Subject: The Whelen' s Cherry


Finally Broken!
I took her out to the gravel pits upstate with a brandy new box of 200 grain Remington CoreLokt bullets. Out of the box of 20, I got off 17 shots with 3 DUDS! REMINGTON S&%KS!!!!! Anyway here is the story with all the detail I can muster. It was entertaining. Being the first round was in an unproven rifle I elected to do a remote fire (10' of string, what a wuss)
I took the Lohman sight vice and the Black & Decker Workmate as the platform station. We set up at about 60 yards being that the scope had only been bore sighted with the laser. I clamped the forward leg of the sight vice into the jaws of the workmate, then dug the back feet of the workmate into the sand for a solid base. I then clamped the Whelen into the sight vice real tight. I zero the scope on the bull, chambered a round, slid the safety forward and walked back to where the string was and applied gentle pressure. What happened next was awesome! The shot rang out much louder and more throaty than I had imagined. The gun, sight vice and workmate lurched up in the air to where the barrel was almost verticle and then slowly fell back to the normal position. I just stood there like a statue trying deciede if I really wanted to touch this animal or not. Michael (my 15 year old son) was standin by the car laughing like a mad man, " DID YOU SEE THAT" he asked, unfortunately I had and was still not sure if this was the gun for me. We checked the target, not bad, only 2" right and 1" high. The next 2 rounds the gun stayed in the sight vice (still being a wuss) while I did some scope adjustments. During the those 2 shots the Whelen was working its way out of the tight clamps and was a full 3" to the rear from the starting position, shoulder was ok as the gun was being restrained by the sight vice for the most part. I deceided what the heck, lets have at it, how bad could it be? By the 7th round I was wishing that the gun was 3 pounds heavier and I had wore my double insulated hunting coat instead of the t-shirt. During all this time the gun was awesome, I was shooting into my standard wine box which I fill with sand. These have stopped the Muzzleloader, 35 Marlin and the 270 rounds. Not the Whelen, the bullets tore the box to ribbons sand was flying 8' into the air and we found pcs of wine box 15' away. We ended up recessing it into the hill so I could try to recover the bullets. After the full 17 rounds I was very pleased with the accuracy of the gun (see the pic) BTW I made an error on the pic, the rounds in the bull are 8-17 not 10-17 DUH! I have adopted a nickname for the whelen................MEAT TENEDRIZER! Hope you enjoyed the story, I have to go ice my shoulder down (just kidding) I found a few of the bullets. They were almost completely void of any lead, as if it hit the target in a molten state. Some of the cardboard revealed a spraying look among the shreads which would support this theory. Remember these were factory loads? I cant imagine what this thing would do to an average size deer. The shots are numbered as they happened, only 1 shot could not be positively ID and it was # 11 that I think went into the group of 3??? I know it hit close to center by the same sand damage as the previous rounds just no extra holes. WHAT A KICK IN THE PANTS!

thanks for the pic of your groups rodsmith , the .35 whelen was always known to be a great gun for big game , and it' s been known to be pretty accurate too ( at least from what i' ve heard from fellow whelen owners and my own experience with mine , as is the case in the .350 rem mag and the model 600 / 660 bolt action ) . i use 250 grain factory' s in mine but i' ve never thought of her as a hard kicking rifle though , in fact i' ve always thought of her recoil as being mild in my model 700 classic ,
BTW- what make and action of rifle do you have her in buddy , you didn' t mention that , that i can see

MILD? I have been shooting a 35 Rem. in Marlin 336 for about 10 years now, THAT is mild. In comparison my 270 in the Remington 760 is very close to the Whelen so I guess its all what your used to. I took an old WWII Mauser and did the conversion (completely) myself. With the help of Ebay for a forged bolt, InterArms adjustable trigger w/slide safety and the technical wisdom of a smithy Davis May (Thanks again my man) it all went together. I obtained a A&B barrel in the white, a Core-Lite Camo stock, a Simmons 2.8-10 X44 Aetec scope (all but the barrel was also from ebay) and Burris bases and rings. Various smith tools were purchased from Midway (vice jaws, action wrench, go-no-go guages) and once complete were promptly sold back on ebay. In all I guess the entire projec ended up running me about $200, not bad considering the outcome. I elected to try the Birchwood Casey cold blue system to see how it would come out. I first took all the metal parts to a friends and put them through a bead blaster to clean the up real good. Machined areas were well protected. Once that was completed I followed the B&C directions to the letter and applied 6 coats of the bluing, came out better than I had imagined, we will see about durability. I have attached a few pics below (hope I can do more than 1 ata time here) If not I will follow up w additional pics for ya.

Another

thanks for the pics of your rifle , looks like a very well done project , i also like that stock you' ve got on it , it' s a very handsome tool you' ve got there buddy and accurate as well , exactly what a grade a hunting rifle should be

and i' ve got a .35 rem in a marlin as well but , to tell you the truth buddy , recoil is something that never really bothered me , whether i' m shooting my whelen or my ultra-mag ( of course the ultra-mag has a muzzle brake on it , had it installed before i ever shot it because of it' s reputation. call me a wimp there friend [&:][&:] ) but , it never has really bothered me . now when my remington m673 in .350 mag. comes in , then i' m pretty sure that i' ll notice some recoil when i shoot that one

BTW- have you ever considered installing a muzzle brake on her buddy ???

I have found a couple of bullets that I really like for the whelen. For deer I think it will be hard to beat the 225gr Nosler Ballistic tip or the 225gr Sierra Gameking SPBT. For Larger game the Hornady 250gr round nose is a great bullet. I worked up a couple loads for my WHelen one was the 225gr Sierra Gameking at 2650fps adn the other is 250gr Hornady RN at 2450fsp. Both these loads shoot very well for me and I can utilize with the same zero, the 250s are dead on at 100 and the 225 are 3" high. I found Hogden Varget is great for the heavier bullets and H322 was great for the 200-225gr bullets. I think you will really like the whelen. Its a great caliber.

Looks like your rifle turned out very well indeed.