35 Whelen Imp.

[ScreaminEagle]

If your going to have someone mill the lettering off, have them do it in a CNC so they can engrave it at the same time. I too was a little bummed about the lettering on my last build. Barrel was stamped 257 ACK. Maybe I'm OCD!

 

[truck driver]

I have a gun smith friend who will probably mill it off and re label it.
It's raining and the range isn't covered so I cleaned the h$%&#LL out of it and the copper won't go away so I have it soaking right now in Cooperzilla. Initial cleaning was done with Butches and Barnes CR10 along with Gunzilla CP10 I also used some B&J on it and I ran a couple of patches with Flitz on them scrubbing the hech out of it. The Flitz patches came out black cleaned the bore with butches and ran some cooperzilla threw it and them came out dark brown meaning there was still a cooper mine in the barrel. From what I can see the interior really doesn't look any rougher than my Remington Classic which has rough looking lands near the muzzle and the same goes for this barrel.
Not sure what I can safely use to lap the barrel with other than Flitz and J&B though I do have some fine pumice and jewelers rouge. The pumice isn't as coarse as the J&B and could make a paste with Flitz or cutting oil and put it on a cotton mop or patch, don't want to go threw making a lead plug and valve grinding compound though I've done it before with muzzle loading barrels and it's not very much fun to do plus it was done before the rifling was cut so there was a smooth bore to work with which is old school way of doing it. Haven't done it in about 30yrs and bringing back old memories.

 

[preacher]

Congrats on the new baby! You could always firelap it (I've done that with several rifles and bullets in the NECO kit) I just used enough of the bullets to smooth the bore up, but one rifle did take all 50! The kits are impregnated already and go from coarse to fine grit. OR...you can just foul it and use the thing, ha! I finally reached a place in my life where that's what I do, but it took awhile to get there! Your cases look great and I too have never had to trim my cases. On the stamp...why don't you wait and see if its a shooter before putting anymore money in it. if it isn't ( God forbid!) you will want to have a nice Shilen barrel put on ( ) Then you can get it CNC'd as mentioned! While I get varmint accuracy out of several loads in mine, really, a sporter weight rifle in this caliber 1.5" is really good! Even 2", but what real "Rifleman" wants a 2" bolt rifle? ha. The only one of my loads that I use a magnum primer in is the 250PT/R15 load. I use BR2 on everything else. I'm happy for you dude.

 

[truck driver]

Thanks Preacher Jim. I'm going to wait and shoot it before I do anything.
To be honest I'm not too happy with it and haven't even shot it yet. I put it back in the wood after an extra thorough cleaning and almost got all the cooper out but I found out Why there was unspent powder in the action around the barrel and frame. I chambered one of my rounds that I intend to use to fire form with and stuck it with out getting the bolt closed and the casing came out with out the bullet after tapping on the bolt handle with a leather mallet and I also had to tap the bullet out of the chamber with a cleaning rod. The chamber is short and I can only load bullets to a length of 3.133 in it and that is with a 200gr Hornady and I seated some 225gr Sierras like what was used to proof fire the rifle and left the dies set to the same OAL to get them to chamber in the cases that where used for proofing.

Here's a pic of the bullet I stuck in the barrel. Notice the bright shinny ring on the agave of the bullet. Click on picture and it will enlarge for closer inspection.
I may be wrong but it looks like he set the crush fit on the nose of the bullet and not on the case shoulder or just didn't put any free bore at all in the chamber.

Sierra says the OAL for the 225gr GK is 3.250" in a standard 35 Whelen.

 

[SJB358]

JB's Bore Paste it Iosso would work fine.

Don't sweat that little bit of copper. Betting it won't affect a thing. Shoot it till the wheels come off as the good Preacher mentioned. I always figured rebores and rechambering ways to see if it was worth the effort with a certain cartridge. So far I've been lucky that I've liked them all.

 

[SJB358]

That's great. Freebore isn't needed in my opinion. Hornady 200's are short anyhow. If they fall under the 3.4 length you'll be fine Rodger. No real need to seat them out real long. You've got a lot of neck on that case and chances are your probably not going to try to beat a 338 Win Mag so it'll work just fine.

The Remington's have a TON of "freebore" which is a pain with some bullets. I'd not complain with how yours is set up. Should work out perfectly for accurate shooting.

 

[truck driver]

Scotty I'm not sweating the copper really I just never saw anything like that happen before but I am concerned about the short chamber and not being able to seat bullets out to standard length. I have to seat the 200gr Hornady's in past the crimp ring.
Most of my loads will be compressed loads.

 

[SJB358]

Scotty I'm not sweating the copper really I just never saw anything like that happen before but I am concerned about the short chamber and not being able to seat bullets out to standard length. I have to seat the 200gr Hornady's in past the crimp ring.
Most of my loads will be compressed loads.

I'd give Jess a call and ask him about it honestly. See what he says. That does seem a little short. My 200 Hornady loads are around 3.200" if I remember correctly.

He's fairly decent. I had a similar sorta problem but he took care of it. Then again he might have some thoughts as well.

 

[truck driver]

I have a call into him already and will see what he has to say.

Here's some more pics of the rifle with the scope mounted.

 

[DrMike]

The stamping is a little thing, but it does speak to attention to detail, which would disturb me. Heck, I admit that I am afflicted with OCD! The short chamber is somewhat more bothersome. I've run into this on a couple of rifles I worked with. To date, I've always been able to find an acceptable load with a premium bullet that satisfied the owner. Still, were it my rifle...

 

[SJB358]

Mike has a good point. Shoot it first. See what it does. Might drive nails. Compressed loads don't hurt nothing. If it isn't right, then ask JES what can be done. Try some of the ABs. Long noses on em. Might work really well in that chamber.

 

[DrMike]

I relied on Sciroccos on calibres of 338 or less. Since Swift doesn't make a 358 Scirocco, Scotty points to where I would look first--the AccuBond. A 200 grain AB would deliver quite a blow to anything you would ever need to shoot with that cartridge. You might get away with a 225. Nevertheless, a 200 grain AB would make for a fearsome load; it would certain get respect from anything shot with it.

 

[SJB358]

I relied on Sciroccos on calibres of 338 or less. Since Swift doesn't make a 358 Scirocco, Scotty points to where I would look first--the AccuBond. A 200 grain AB would deliver quite a blow to anything you would ever need to shoot with that cartridge. You might get away with a 225. Nevertheless, a 200 grain AB would make for a fearsome load; it would certain get respect from anything shot with it.

I need to find a box of 200 ABs for the Newton... Gerry has tested them and I'd feel just fine hunting about anything with them as well.

 

[truck driver]

I have several bags of 200gr Abs that I got from the last run Nosler made to try in the Classic and they shoot great but I have them stretched out to 3.40" and that would be impossible to do with this chamber.

 

[SJB358]

Find out what they look like .050" off the rifling. If they will work like that I bet they will shoot just fine.

 

[preacher]

My SILs Mauser 98 in 35 WAI has a short throat but not that short. I'd send it back with a dummy round with the C.O.L. I wanted and say "fix it"....but I'm also a tad OCD, ha.

 

[truck driver]

I talked with him this after noun and he said he loaded the proof loads to Remington factory ammo COAL but also said to return the rifle with a dummy round with the bullet seated to the OAl I want the chamber cut to.

 

[SJB358]

I talked with him this after noun and he said he loaded the proof loads to Remington factory ammo COAL but also said to return the rifle with a dummy round with the bullet seated to the OAl I want the chamber cut to.

Good deal. Glad you can get it more to your liking Rodger. Did he stamp the twist on the barrel somewhere?

 

[truck driver]

Yes he stamped it 1-12 0n the under side along with his signature.
I rechecked the chamber length by seating some 225gr Sierras to the book OAL of 3.250" and they fit with no problems, I also loaded a dummy with a 200gr AB to 3.340" and again no problems chambering the round need to make up a dummy for the 200gr Hornady and and see what the problem is with that bullet and the new chamber.
Might get to the range tomorrow if it stops raining long enough to get set up and shoot some. Might also bust a cap in the dirt pile I have in the back yard just to see how it works. :mrgreen:

 

[truck driver]

I see where Scotty and DrMike have a Speer #2 manual for wildcats and was wondering if there were any 35 Whelen Imp loads in it?