Remington 35 Whelen misfires

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KevinCRPC

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I came into a few boxes of older 200 grain 35 Whelen ammo recently and experienced 4 out of 20 misfires that required a 2nd strike to fire. Rifle is a custom job with an FN commercial mauser action, Wisner 3 position safety and a Lothar Walther barrel. The fired brass has a nice formed shoulder but the factory ammo has a sloppy looking shoulder. Being a mauser style action it should have a very firm primer strike. I'm guessing the weak shaped shoulder is allowing the case to be driven forward a few thousandths by the firing pin resulting in a light indent. I'll reload some cases being sure not to set the shoulder back and see how it goes as a next step. Check the photo for a fired case should vs factory.PXL_20240214_222635903.jpg
 
I think you may have a 35 Whelen, Ackley improved. That shoulder looks too sharp to be a standard 35 Whelen. I can't fund the specs on the 35 Whelen AI at the moment.

The good think is, if it is 35 WAI then just fire form the cases and neck size them when reloading.
 
Definitely not an AI chamber, just had this built. As you can see in the photo, the case still has the same taper. An AI takes out the case taper.
 
Thanks, but I am only shooting these 200 grainers for practice ammo. This is going to Namibia this year shooting 250 Northfork SP's for eland and some other plains game. This gun is a recreation of rifle I took to Africa 20 years ago and should have never sold. Now I have a 15 year old who will shoot the same load to try for his own eland.

IMG-20221012-WA0002.jpg
 
mellocollins said:
Try. Alliant varmint pro powder and 200gr bullets
Click to expand...
I worked up some hunting loads for a friend with a 35 Whelen rifle, using H4985, and got decent velocity and < 1" groups at 100 yds. I would love to find some Power Pro Varmint powder to try, but I have not seen any recently.
 
KevinCRPC said:
Thanks, but I am only shooting these 200 grainers for practice ammo. This is going to Namibia this year shooting 250 Northfork SP's for eland and some other plains game. This gun is a recreation of rifle I took to Africa 20 years ago and should have never sold. Now I have a 15 year old who will shoot the same load to try for his own eland.
Click to expand...
I am shooting hammer 200 solid coppers. Getting sub moa and over 2950fps. With 35 ackley 40degree shoulder. 63.3gr of Alliant pro varmint. Cci large rifle primer. And way off the lands because of mauser magazine.

Nice thing about the hammers is the guy makes them. I was trying accubonds but got tired of not being able to find them anywhere when I needed them.
 
I'm sure that load kills with authority and stretches the range for a 35. Apparently CFE223 is the new hot powder for the Whelen, with some very high velocities in the new Speer manual. As you can see from the photo, I find the 250's at 24 to 2500 are all you need and don't beat the hell out of you. I use RE15. Here are a few recovered Northforks.
PXL_20240209_182321480.jpg
 
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To follow up on this, I obtained a FIELD headspace gauge and the rifles will NOT close on it, so the headspace is not completely out of spec. I was able to chamber a remington factory load with 2 pieces of tape on the base that measure .004 each but the same tape on a hornady factory load would only close with force. So I will be able to reload ammo and set the headspace at .006 over min. and have safe and reliable ammo that doesn't overwork the brass. I basically have a long end of spec headspaced rifle and some of the rem. ammo was loaded at the other end of spec, which allows a 010. difference.
 
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