35 whelen from 3006 bras

[canuck4570]

when you past 3006 brass in a 35 whelen die is there anything else you have to do..... and this process does it strecht the neck wall making it thiner than a original 35 whelen case.......in short what is the pro an con compared to buying original 35 whelen brass...

[jhalcott]

canuck, my chamber is a custom one made before Rem. came out with theirs.When I expand '06 brass to Whelen it fits MY chamber perfectly. The rem. version is slightly longer than mine. you SHOULD have no problem ,but I'd at least trim the necks to be sure they are square.Measure a fired Whelen case compared to a resized '06 one and go from their.

[Harry O]

If you can get .35 Whelen brass easily, you should. You can spend more time shooting than forming cases. However, there should be nothing dangerous about forming .35 Whelen brass from 30-06 brass.

I have formed 30-06 brass to 9.5x57 MS brass. That involves opening up the neck to 0.375". I later bought some .35 Whelen brass for forming it because it meant only one expansion die instead of two when using 30-06 brass. I have used both brass with full power loads and have not had a problem.

[NVcurmudgeon]

canuck4570, two differences may come up when forming .35 Whelen cases from .30/06. Factory case length of the two cases are identical. This means that when a case is expanded a lot, it will get a little shorter. The brass has to go somewhere. The shortening when expanding is of interest only to a fanatic like me. I have been forming cases from .270s, to end with .35 cases of factory length. Secondly, expanding cases from .30 to .35, or .27 to .35 is a lot of expanding and will lead to split necks in the forming process, or early demise if the case does form. Using once-fired R-P .270 cases I got about ten firings with low pressure cast loads before headspace shortened and misfires occurred. (This was when partial full-length sizing.) Now that I have a true neck sizing die I find that after fifteen firings, about half of my formed cases have gone away via cracked necks, but no headspace troubles. The next lot of formed cases will be annealed before forming, to see if case life is extended. For full power hunting loads I use only factory cases that have been fired once.

[j4570]

Harry O,

On your 9x57 or 9.3x57 Brass, it's easiest just to reform 8x57 Mauser, I have done hundreds of cases in my Hornady 9.3x57 dies (tapered expander).

My father has even then sized them back down to 9x57 (as his dies don't form well, I send him brass) no problem.

I've been using R-P 8x57 Brass.

35 Whelen brass is easy to get, I agree, save the grief and shoot.

[357maximum]

A shooting buddy of mine has an old win model 70 that his ol man had made eons ago the barrel is stamped .358/06 and he just make one pass through a sizing die to make a 30/06 into his cartridge. I never measured anything on it, but it sure looks like a whelen to me. Might be shorter in the neck tough.

[Scrounger]

Back when the .35 Whelan was still a wildcat, there was a sort of improved version called the .35 Brown-Whelan.

[Wayne Smith]

It's a whole lot easier to do if you anneal the case necks first. That's true going from '06 to 8mm, so it will hold going up to .35. I anneal in my lead pot, hold them in to the neck/shoulder junction for a slow count of 3 - that's what I do cause I wear welding gloves.

[Harry O]

Harry O,

On your 9x57 or 9.3x57 Brass, it's easiest just to reform 8x57 Mauser, I have done hundreds of cases in my Hornady 9.3x57 dies (tapered expander)

I've heard that, but I had 30-06 cases on hand and later, the .35 Whelen cases were on sale.