Well today I ran into a gunsmith friend of mine that I had not seen in a while. He moved his shop last year and I have not been to the new one yet. Anyway we only talked for about 10 minutes but somehow the conversation turned to guns. :? During that time I told him that I had been looking at a Ruger #1 45/70, but I had also thought of having him rebarrel my Ruger 77 MKII. He does a lot of work on various calibers on the basic 280 Ackley case. I have been thinking about a 35 Whelen so I asked if he had done a 35 on the Ackley case. He has not but now the thought intrigues me. When he said he had not taken in any work in about 6 months due to his backlog but that if I would order the barrel he would do the work in a short time and for not much more than half the cost of the Ruger #1 (thats including the cost of the barrel) I'm really thinking the #1 may get put off for a while (again).
I said all that to ask this. Has anyone worked with this cartridge. How would it differ from the Brown-Whelen. (Not much I dont think except the case and the neck might be a little longer) What kind of velocities could I expect. The M77 is blue and wood stocked so the new barrel would be Chrome Moly steel, either a Douglas XX or a Shilen. Both are supposed to be great barrels so the real difference I see is that the Shilen has a 1 in 14" twist and the Douglas a 1 in 12" twist. Which would you prefer and why.
BruceP
