Fire-forming 35 whelen

[okgobbler]

35 whelen brass isfarely high,$20/50 @ Graf and sons, $38/100 @cabelas,plus shipping.Midway and natchez only carry it in seasonal batches.

My question is can a light 30-06 load be fired out of the 35 whelen to fire form brass? I am concerned with the smaller .308 bullet bouncing around in the .358 barrel and damaging the rifling. Can this happen?

It may be just as cheap to just buy the 35 whelen brass, considering it will cost around $.30 to load the light 30-06 load. Does anyone have any experience with this?

[Rootsy]

don't use a bullet... fill with a light load of fast burning powder.. put some cream of wheat on top and plug with some beeswax... fire away...

[358WINMAN]

Just for the hell of it I tried to fireform 06 out of my Whelen when I had it. Took 5 rds of 150gr factory loads and fired them through my gun. Fireformed very nicely and I saw no change in accuracy of my barrel after that.
For what its worth

[handloader1]

okgobbler:

If tyou wish to gain experence by necking up 30-06 Sprg. cases to .35 Whelen, by all means go for it. If you purchase the .30-06 Sprg. brass form www.grafs.com instead of the .35 Whelen brass, you will save $6.80 on brass. Good luck.

[eldeguello]

ORIGINAL: okgobbler

My question is can a light 30-06 load be fired out of the 35 whelen to fire form brass? YES!! BUT, use full-charge loads. Light loads will not have enough pressure if the bullets are .30" and go down a .358" bore. If you are loading them yourself, use 10 grains of Unique,fill the case with corn meal or cream of wheat, and seal the neck with a wad of toilet paper. This is messy, but doesn't waste any bullets.

I am concerned with the smaller .308 bullet bouncing around in the .358 barrel and damaging the rifling. Can this happen? NO!!

I have fired .348 Win. FL ammo in a .450 Alaskan to get .450 Alaskan brass.I later switched to the corn meal method! Bullets are softer than barrel steel-no damage occurred.......

IF you don't mind using '06 cases, and want a simpler way, get.30" to .338"and .338"-.358" expanding plug from Lyman, Hornady, or RCBS, and just expand the necks of .30/'06 brass then run them through your .35 Whelen FL die before loading them. This is cheaper in the long run than buying factory '06 ammo and shooting it to get cases.

[Mr. Longbeard]

I was going to buy the new 750 woodsmaster in 35 whelen... Then I started to check on factory ammo... Thats when I decided to buy the 750 Woodsmaster in 30-06Im figuring a 220gr SP will be a awsome brush bullet and should be pretty close to the Whelen in kenetic energy

[48thguns]

Hello OKgobbler. Take your 35 Whelen Brass....install primer....load 11 grs of bullseye pistol powder (or equivalent) to the base of the neck.....roll up a 22 patch and stuff it into the neck......fire into the ground at a 30 degree angle or so....bang....don't need ear protection....extract perfect Whelen cartridge.

Cheap, easy, no barrel wear, fast and most importantly....it works! This is a 6.5-06 Ackley I made today...check it out....mics near perfectly. Rgerads, Rick.

[fishdog52]

You may not need to fireform. I can run a well lubed piece of 06 brass through my RCBS Whelen resizing die & have a piece of 35 Whelen brass ready to load & shoot. No particular effort seems to be required. With military brass, I do not get many reloads before the necks split. Over the holidays I reformed some Federal 06 brass as I had no other use for it & wanted to check out some new bullets in my Whelen. For most of my shooting I use factory brass. With a little patience, you should be able to track some down for less than 20 cents a piece.

[Roskoe]

I'm sure this is possible. I made a tapered expander ball recently for forming .338 Federal cases from .308 Winchester brass. Effort required to neck up is minimal - especially compared to the effort required to neck down.

[okgobbler]

Thanks for all the advice. I actually picked up 130 pieces of 35 whelen brass at the okc gun show on saturday. 80 new rp and 50 once fired rp. All for $30. I thought this was a decent deal.