35 Whelen loading questions.

[Brinky72]

I’ve had a couple of nuances or growing pains with the Whelen. Maybe it’s just me or my setup. First the rifle is a Ruger M77 with a Shilen 1:14 SS super premium match grade barrel and a match grade chamber. It’s accurate and seems to shoot all loads well so far. Every change of RL 15 with 250 grain Speers have been MOA or better. My hiccups have been with different brands of brass behaving differently. I have Nosler, Hornady, R-P and bumped up 06’ brass. Nosler and Hornady no issue. R-P has stuck twice in the chamber with flattened primers. Not all the R-P does this just two and all twenty plus are loaded the same. Also I have had some of the R-P cases have collapsed while seating the bullets. Again not all just a couple. Not a single Hornady or Nosler. Simple solution is chuck the R-P brass and not look back. But that doesn’t answer the “why” of it. Is it just softer, thicker brass or what? I’ve reduced the load some but it wasn’t high to start (61k). Checked OAL of cases and all are good except the short 06’ cases.
Also the bullets seem to move under recoil. No crimp groove and again seems more of an issue with the R-P brass. So I bought a Lee crimp die. Bumped 06’ brass are too short. Not a big surprise and we’ll see how the others fair. Just curious what others have had issues with or any advice.

 

[gerry]

I have seen it in my rifle which like yours has a match chamber as well but only on the second loading. R-P brass sometimes gives hard extraction when it shouldn't but Norma brass is much better in that regard. New brass no issues at all with either. Could be just a suspect lot of the R-P brass so I would ditch any that cause any problems and just use the good ones for practice, or just toss the whole lot. Can't recall having the bullets moving under recoil but that doesn't sound right. Norma has been great so far, for cheaper brass I would look at Hornady. Unfortunately every company puts out a bad batch of brass from time to time.

 

[Brinky72]

I’ve put a good full length resize on them and crimped all of them. Backed the load off a full grain and ran them all through the action. All run through slick. Not sure why the R-P brass have a tendency to crush while seating the bullet. Not all but just a couple. Hoping the factory crimp holds them tight enough. Just odd that the Rems do it not the others. Never had that issue before with any other rifle/caliber

 

[SJB358]

I’ve put a good full length resize on them and crimped all of them. Backed the load off a full grain and ran them all through the action. All run through slick. Not sure why the R-P brass have a tendency to crush while seating the bullet. Not all but just a couple. Hoping the factory crimp holds them tight enough. Just odd that the Rems do it not the others. Never had that issue before with any other rifle/caliber

Get some pin gauges and measure the inside of the neck Brinky. Chances are they’re getting sized under quite a bit and offering too much resistance upon seating a bullet.

Try a little more chamfer on them as well.

 

[gbflyer]

What is a match grade chamber?

 

[gerry]

I read that as a chamber cut with minimum tolerances all the way around.

 

[PJGunner]

I run nothing but Remington brass in my .35 Whelen. I've never had any kind of a problem with them. I run them in a custom Mauser, Remington M700 and Ruger M77RS. They work just fine in all three rifles.
Paul B.

 

[RiverRider]

This might not be where the issue lies, but it's something to always remember...

I was given a couple hundred pieces of 6mm Remington brass a few years ago. I tucked it away. When I decided to see about prepping it, I checked headstamps. It was all R-P, but I noticed subtle differences in the style of the stamping which suggested to me that some of it was from different eras and it was all mixed up. Weighing it on a digital scale revealed weight variances of 20 grains or more between a number of the cases.

I don't believe case weight is a reliable way to sort brass where case volume is concerned unless it's all from the same lot and has been uniformed, but I don't doubt for an instant that these 6mm cases varied in volume in a most significant way.

If you know the origins of all your brass and are confident it's all of the same manufacturing lot, then case volume most likely not the problem. On the other hand...you know the rest.

IOW, I'd weigh the cases looking for significant variation.

 

[truck driver]

What brand of dies are you using?
I use Reading dies and have a cone style expander in the sizing die . This style of expander doesn't stretch the case neck out of shape.
I also dust the inside of the case neck with dry molybdenum powder which helps to ease the expander ball in and out of the cases.

 

[gbflyer]

The R-P brass is probably thicker and doesn’t spring back as much as the other brands. The neck is getting undersized and that is why you’re crushing a few of them seating the bullets. I suspect the thickness is contributing to less case capacity, more pressure, and that’s why a few stick in the gun. I would pitch them. I’ve also had problems with Hornady brass but not in the Whelen. Only belted mags.

There’s my opinion. Haha.

 

[Brinky72]

Thanks for all the input. I suspect this is due to brass that I have used from factory loaded ammunition. I had some Remington cases that I got from JD338 and those have served me well. Rumor has it that at some point Remington had made their factory ammunition brass to a lesser quality than their component brass. I understand this was done based on the belief that few people who fired factory ammunition reloaded. Just rumors, I don’t know. I have chucked all the problematic brass and no more issues.

Gbflyer. I may just cut one RP and one Hornady in half and mic them to see.

 

[Brinky72]

What brand of dies are you using?
I use Reading dies and have a cone style expander in the sizing die . This style of expander doesn't stretch the case neck out of shape.
I also dust the inside of the case neck with dry molybdenum powder which helps to ease the expander ball in and out of the cases.

RCBS with a “tapered ball expander”. I took it apart and does look cone shaped. I do like Redding dies though. I have a set of 280AI Redding dies and they just seem better made.

 

[Brinky72]

The R-P brass is probably thicker and doesn’t spring back as much as the other brands. The neck is getting undersized and that is why you’re crushing a few of them seating the bullets. I suspect the thickness is contributing to less case capacity, more pressure, and that’s why a few stick in the gun. I would pitch them. I’ve also had problems with Hornady brass but not in the Whelen. Only belted mags.

There’s my opinion. Haha.

So, I weighed all my R-P brass and my Hornady,Nosler, etc brass. On average the R-P brass was 20-25 grains heavier. All the rest was within 5 grains of each other surprisingly enough. Hornady and Nosler brass were within just a couple grains of each other and reformed 30-06 FC brass was about 5 grains heavier on average.

 

[warboar]

Your mixed brass is the problem. Some of it's going to be thicker and will cause pressure issues. That's why you're seeing flattened primers and other pressure signs.

When I first got my 280AI years ago I had to fire form the brass for it. After fire forming I weighed each case and sorted them. I also got really anal and checked how much H2O each would hold. The heavier cases held less water and would lead me to believe they were thicker walled brass. I separated all my brass after that so I could have consistent loading.
All that work paid off as my standard deviations, velocities, extreme spreads were consistent. I shot tiny bug hole groups but man was it tedious work.
At this point I just weigh cases and sort them and call it good. Even in the same bag or box of brass you can have large swings of weight.

 

[truck driver]

When reloading Remington brass I tend to use a lighter powder charge and can get the same performance as I do with other brass using more powder.
I contribute this to less H2O capacity in the Remington brass and causing higher pressure.
I once thought my blown Winchester primers were defective but found this to only happen when using Remington brass.
Long story short is like anything else you have to develop loads for each brand of brass and not assume that the same load will work for all brass.

 

[Brinky72]

Pretty much what I figured. I can’t believe that the Remington brass was showing pressure signs when using “book” start loads though. I have never seen this before with any caliber or any other brass. Just in case I’m going to use up the rest of the loaded ammo and chuck the brass. If I use Remington brass again it will be component brass and not factory loaded brass.

 

[preacher]

I used only new Remington fireformed brass in my last 35 Whelen Ackley Improved. They last forever it seems! Ream that ornery devil out and go for it! ha