35 whelen primer

[Blammer]

Just cast some RCBS 35 200, sized, checked, lubed and loaded some.

Well just one actually.

35 whelen brass, WLR primer
51gr of IMR 4895 and the afore mentioned boolit.
(book says for a 200gr jword to start at 54gr)

Fired one round for test.

No leading.

Ejected spent case and it looks like the primer has been pushed half way out!


My question is...

What is most likely my culprit?

[GabbyM]

If it is actually half way out I’d say you have excessive head space. A little ways out is normal when you don’t have enough back thrust to reset the case head back against the bolt face after the firing pin drives the case forwards. Now I’d think 51 grains of powder would set back the case. So that’s odd. Excessive head space could be from short cases or in the rifle, of course. Most probable is short cases. Then if it’s an Ackley that would explain why the case didn’t setback.

[405]

Agree with GabbyM, that's a sure sign of excessive headspace (either in the gun or case- I'd bet on the case itself) due to the primer impulse pushing the case forward while pushing the primer cup rearward with a low pressure load. The 35 Whelen is the worst for that. Even the 338-06 will do it as well as the '06 especially with repeated firings of low pressure rounds. But, also as GM says, that 51 grains should be enough to stretch that case back against the bolt face as it comes up to full pressure. With most modern cases that stretch back usually happens as the round exceeds about 35K psi and I would think that your load went to or maybe beyond 30K psi. So dunno-maybe right on the strength boundary for that particular brass. The best reason for the 35 Ackley design IS the positive headspacing with its sharper shoulder. :)

[HARRYMPOPE]

factory or custom gun? I have seen some older wildcat chambers with shoulder locations different than my Remington 700.

George

[JesterGrin_1]

If the Books shows a low of 54.O Gr why not start there?


And while I am thinking about it lol. Blammer are you going to get more 38 cal gas checks to fit those whelens and 358 Winchesters?

[Blammer]

Well, I got to looking at my other loads I fired that were fine.

I was shooting 51gr of IMR4895 (same lot) with 185gr boolit and the primer looked fine.

Ok, I did exaggerate, the primer is backed out a bit, well quite a bit, say .1 or so

I determined that the 185 gr boolit really engages the rifling/throat and sets the case back for sure in the chamber. I suspect the 200gr boolit is not as positive at setting the case against the bolt.

I KNOW from this the 51gr charge should be sufficient. So the case and load must be the culprit. Thanks for the help.

This is in my Shilen barreled Marlin XL 7.

I suspect that since these cases were previously fired in the same rifle, that I really buggered something when I resized them. I looked and I only sized 1/2 of the neck on these, so go figure.

I guess I'm going to have to always positively engage the rifling with the boolits to make sure the brass and primers act right.

I loaded up one round tonight with the boolit seated really long. I'll shoot it tomorrow and let you know.

[GabbyM]

I’ve two points.

First is while I’ve zero experience with 35 Whelen. Most of the bottlenecks can shrink when firing low pressure loads when they start out chambering loose. Shoulder position will actually get shorter every time you fire them. Head spacing off a bullet is the hard way to make it work.

Second: To get your short cases to properly fire form. You could use the procedure for fire forming Ackley’s . Use an oversize expander to stretch the neck out. Then size the neck down in your 35 Whelen die only until the case chambers snug. This way it won’t be push forwards from the firing pin hit and your case will not be stretched at the base. Which will cause head separations. What I don’t now is what expander you’d use. In a 30 caliber you’d use an off the shelf 8mm expander. What you’re doing is making a false shoulder with the neck and head spacing off that datum point. If you’ve only a few short ones the expedient way would be to use a hard seated bullet to hold the case back.

I’m making the assumption your rifle is properly head spaced and new brass aren’t that loose.

[JesterGrin_1]

I am sorry but I am not as knowledgeable as many here with reloading for a rifle. And even my foray into the 35 Whelen is Brand new as my learning curve starts Wed I hope. But the idea of using a bullet seated off the lands to correct brass that may not fit correctly sounds like a bandage on your elbow for a sore on your knee.

Again since I am not all that knowledgeable as others I would think that it should not matter where the bullet is in relation to the throat or the lands as far as what the brass does.

Since at this point I have thought that the first thing that must be done is have brass that will correctly fit the chamber and then work on the best accuracy with the bullet in its distance in relationship to the throat and lands.

[Blammer]

I loaded and fired the same combo that had the primer back out and this time I seated the boolit long so it engaged the rifling.

Shot it and it looked perfectly normal.

I'm going to necksize (only half the neck), deprime and reload it and see what happens.

[Blammer]

Ok, I deprimed, resized only the first half of the neck and I took extra precaution to make sure that the "body" or the "shoulder" was not resized or messed with.

I loaded up the WLR, and the 200gr boolit. I also checked case lenght after being resized. It was 2.481 If I remember, but I do remember it was really close to standard trim length as I had the book in the man cave with me.

I put 54gr of IMR4895 for an estimated 2400fps velocity and shot one.

Quite a thump on the shoulder, no leading and the case looked just fine, right along with the normal used primer I'm used to seeing. I think an "under charge" or light charge was the culprit.

I hope they shoot accurately at that velocity. :)

plus these are 96% lead 2% tin 2% antimony and just air cooled. :)

[405]

I went thru the 35 Whelen hassle 10-15 yrs ago. Even tho I was only partially full length sizing and staying away from the shoulder. I still got the primer back-out with low pressure loads. When I loaded higher pressure Jbullet loads the primers would again re-seat and all looked peachy after firing. BUT, looks can be deceiving!

Each time the round is fired the primer impulse pushes the case shoulder forward over-running the shallow shoulder of the Whelen, while pushing the primer cup rearward against the bolt face. With low pressure loads the case would stay forward and show the backed-out primer. With higher pressure loads in the milliseconds of the pressure cycle, the primer fires, the case moves forward, the neck and upper body stick to the chamber walls (absolutely as it should be), the primer is forced rearward, the pressure builds beyond the brass strength limit, the rear portion near the web is forced rearward, re-seating the primer against the bolt face..... and all looks "well". No matter the load, the 35 Whelen stretches the case near the web, because of the poor headspace control afforded by the small, shallow angle shoulder. It is THE weakness in the 35 Whelen design. It does greatly shorten case life.

I quickly saw the light and had my gun re-chambered to 35 Whelen Ackley. Never looked back and never regretted it.

[JesterGrin_1]

I put 54gr of IMR4895 for an estimated 2400fps velocity and shot one.

Quite a thump on the shoulder, no leading and the case looked just fine, right along with the normal used primer I'm used to seeing. I think an "under charge" or light charge was the culprit.

I hope they shoot accurately at that velocity. :)

plus these are 96% lead 2% tin 2% antimony and just air cooled. :)

Do not worry about the thump it just lets you know it went off. :bigsmyl2:

At 2400 you should be good to go. Or start at 54.OGr and work up till you are happy with the results.

But then again I have never really believed in plinker loads in a rifle.

But then again I learned a bunch about myself this last summer and recoil. I was shooting a 338 Mag in for a friend and it did not seem that much more than a 30-06 with 180Gr loads and even those seem kinda light to me. But then I let someone else at the range shoot the 338 Mag just to see what he thought. And after he shot it I said it kicks but not much and his reply with a confused face was oh YES it KICKS lol. So I learned never ever to go by how I feel recoil is when telling someone else. As everyone's threshold of recoil is different.

[Blammer]

thanks for the help.

I'm not a "plinker" rifle loader either, but am wary, in that I don't want to have to clean a lot of leading out of a barrel.

I was thinking the velocity for this one would surely have me doing that.

I guess I'm doing something right!

I'm going to have to set up the chrony and shoot one through it to see.

[JesterGrin_1]

Please Blammer do not shoot your chrony lol. :).

You will be fine. We all know you know how to fit a BOOLIT to the bore and by gosh you have good lube so you will be finer than frogs hair. Load it up and have some fun and go get some Meat. :)

Thought I would ask again though. Do you expect to get more 35 Gas Checks in?

[JesterGrin_1]

One more thing why air cooled?

Sorry I am Lazy and do not like to get burned so I always water drop lol.:)

[9.3X62AL]

I have read this thread with rapt attention, since I shoot a 9.3 x 62 with castings pretty frequently. This caliber's shoulder is a bit more steeply-angled than that of the 35 Whelen, but I wouldn't call it 'abrupt' like in an A/I. It's still a tiny, shallow-angled shoulder.

With cast loads, I designed my boolit to achieve two "missions" at once--to seat with boolit base at neck/shoulder junction, and to lightly but positively engage the leade. My intent in 2002 was to design the boolit around the rifle's chamber and throat in hopes of achieving accuracy, and to date that has largely been the case. Luck had lots more to do with this outcome than did skill or knowledge.

I apparently have unintentionally 'designed in' another positive element--longer case life. I have yet to see any extended primers from my cast loads, some of which at first were quite docile. I have a lot of 100 Remington 35 Whelen cases fire-formed to 9.3 x 62 in 2002. These are on their 12th reload, and to date have shown no sign of incipient case seperation or case mouth flaws. Their entire service life has been with cast boolit loads after fire-forming. I agree that these cases are much closer to the end of their service life than to its beginning, but I cite this example as evidence that headspace control--however it is achieved--pays dividends in case service life extension.

[Blammer]

air cooled because I'm too lazy to try to fish them out of a bucket of water and dry them off.

and I've gotten all the performance I'll ever need out of AC ww's. :)

[JesterGrin_1]

Down here it is normally not cold enough to worry about drying them off lol. I dump the water out of my bucket remove the bullets and put them in a container and after a little while when I am finished most of them are dry lol. But then again I normally do not cast and size the same day since there is so much work to be done after casting. Such as sorting for blems or ones I just do not like the look of. Then weigh each one to put into groups and then if I find a good group or two then I will size. Whewwwwwwwwww

Time wise Jacket is far cheaper lol.

[leftiye]

Sounds like you need to fire form those cases with a boolit hard into the rifling, and then short size only making sure not to set the shoulder back nor make it any smaller than fired dimension.

4350 is outright dangerous in reduced loads! Don't do it. Your load obviously didn't make enough pressure to stretch those case heads back and flatten the primer. From the sounds of it - thank goodness! it may have separated the case heads. Thanka you stars you didn't get an SEE (ask BOOM BOOM about 4350).

[JesterGrin_1]

Ummm Leftiye Blammer did not mention 4350 anywhere that I did notice. And I looked lol.

He was talking about using IMR-4895.

[leftiye]

Ya got me! I don't kno why I was thinking 4350. Don't do it anyhoo.