overlap with the magazine box in place. I'm betting there is a difference with yours as well. You can tweak the box or buy a new one. .

[hc18flyer]

I had to single load my 358 Winchester, with that boolet, I follow it up with RCBS 35-200, works in my Savage. But rarely do I need a second shot, off a steady rest. My shot this November was 100 yards, he went about 10' then he flopped over!
hc18flyer

[BK7saum]

Ah! I didn't realize you were talking a ranch dog design WFN bullet. WFN bullets are hard to get to feed from staggered box magazines. I have a couple of WFN bullets I plan to use, but will be running a center feed magazine repurposed from a used 308 with bulged barrel. I don't think I'll have any trouble then.

Just too much boolit nose in staggered box. Meplat hits the fron of the mag box and not enough point / ogive to make it up the feed ramp.

[Harles Dawson]

My Browning lever action can’t be worked slowly. When I operate the lever briskly, I have no problem. My JES rebore on a Howa 1500 in .35 Whelan does just fine with the .360-230 WFN.
Browning is a .358 Win. with the same Bullet. 6 deer with that Bullet so far in the Browning.
A real good Bullet IMHO! Harles

[bluejay75]

My Remington 700
Does the same thing. You can try to dremel away the front portion of the internal box magazine or get a bottom metal detachable magazine system. Or get a Savage. My savages feed flawlessly from the magazines. 100 dollar rebates at the moment to boot.

[Larry Gibson]

Whelen

That is a problem with many "glowing reports".........mostly they are based on single feed from the right side of the magazine if the cartridge is fed from the magazine at all. Feeding from staggered box magazines loaded with more than one cartridge with many cast bullet designs, especially those with a flat meplat, becomes problematic with the bullet nose not feeding into the chamber. The nose most often is jammed into the side edge of the chamber right or left. I discovered that back in the late '60s using a 311041 in Mauser .308Ws and '06s. Even the round nose 311291 would many times not feed reliably if more than 2 rounds were in the magazine.

In rifles like the M700 or Savages and others with magazines having separate sheet metal boxes with the feed lips you can make some adjustments. Many times bending or grinding the lips so the cartridge case (rear) is released earlier so the bullet nose enters the chamber can work. On receivers with the cartridge guide rails as part of the receiver (Mausers and some M70s for example) you may not want to alter the receiver rails. Also working the bolt fast can help. Most often, even with adjustments, you'll end up with limited magazine capacity of 2 or 3 rounds instead of 4 or 5. I find with the WFN meplat bullets I'm lucky to get 2 rounds in the magazine to that will feed reliably.

That can be enough or hopefully is enough for hunting deer. However on varmints when shooting can be fast and pigs I prefer a magazine full that feeds reliably. I see no reason to have a capability and not be able to use it. It's another reason why, for hunting, I prefer softer cast slightly HP'd cast bullets with a rounder ogive that feed reliably. They give as good and most often better terminal performance that hard cast WFN bullets.

[Whelen]

That's what I was afraid of. From the right side it comes out of the magazine but, stops hard on the edge of the chamber. This gun runs the Lee 200 gr RCBS copy like butter so I guess that will remain my hunting boolit. The silver lining here is that this boolits inspired me to make some 35x30-30 dummies and the Marlin eats them right up. Might have to call JES so this mould has a use! Thanks guys.

[35Whelen]

Or just bump up the weight with another mould and get the Saeco copy from Accurate, it will feed like the copy of the RCBS 200 grainer.
http://www.accuratemolds.com/bullet_...=36-245S-D.png

My Ruger Hawkeye in .358 Win does the same thing...my bullet is the 360-240 with a very big meplat. Sometimes it feeds well other times not so well. Being swift on the bolt sure helps. But when it comes to hunting I am going to start with the big WFN 240 grain and have some 245 Saeco style under it in the magazine in case a fast second shot is needed.

[gpidaho]

Whelen: I have the Saeco #352 FP mould. The meplat isn't that wide. I weighs 240gr gas checked. I could stick a few in an envelope and send along so you could see if they'd feed from both sides if you'd like. Gp

[Yodogsandman]

That's what I was afraid of. From the right side it comes out of the magazine but, stops hard on the edge of the chamber. This gun runs the Lee 200 gr RCBS copy like butter so I guess that will remain my hunting boolit. The silver lining here is that this boolits inspired me to make some 35x30-30 dummies and the Marlin eats them right up. Might have to call JES so this mould has a use! Thanks guys.

Have you tried fooling around with the O.A.L. yet? Sometimes a little adjustment helps.

[Whelen]

Have you tried fooling around with the O.A.L. yet? Sometimes a little adjustment helps.

I seated the boolit from contact with the lands all the way down to the crimp groove. Seated at the groove it is .150" off the lands and gives maybe a 60% success rate only from the right side if I run the bolt hard. I'm not happy with bashing a gouge into the nose of my lovingly assembled handloads as a standard practice. I'm asking this rifle to do something it wasn't designed for with this mould.

[Yodogsandman]

I have no problems feeding those in my 35 Whelen, Mauser VZ24. I do use resized 30-06 cases, which are short at 2.460". My case mouth is shorter and the bullet groove ends up back .024" more than yours. Try seating even shorter and see. Better than grinding out metal that you don't have to.

Does an empty case feed?

[Whelen]

Finally got a chance to play with this a little more. I kept seating the boolits deeper until the feeding improved. At 2.930 oal it started feeding without taking big chunks out of the meplat. It still only comes out of the right side of the magazine but, it's consistently feeding and rarely damaging the boolits. It is now .180" off of the lands and it appears that the lube in front of the gas check will be exposed to the powder. Might be a good time to get over my fear of fillers to make that a non issue. I was considering it anyway since I was getting some promising signs from 40grs of H4895 under the Lee.

Thanks for the suggestions from all. The solution was easy but, I got off track when my shiny new toy wasn't everything I hoped for. If she shoots I'll deal with only getting two in the gun come hunting season.

[35Whelen]

Good to hear Whelen....can you post a pic of the final OAL using that round? Wondering how accuracy will be now that it's off the lands

[Whelen]

Its a long jump to the lands for sure but, no worse than the Lee. Unfortunately, I was hoping this boolit would be better.

[Yodogsandman]

Looks good to me, Whelen! How's it shoot?

[Whelen]

Looks good to me, Whelen! How's it shoot?

It's going to be awhile before I see the range. Work has been keeping me so busy the kids look at me like a stranger when I get home. Better days are coming though. I will give a range report when it happens.

[35Whelen]

Whelen....did you ever see results at the Range with the round seated deeper?