KCSO
01-02-2008, 01:20 PM
A friend brought in a gun he picked up recently and asked me to fit a new butt pad and while I was doing the work he found a rifle on my rack he wanted more so he stuck me with a...
35 Whelen Mauser sporter.
The rifle is not a hack job but a fine custom gun originaly made by Doc Carlson in about 1965?. We are talking pre war Mauser action, Douglas barrel, checkers schnable stock, single stage trigger set for 3# and Redfield mounts and scope. The gun is in 99% condition and has a 1-16 twist and looks to have had about 12 rounds fired through it. Now all that is good but the best is yet to come... After a good bore scrubbing and no sign of copper fouling, I took the gun out and fired it with a load from Waters Pet Loads. I tried 35 grains of IMR 3031 as that is close to what I use for a hunting load in my 35 Remingtons. Here's where the blind hog lucked out. The first three rounds at 25 yards were one 40 caliber hole and at 100 yards the gun shot two 3 shot groups of 7/8 and 3/4 inch from a bench in a wind with 14 degree temps. Groups are 3" high and dead center. I have never had any rifle shoot this good with the first load tried. According to Waters this load is going 1850 fps and is suppose to duplicate the 38-55 H/V load. It is just a touch slower than the 35 Remingt load I used for deer this year so it should be OK for hunting.
Now if I just had a 250 grain mould???
35 Whelen Mauser sporter.
The rifle is not a hack job but a fine custom gun originaly made by Doc Carlson in about 1965?. We are talking pre war Mauser action, Douglas barrel, checkers schnable stock, single stage trigger set for 3# and Redfield mounts and scope. The gun is in 99% condition and has a 1-16 twist and looks to have had about 12 rounds fired through it. Now all that is good but the best is yet to come... After a good bore scrubbing and no sign of copper fouling, I took the gun out and fired it with a load from Waters Pet Loads. I tried 35 grains of IMR 3031 as that is close to what I use for a hunting load in my 35 Remingtons. Here's where the blind hog lucked out. The first three rounds at 25 yards were one 40 caliber hole and at 100 yards the gun shot two 3 shot groups of 7/8 and 3/4 inch from a bench in a wind with 14 degree temps. Groups are 3" high and dead center. I have never had any rifle shoot this good with the first load tried. According to Waters this load is going 1850 fps and is suppose to duplicate the 38-55 H/V load. It is just a touch slower than the 35 Remingt load I used for deer this year so it should be OK for hunting.
Now if I just had a 250 grain mould???