Author Topic: 9.3  (Read 7300 times)

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Offline lgm270

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« Reply #30 on: July 01, 2004, 03:47:34 PM »
Greg:  I agree with you about belts. I prefer not to have them, but they are the standard for magnum size cases and they're more economical than RWS 9.3x64 cases.   As for necking up the 30-06, I'd rather go to a magnum case if I"m going to do the project.  

Dan: How do you  like your 9.3x57?  I've considered this in one of my mi-surp rifles.  Seems like it might be fun.

Offline Judson

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« Reply #31 on: July 02, 2004, 04:22:25 PM »
If you are thinking of necking up the .338 look at the .358 Norma.    My wife did this and she gets a slight case capacity improvement over the 9.3X64, nothing to get exited about, cheep brass and the same ballistics with a standard length action.    The .358 Norma does have a longer neck and a fair increase in case capacity over the .338 so give it a thought and man does it work, just like the 9.3X64!!!
There is no such thing as over kill!!!!  :-)

Offline dan belisle

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« Reply #32 on: July 03, 2004, 11:38:28 AM »
IGM270, the 9.3 X57 is a real hoot.  Recoil is soft, and it drops deer and moose like the hammer of the Thor (appropriate I thought).  I also have a 9.3 X 60, that I have to custom form brass for (from 30-06), and can't really find much info on.  Ballistically, they seem pretty much the same thing tho'. - Dan

Offline Leftoverdj

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« Reply #33 on: July 04, 2004, 09:04:12 AM »
'Round '85, during one of the upheavals in Valmet's US distribution one of the former distributors closed out double rifle barrels for a ridiculously low price. $140 or so. I remember that he had 9.3x74Rs, .444 Marlin, and .375 Win.  Think he had 6.5x55s. I drooled. Didn't take but three brain cells firing to know that the value would go straight up, but I was short on money and had no Valmet.

Two weeks after he sold out, a Valmet 412 fell into my hands.
It is the duty of the good citizen to love his country and hate his gubmint.

Offline Greg Zeilinger

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« Reply #34 on: July 05, 2004, 05:37:02 PM »
@judson
What kind of accuracy do you get out of your 366DGW at longer ranges and what make is your rifle?Did you ever try a 9.3-64 and if so,what do you think of it?My third and last question,did you ever try any Hawk-Bullets? :-)

Offline dan belisle

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« Reply #35 on: July 06, 2004, 05:36:53 AM »
Leftoverdj, isn't that the way it goes?, LOL - Dan

Offline Judson

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« Reply #36 on: July 06, 2004, 04:15:30 PM »
Other then at game I have never shot for groups at over 225 yards with my .366 DGW.    At 225 it shot at a little over 1 1/2" but that is with a 3X9 scope and me behind the wheel so the rifle can probably do better.
    My rifle is based on a P-14 action and I built it myself to test the cartridge.    These are great actions and very under ratted, probably because of the work required to make them look good.    As for the 9.3 X 64, that is slightly less then my wife's .358 Norma necked up there is for all intents and purpose no difference and her wildcat preforms great thou it is far short of the DGW.                                                                

  As for the Hawk bullets, one of my customers had dismal bullet failure with them in a 35 Whelen so I have not tried them and pretty much stick with Swift "A" Frames.
There is no such thing as over kill!!!!  :-)

Offline Greg Zeilinger

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« Reply #37 on: July 06, 2004, 05:46:43 PM »
@Judson.
I'm very impressed with the way your gun looks to say the least.I definately take my hat off,when i see a classy rifle like yours.Well done!It looks very well balanced by judging on what i see on your photo?Yes,i believe,premium bullets are the way to go,when using a cartridge with such a high velocity, like yours.By what i understand from reading your posts,you must be a custom gun maker?Wish you good luck with your hunting and shooting..

Offline Judson

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« Reply #38 on: July 07, 2004, 02:43:44 AM »
Yes that is what I do for a living.    That rifle is based on a highly modified P-14 action and has  drop mag, skeleton grip cap and Timney trigger.    The barrel is 26" with the last 2.5" being a muzzle brake which really tames the rifle down and also totally eliminates muzzle jump.   Most people who have shot the gun have the same comment  "Thats it, I expected to get belted!"    Tho I am not all that thrilled about brakes I am very pleased with how well this style works.    Where there is no porting on the bottom of the barrel it is not bad of the bench either as far as the blast either.

    The cartridge on the left is a .308, center is the .366DGW and on the left the .416 Rigby for comparison.
There is no such thing as over kill!!!!  :-)

Offline Greg Zeilinger

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« Reply #39 on: July 07, 2004, 06:16:50 PM »
@Judson
Quite the cartridge?What kind of game did you use your 366DGW for and what does DGW stand for?

Offline Judson

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« Reply #40 on: July 08, 2004, 01:31:10 PM »
I used my rifle for every thing from White tails to wildebeest.    So far for me it has been four deer, one Kudo, two Zebras, two warthogs, two Gemsboks, one wildebeest, one Nyala, and a blesbok.    As for what the DGW stands for it is David G. Walker who is the person who came up with the idea for this cartridge as a joke on another hunter while he was in Africa.    Little did he know it is not a joke!!!!
There is no such thing as over kill!!!!  :-)

Offline Buckeye

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« Reply #41 on: July 16, 2004, 07:15:28 AM »
Hey guys Graf & Sons has a 9.3, 286 gr. bullet avilable for 18.99 a 100,and 9.3X62 ammo for 19.99 a box, the maker is Priva Partizan from Serbia & Montenegro,not exactly a household name,but is said to be top rate.

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Offline Judson

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« Reply #42 on: July 19, 2004, 01:51:41 PM »
This weekend I have to go back to South Africa to continue the field testing of the .366 DGW, also to get stuff for my wife's gift shop.    I will keep all you 9.3 fan informed as to how everything goes.    If my luck and business goes really well!!!! I hope to go to zimbowie in 2007 with several other hunters and test it on cape buff.
There is no such thing as over kill!!!!  :-)

Offline onesonek

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« Reply #43 on: September 15, 2004, 12:23:06 PM »
I'm still playing, but the OTT barrel with 250 gr. NBT's and H4350 is a winner. Got to Hodgdon's max load of 68 grs. with no pressure signs that I experience with Nosler's R15 load at the upper end. The Douglas blank must be tight as I have heard. The velocity was pushin 2600fps, so I'm sure the pressure is above the 40,600 cup. And the accuracy was excellent, well beyond my expectations.

Offline Judson

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« Reply #44 on: September 18, 2004, 02:38:39 PM »
Sorry I did not get back to you sooner but I have been in Africa.   The best group I have shot with my .366 measured for three shots .487" at 100 yards.    As for longer ranges I have not shot except for at game.    My longest shot with it to date was an Eland on a hill side 270 yards+ away and I hit where I aimed.    I was using a 300 grain Swift A Frame at 2910 FPS and it passed through and the Eland went around 25 yards before dropping.    As for the rifle I built it my self, I make my living as a custom rifle builder.
There is no such thing as over kill!!!!  :-)

Offline VFR

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« Reply #45 on: November 01, 2004, 04:39:31 AM »
I have three 9.3's in my collection.  The 9.3x57 is a Husky sporter, m46 I believe, on a 96 action.  I have been shooting 250gr Ballistic tips over 44gr of 3031.  Never been D&T'd and I used it like I would a 30-30 with open sights.  The other two are 9.3x64's, one on a Brno action and the other on a pre64 m-70 action.  The latter I took to Namibia in September using 286gr Partitions over 71gr of 4350.  Used this combo to take a nice gemsbok.  Also have a 7x64.  As you can see, I like the metrics.  What I really want is a type A or B Mauser sporter in 10.75x68.  Any leads on one for sale would abe appreciated.  Bob

Offline Robert

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A very good read by Paco Kelly, 9.3 and 35 Whelen Imp
« Reply #46 on: November 01, 2004, 06:01:42 AM »
The 35 Whelen has been a very good cartridge for me. But it didn’t start with the happy chance of getting a rifle in that chambering...my first Whelen was built in 1968 in Virginia...but it all started for me, in Africa ten years before that.
I had purchased in North Africa, a Mauser 9.3X57mm built in the 1930s, but getting ammo even in 1958 was difficult. And when I could find it, it was expensive. So I had the rifle rechambered to 9.3 X 62mm which was popular, but again ammo was expensive and limited. But my madness wasn’t completely in full swing...trading one hard to find cartridge for another...I planned to use 30-06 cases and reload....
The arab gunsmith that rechambered the rifle made me a mold that had cavities on each end...it was round and had two independent sprue plates...one cavity was 280 grains with a rounded flat nose...the other was 200 grains with a flat nose. Also he made a small die that opened the 30-06 necks just tight enough to seat the cast bullets...a seating die and a sizing die also. I hardly used the sizing die, because I used military ammo. I would pull the military ball, remove the powder...(looked like IMR 4198 in those days) open the neck, pour the powder back in and seat the cast bullet..usually the 280 grainer. I hunted all over Africa with this rifle and load......I harvested little 40 lb Tommies to one very large Hippo...and everything in between. I figure my velocity was around 2300+ fps.
I even killed a nasty female elephant that was making mud holes out of natives, I used a solid 280 grain bullet over the same load. The bullet was steel jacketed with a rounded blunt nose.....I shot her at 10 yards low between the eyes. She stood long enough after being hit, to where I was about to shoot her again when she just slumped down on her belly and died.....the village she had been raiding had a week long feeding party on her....
I always wondered about that shot. She didn’t move, hit right where I aimed...saw the dust come off her head...thought she would fold or charge..but she just stood there...then down. Interesting, considering she had been such an aggressive b**ch to start with. I have shot elephants with a 375 H&H, ammo loaded for Africa, with the same weight bullet...probably around 2400 to 2500 fps and got very different reactions...certainly the difference in .366 caliber and .375 caliber made little difference in killing power...and a few hundred fps more sure didn’t make much either. I guess I was just lucky the day I brained her....
I was also fortunate to be on two culling operations in two years in Africa. They were designed to not only get a meat supply for a number of native villages but to also stop the herds from eating the villages crops. I averaged more than 30 animals a day on the first operation...and that much, or a little more on the second...that kind of sustained shooting with one rifle builds confidence.....
Jumping to Virginia 10 years later...I bought a commercial Mauser action and wanted to build a 35 Whelen on it. The rifle smith didn’t have a 35 Whelen reamer so we chambered it to 358 Winchester to begin with. I certainly learned to respect that cartridge. In a bolt action rifle the 358 is a fine round. But my heart wanted a 35 Whelen...mainly because it is so close to the 9.3X62 I had in Africa...
Finally I bought a Whelen reamer and opened the chamber...I have never been sorry. I used it in that chambering for almost 30 years...then last year I ran a Brown-Whelen Improved reamer into my chamber....and started working with that. The whole idea was to test all the articles I’ve read about the Imp chambers not giving that much better velocities than the standard chambers...well I get up to 300 fps more with some loads...and when you start pushing Lyman’s fine 280/290 grain cast round nose over 2600 fps...that’s belted magnum country. Take a look at your reloading books and see how many cartridges give over 4300 ft.lbs of muzzle energy....you will find it interesting...
Certainly the history of this fine round developed in the early 1930s and named in honor of the late great rifleman Townsend Whelen...has been document before very well. Ken Water’s in his article on the round did an excellent job and it can be found in his Pet Loads articles collected into book form and sold by Wolfe Publications (Handloader and Rifle magazines).
Close friend John Taffin is having a Winchester 1895 leveraction refitted with a 35 Whelen barrel....and that should be an outstanding combination. Especially since the box magazine of the 95 can take spitzer shaped bullets...back in the 1930s and 40s a number of the older 95s in 30-03 and 30-06 were rebored and rechambered to the Whelen round....and they turned out to be thumpers of large game to the first order. Though I found in shooting a friend’s ‘95 Whelen conversion in 1978, it ‘kicked some’, to be british about it....he didn’t change the steel butt plate. And it does need a good recoil pad.
In the stock of my Whelen bolt gun I have two decelerators installed, and a good thick recoil pad. It’s now a pussy cat in recoil with the heaviest of loads. I have no need to prove my manhood or some such taking a lot of recoil...so I tame all heavy rifles as much as possible. And believe me when you start pushing a 280/290 grain bullet at over 2600 fps...it recoils!
My barrel is 23 inches long, it tapers from a good inch down to .70 at the muzzle. The wood in the stock is dense walnut with very straight grain, the action has been glass bedded...and it has both iron sights and scope blocks. Right now it has a Tasco variable that goes to 9 power....
I like having iron sights on my rifles if at all possible. You never know when on a hunting trip your scope goes south...so the irons will keep you in the game. And since I have killed antelope with the iron sights...at fairly long ranges...I’m confident in using them. I have found that for my eyes express sights work exceptionally well. Many find just the opposite..I even like them on handguns.
I’m sure I saw very few telescopes on a rifle in Africa in the late 1950s...but again that was 40 years ago. I had a small sniper scope that came with my 9.3 Mauser. It was around three power and German military all the way. Out of the second World War I’m sure. It had a course post and a number of cross lines marked in single digits that I’m also sure meant 1 for 100 meters, 2 for 200 meters and so on out 600 meters. I used it only on rare occasions....
A good 30-06 will push a 180 grain jacketed hunting bullet to 2800 fps. And that is a fine load...you could hunt the world with it. 61.5 grains of A2520 and a 180 grain .358 caliber bullet from my Whelen will easily break 3050 fps...I can push the Remington 150 grain spire point made for the 350 Rem/Mag to well over 3200 fps. This is not slamming the 30-06...it is and most likely will always be one of the top premier cartridges of the 20th century. It’s just showing that the Whelen is in a much different ballistic class, made for much heavier game, even though it uses the same cartridge case.
Elmer Keith for example long before the powders we have today that up the velocities of the Whelen substantially, recommended the cartridge for the heaviest of America’s game....he even spoke of guiding folks that took brown and big grizzles with it...as well as moose. He also said he and his father used it on elk for many years...
I have a precious few Nosler 275 grain jacketed round nose bullets left. I save them for big game....moose and up. When I bought them 20 plus years ago at 13 dollars a box for fifty I thought the price outrageous...Now!!!! I wish I had bought ten boxes....oh well. My load for them is simple at 52 grains of the wonderful H335 and 2450 + fps. Too bad I can’t find a few solids of that weight or near it...they would do everything the vaulted 375 H&H can do...
Midway put out for sale a run of R-P nickel plated (electroless I’m sure) 35 Whelen cases. I bought 100 and have been trying to wear them out since I got them back around three years ago...still working on them...and now some are formed to the improved version and still going strong....I have used old military match 30-06 ammo cases since I have had the rifle...they seem to last forever....and the match cases don’t have the crimped primers the standard military cases have. Of course finding them today is getting difficult because of the 308's eclipse of the 06. But if you run into some at a gun show or some where, don’t be afraid to buy them.
I load my Whelen’s hunting loads to 50,000 to 55,000 psi...naturally I have many reduced and medium loads. But if I am going for the big ones or the long shots I load to it’s potential. So if you have a 35 Whelen or are building one be sure the action is strong enough for the full loads I mention here. Many die manufacturers make an expanding die that will open 30-06 brass with one pass...then load and fire. It’s worth the few dollars extra when ordering Whelen reloading dies....sometimes it’s just and insert that goes in the sizing/decapping die...what ever you get it pays for itself in the long run.
The old IMR powders on the slow side like 4350 and 4831 with the heavy slugs from 275 up thru 300 plus grains were good yesteryear...and are still good today...but the whole field of ball powders has changed all that. Today velocities can be reached that were attainable only with over pressure loads just a decade or so ago....
The best all around powder I have found in the Whelen...and really in the 358 Winchester as well as the 356 Win/levergun round is H335. It doesn’t always give the highest velocities but it sure gives some of the highest with excellent accuracy with just about any bullet weight with high end loads.....one of the velocity champs with bullets up to 200 grains is A2520...pushing a 180 grain bullet at the velocities near 3000 fps. And it will push the 200 grain bullet very close behind it. And with 57 grains in the standard case under the jacketed 250 grain bullets we are talking 2500 fps plus. And 53 grains under my 275 grainer will push them as I said 2450 fps +.
Remington’s 150 grain spire point is just the berries for the Whelen. In actual tests with this bullet loaded to 3200 fps and a 3 inch high at 100 yards...it is down 14 inches at 350 yards....66 grains of the old time 3031 is still hard to beat in the standard case....just as 57 grains of ReLoader #7 under the 150 spire point is today. The 3031 load will go close to 3200 fps and the Reloader will cut 3250 fps and that’s in a 23 inch barrel. And this bullet is a large game bullet made for the old 350 Rem/Magnum so it’s not some explosive varmint slug that will ruin a lot of meat. I have taken many deer with it...it is a lightning strike on animals up to 200 lbs.
My old notes from 1971 show that I had a gonga load with IMR 4198..45 grains under a 250 grain hard cast Lyman round nose gave 2800 fps! I have a very special built Hoch mold. It was built 20 years ago to my design and drops a 325 grain hard cast bullet...340 in soft lead. With 57 grains of WW760 it gets very near 2200 fps...and I have never had one stay inside an animal all the way up to very large feral cattle well over a ton in weight. It’s a flat tipped round nose, bore riding and gas checked....It just fits my box magazine when loaded correctly, it is the heaviest bullet I have ever used from a 35 caliber rifle.
The afore mentioned Lyman 3589 280/290 grain bullet is my favorite. I can cast it soft...but water tempered...gas checked and Apache Blu lubed, at 1500 fps it is fun yet deadly on small game. Also loaded to around 1000 fps with 8 grains of Bullseye and a small wisp of Dacron holding the powder to the primer...I have take things like Javelina, large eating birds like turkey, and all kinds of varmints at close range.
I was brush hunting Javelina in 1979 when I spotted a mule deer about fifty yards from me. This is a quiet load...about like a kids cap gun. I shot him in the heart. He leaped up, kicked into his chest, and ran in a dead run for about 100 plus yards and fell down in a cloud of dust. Dead when I got to him. The Lyman soft cast bullet was against a low rib on the opposite side..it had mushed the heart...not the ideal deer load...but in a pinch with a dead on shot, it does the business.
When I had this rifle built I made sure it had deep and wide rifling for cast bullets. It shoots all manner of 357 bullets...cast and jacketed. I once had a 173 grain cast Keith bullet loaded to way over 2000 fps. Shot a little rabbit in the head at about 25 yards. It seemed like a long instant after the shot...there was a plopping sound. It was the top of the rabbit’s head, forehead up and the two ears hitting the ground after it had gone straight up....that’s all that was left except for tufts of fur blowing helter skelter....
I have taken deer and black bear...antelope and elk...I don’t know how many coyotes out to long range and back...feral dogs, crows, wild cats, one cougar treed by dogs, and all kinds of vermin. In the wilds of Virginia on power line cuts I have shot deer grazing at very long range....I have shot heavy feral cattle at ranges to 150 yards. And with rocks and such...if you can see the target you can walk shots into it...this is one of those calibers that pushes up dust when things are hit....
And then came the 35 Imp/Whelen. Let me say that I’m not sorry that I improved my rifle’s chamber. But it will not do anymore than the standard chambering would on the lower 48 states game...save yourself the extra cost of reamers and special dies. But if you want 93% of the power of the great 375 H&H Magnum...if you want brass that doesn’t stretch, necks that rarely need trimming, and one of the nicest looking loaded rounds you can find then mayhaps the Improved version Whelen is what you are looking for.
And as for the critics saying that it doesn’t up velocities enough to make it worth it. I can get near heavy 375 H&H Magnum velocities with 15 to 18 grains less powder! I think it is worth it, if you are going to take it to Africa...going to take it to Canada or Alaska...it will bring down the largest of the thin skinned game. And I don’t know why anyone would...except a situation like I faced in 1958...but with the right bullet it will even take down elephant! Many gun writers I respect have said that the all around rifle/caliber for the world can be the 375 H&H. Well 375s take extra long actions...expensive actions and with the 300 grain Barnes bullets for the Whelen...the 375 doesn’t even have that edge any more..you can hunt small game with a 375 H&H but it’s not really adaptable to handgun velocities up to medium deer loads...the Whelen especially the Improved version can do it all...it’s the poor man’s magnum rifle round.....
In the photo....the first cartridge case is an unfired R-P Whelen nickel...the next three are military standard: # 1.173 Keith cast bullet...#2. WW 250 grain jacketed soft nose..#3. 280 gr Lyman 3589 and #4. Is the Brown/Whelen Imp and the 280 gr...the two cast bullets are Lyman’s fine Keith designs in 173 and 215 grains....
BEST LOADS OVER 30 YEARS....
60/4320 IMR   220 JRN/Speer   2740fps/3668ft.lbs   1954Speer/catalog   
62.5 WW760   280 Lyman cast   2514fps/3930ft.lbs   heavy game   
45/4198 IMR   250 Lyman/cast   2800fps/4353ft.lbs   most powerful   
57/A2520   250gr WW JSN   2530fps/3554 ft.lbs   heavy game   
52/H335   275 JRN   2455 fps/3681   thick skin game   
61.5/A2520   180 JSN   3059 fps/3740ft.lbs   best all around jacket/load   
53/H335   250 gr WW/JSN   2525 fps/3540ft.lbs   heavy game   
57/ReL #7   150gr Rem Jacketed   3248 fps/3514 ft.lbs   medium game   
57/WW760   325 Hoch   2210 fps/3525ft.lbs   for large game   
8/Bullseye   280 Lyman   1001 fps/640 ft.lbs   pest/sm game load
....make it count

Offline Robert

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A very good read by Paco Kelly, 9.3 and 35 Whelen Imp
« Reply #47 on: November 01, 2004, 06:03:29 AM »
The 35 Whelen has been a very good cartridge for me. But it didn’t start with the happy chance of getting a rifle in that chambering...my first Whelen was built in 1968 in Virginia...but it all started for me, in Africa ten years before that.
I had purchased in North Africa, a Mauser 9.3X57mm built in the 1930s, but getting ammo even in 1958 was difficult. And when I could find it, it was expensive. So I had the rifle rechambered to 9.3 X 62mm which was popular, but again ammo was expensive and limited. But my madness wasn’t completely in full swing...trading one hard to find cartridge for another...I planned to use 30-06 cases and reload....
The arab gunsmith that rechambered the rifle made me a mold that had cavities on each end...it was round and had two independent sprue plates...one cavity was 280 grains with a rounded flat nose...the other was 200 grains with a flat nose. Also he made a small die that opened the 30-06 necks just tight enough to seat the cast bullets...a seating die and a sizing die also. I hardly used the sizing die, because I used military ammo. I would pull the military ball, remove the powder...(looked like IMR 4198 in those days) open the neck, pour the powder back in and seat the cast bullet..usually the 280 grainer. I hunted all over Africa with this rifle and load......I harvested little 40 lb Tommies to one very large Hippo...and everything in between. I figure my velocity was around 2300+ fps.
I even killed a nasty female elephant that was making mud holes out of natives, I used a solid 280 grain bullet over the same load. The bullet was steel jacketed with a rounded blunt nose.....I shot her at 10 yards low between the eyes. She stood long enough after being hit, to where I was about to shoot her again when she just slumped down on her belly and died.....the village she had been raiding had a week long feeding party on her....
I always wondered about that shot. She didn’t move, hit right where I aimed...saw the dust come off her head...thought she would fold or charge..but she just stood there...then down. Interesting, considering she had been such an aggressive b**ch to start with. I have shot elephants with a 375 H&H, ammo loaded for Africa, with the same weight bullet...probably around 2400 to 2500 fps and got very different reactions...certainly the difference in .366 caliber and .375 caliber made little difference in killing power...and a few hundred fps more sure didn’t make much either. I guess I was just lucky the day I brained her....
I was also fortunate to be on two culling operations in two years in Africa. They were designed to not only get a meat supply for a number of native villages but to also stop the herds from eating the villages crops. I averaged more than 30 animals a day on the first operation...and that much, or a little more on the second...that kind of sustained shooting with one rifle builds confidence.....
Jumping to Virginia 10 years later...I bought a commercial Mauser action and wanted to build a 35 Whelen on it. The rifle smith didn’t have a 35 Whelen reamer so we chambered it to 358 Winchester to begin with. I certainly learned to respect that cartridge. In a bolt action rifle the 358 is a fine round. But my heart wanted a 35 Whelen...mainly because it is so close to the 9.3X62 I had in Africa...
Finally I bought a Whelen reamer and opened the chamber...I have never been sorry. I used it in that chambering for almost 30 years...then last year I ran a Brown-Whelen Improved reamer into my chamber....and started working with that. The whole idea was to test all the articles I’ve read about the Imp chambers not giving that much better velocities than the standard chambers...well I get up to 300 fps more with some loads...and when you start pushing Lyman’s fine 280/290 grain cast round nose over 2600 fps...that’s belted magnum country. Take a look at your reloading books and see how many cartridges give over 4300 ft.lbs of muzzle energy....you will find it interesting...
Certainly the history of this fine round developed in the early 1930s and named in honor of the late great rifleman Townsend Whelen...has been document before very well. Ken Water’s in his article on the round did an excellent job and it can be found in his Pet Loads articles collected into book form and sold by Wolfe Publications (Handloader and Rifle magazines).
Close friend John Taffin is having a Winchester 1895 leveraction refitted with a 35 Whelen barrel....and that should be an outstanding combination. Especially since the box magazine of the 95 can take spitzer shaped bullets...back in the 1930s and 40s a number of the older 95s in 30-03 and 30-06 were rebored and rechambered to the Whelen round....and they turned out to be thumpers of large game to the first order. Though I found in shooting a friend’s ‘95 Whelen conversion in 1978, it ‘kicked some’, to be british about it....he didn’t change the steel butt plate. And it does need a good recoil pad.
In the stock of my Whelen bolt gun I have two decelerators installed, and a good thick recoil pad. It’s now a pussy cat in recoil with the heaviest of loads. I have no need to prove my manhood or some such taking a lot of recoil...so I tame all heavy rifles as much as possible. And believe me when you start pushing a 280/290 grain bullet at over 2600 fps...it recoils!
My barrel is 23 inches long, it tapers from a good inch down to .70 at the muzzle. The wood in the stock is dense walnut with very straight grain, the action has been glass bedded...and it has both iron sights and scope blocks. Right now it has a Tasco variable that goes to 9 power....
I like having iron sights on my rifles if at all possible. You never know when on a hunting trip your scope goes south...so the irons will keep you in the game. And since I have killed antelope with the iron sights...at fairly long ranges...I’m confident in using them. I have found that for my eyes express sights work exceptionally well. Many find just the opposite..I even like them on handguns.
I’m sure I saw very few telescopes on a rifle in Africa in the late 1950s...but again that was 40 years ago. I had a small sniper scope that came with my 9.3 Mauser. It was around three power and German military all the way. Out of the second World War I’m sure. It had a course post and a number of cross lines marked in single digits that I’m also sure meant 1 for 100 meters, 2 for 200 meters and so on out 600 meters. I used it only on rare occasions....
A good 30-06 will push a 180 grain jacketed hunting bullet to 2800 fps. And that is a fine load...you could hunt the world with it. 61.5 grains of A2520 and a 180 grain .358 caliber bullet from my Whelen will easily break 3050 fps...I can push the Remington 150 grain spire point made for the 350 Rem/Mag to well over 3200 fps. This is not slamming the 30-06...it is and most likely will always be one of the top premier cartridges of the 20th century. It’s just showing that the Whelen is in a much different ballistic class, made for much heavier game, even though it uses the same cartridge case.
Elmer Keith for example long before the powders we have today that up the velocities of the Whelen substantially, recommended the cartridge for the heaviest of America’s game....he even spoke of guiding folks that took brown and big grizzles with it...as well as moose. He also said he and his father used it on elk for many years...
I have a precious few Nosler 275 grain jacketed round nose bullets left. I save them for big game....moose and up. When I bought them 20 plus years ago at 13 dollars a box for fifty I thought the price outrageous...Now!!!! I wish I had bought ten boxes....oh well. My load for them is simple at 52 grains of the wonderful H335 and 2450 + fps. Too bad I can’t find a few solids of that weight or near it...they would do everything the vaulted 375 H&H can do...
Midway put out for sale a run of R-P nickel plated (electroless I’m sure) 35 Whelen cases. I bought 100 and have been trying to wear them out since I got them back around three years ago...still working on them...and now some are formed to the improved version and still going strong....I have used old military match 30-06 ammo cases since I have had the rifle...they seem to last forever....and the match cases don’t have the crimped primers the standard military cases have. Of course finding them today is getting difficult because of the 308's eclipse of the 06. But if you run into some at a gun show or some where, don’t be afraid to buy them.
I load my Whelen’s hunting loads to 50,000 to 55,000 psi...naturally I have many reduced and medium loads. But if I am going for the big ones or the long shots I load to it’s potential. So if you have a 35 Whelen or are building one be sure the action is strong enough for the full loads I mention here. Many die manufacturers make an expanding die that will open 30-06 brass with one pass...then load and fire. It’s worth the few dollars extra when ordering Whelen reloading dies....sometimes it’s just and insert that goes in the sizing/decapping die...what ever you get it pays for itself in the long run.
The old IMR powders on the slow side like 4350 and 4831 with the heavy slugs from 275 up thru 300 plus grains were good yesteryear...and are still good today...but the whole field of ball powders has changed all that. Today velocities can be reached that were attainable only with over pressure loads just a decade or so ago....
The best all around powder I have found in the Whelen...and really in the 358 Winchester as well as the 356 Win/levergun round is H335. It doesn’t always give the highest velocities but it sure gives some of the highest with excellent accuracy with just about any bullet weight with high end loads.....one of the velocity champs with bullets up to 200 grains is A2520...pushing a 180 grain bullet at the velocities near 3000 fps. And it will push the 200 grain bullet very close behind it. And with 57 grains in the standard case under the jacketed 250 grain bullets we are talking 2500 fps plus. And 53 grains under my 275 grainer will push them as I said 2450 fps +.
Remington’s 150 grain spire point is just the berries for the Whelen. In actual tests with this bullet loaded to 3200 fps and a 3 inch high at 100 yards...it is down 14 inches at 350 yards....66 grains of the old time 3031 is still hard to beat in the standard case....just as 57 grains of ReLoader #7 under the 150 spire point is today. The 3031 load will go close to 3200 fps and the Reloader will cut 3250 fps and that’s in a 23 inch barrel. And this bullet is a large game bullet made for the old 350 Rem/Magnum so it’s not some explosive varmint slug that will ruin a lot of meat. I have taken many deer with it...it is a lightning strike on animals up to 200 lbs.
My old notes from 1971 show that I had a gonga load with IMR 4198..45 grains under a 250 grain hard cast Lyman round nose gave 2800 fps! I have a very special built Hoch mold. It was built 20 years ago to my design and drops a 325 grain hard cast bullet...340 in soft lead. With 57 grains of WW760 it gets very near 2200 fps...and I have never had one stay inside an animal all the way up to very large feral cattle well over a ton in weight. It’s a flat tipped round nose, bore riding and gas checked....It just fits my box magazine when loaded correctly, it is the heaviest bullet I have ever used from a 35 caliber rifle.
The afore mentioned Lyman 3589 280/290 grain bullet is my favorite. I can cast it soft...but water tempered...gas checked and Apache Blu lubed, at 1500 fps it is fun yet deadly on small game. Also loaded to around 1000 fps with 8 grains of Bullseye and a small wisp of Dacron holding the powder to the primer...I have take things like Javelina, large eating birds like turkey, and all kinds of varmints at close range.
I was brush hunting Javelina in 1979 when I spotted a mule deer about fifty yards from me. This is a quiet load...about like a kids cap gun. I shot him in the heart. He leaped up, kicked into his chest, and ran in a dead run for about 100 plus yards and fell down in a cloud of dust. Dead when I got to him. The Lyman soft cast bullet was against a low rib on the opposite side..it had mushed the heart...not the ideal deer load...but in a pinch with a dead on shot, it does the business.
When I had this rifle built I made sure it had deep and wide rifling for cast bullets. It shoots all manner of 357 bullets...cast and jacketed. I once had a 173 grain cast Keith bullet loaded to way over 2000 fps. Shot a little rabbit in the head at about 25 yards. It seemed like a long instant after the shot...there was a plopping sound. It was the top of the rabbit’s head, forehead up and the two ears hitting the ground after it had gone straight up....that’s all that was left except for tufts of fur blowing helter skelter....
I have taken deer and black bear...antelope and elk...I don’t know how many coyotes out to long range and back...feral dogs, crows, wild cats, one cougar treed by dogs, and all kinds of vermin. In the wilds of Virginia on power line cuts I have shot deer grazing at very long range....I have shot heavy feral cattle at ranges to 150 yards. And with rocks and such...if you can see the target you can walk shots into it...this is one of those calibers that pushes up dust when things are hit....
And then came the 35 Imp/Whelen. Let me say that I’m not sorry that I improved my rifle’s chamber. But it will not do anymore than the standard chambering would on the lower 48 states game...save yourself the extra cost of reamers and special dies. But if you want 93% of the power of the great 375 H&H Magnum...if you want brass that doesn’t stretch, necks that rarely need trimming, and one of the nicest looking loaded rounds you can find then mayhaps the Improved version Whelen is what you are looking for.
And as for the critics saying that it doesn’t up velocities enough to make it worth it. I can get near heavy 375 H&H Magnum velocities with 15 to 18 grains less powder! I think it is worth it, if you are going to take it to Africa...going to take it to Canada or Alaska...it will bring down the largest of the thin skinned game. And I don’t know why anyone would...except a situation like I faced in 1958...but with the right bullet it will even take down elephant! Many gun writers I respect have said that the all around rifle/caliber for the world can be the 375 H&H. Well 375s take extra long actions...expensive actions and with the 300 grain Barnes bullets for the Whelen...the 375 doesn’t even have that edge any more..you can hunt small game with a 375 H&H but it’s not really adaptable to handgun velocities up to medium deer loads...the Whelen especially the Improved version can do it all...it’s the poor man’s magnum rifle round.....
In the photo....the first cartridge case is an unfired R-P Whelen nickel...the next three are military standard: # 1.173 Keith cast bullet...#2. WW 250 grain jacketed soft nose..#3. 280 gr Lyman 3589 and #4. Is the Brown/Whelen Imp and the 280 gr...the two cast bullets are Lyman’s fine Keith designs in 173 and 215 grains....
BEST LOADS OVER 30 YEARS....
60/4320 IMR   220 JRN/Speer   2740fps/3668ft.lbs   1954Speer/catalog   
62.5 WW760   280 Lyman cast   2514fps/3930ft.lbs   heavy game   
45/4198 IMR   250 Lyman/cast   2800fps/4353ft.lbs   most powerful   
57/A2520   250gr WW JSN   2530fps/3554 ft.lbs   heavy game   
52/H335   275 JRN   2455 fps/3681   thick skin game   
61.5/A2520   180 JSN   3059 fps/3740ft.lbs   best all around jacket/load   
53/H335   250 gr WW/JSN   2525 fps/3540ft.lbs   heavy game   
57/ReL #7   150gr Rem Jacketed   3248 fps/3514 ft.lbs   medium game   
57/WW760   325 Hoch   2210 fps/3525ft.lbs   for large game   
8/Bullseye   280 Lyman   1001 fps/640 ft.lbs   pest/sm game load
....make it count

Offline kutenay

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9.3
« Reply #48 on: November 01, 2004, 06:27:49 AM »
I have a Merkel drilling, 12-12-9.3x74r and load both 270 Speers and 286 NPs in it, the groups are .5-.6" @ 100 yds. with a 4x Leupy. I had a guy I know machine down the rib, build a custom quarter-rib incorporating the guts from an Ashley ghost ring sight and build a custom front ramp with a Euro sourdough type sight blade. The rib takes Ruger rings and I like the light Leupy scopes on it. I also put on a Decelerator and this gun will shoot Brenneke slugs and the above bullets into a small group at 25 yds, this is good for Grizzlies while packing out meat, here in B.C.

I have friends that own and shoot 9.3x64 and 9.3x62 rifles, I have a Brno ZG_47 action and a Brno-21H action that will be converted to these rounds in the future as finances permit. I love these cartridges as they are as close to perfect for serious B.C. big game hunting as one could ask for. I also love the 7x57 and have had several, but, now have only two, a Brno 21-H and a Husky 4100. Ain't it funny how these old cartridges, along with the '06, the .375H&H, the .45-70, .30-30 and the .450 Nitro will cover all hunting and actually work better than most of their later successors?!

Offline Drilling Man

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9.3
« Reply #49 on: November 01, 2004, 11:58:40 AM »
I told the story above how the "first" set of Valmet 9.3x74R bbls came to be in the U.S. of A..  What i didn't mention is, that i was designing several wildcats on 412 bbl sets, and selling them through my gunshop.

  On my quest for more power, i designed a reamer that would clean out a stock 9.3x74R chamber into a "improved" chamber.  After fireforming the std brass, you could then load it back for quite a bit of V improvement.

  I still have one of the bbl sets around here someplace, but i haven't fired it in a LONG time.  I'll have to find my old data to refresh my memory on what the imp. chamber was giveing.

  Anyway, at that time i was selling a few of them, and guys proclaimed them to be one moose killing SOB, all of them was useing the 286 grain bullets i was supplying, and those bullets were either Speer .375 Granslams that i drew down to .366.  (at the V of the 74R cartridge, this didn't hurt the performance of the bullet one bit)  I also made .375 "bonded core" bullets for sale, and i did draw some of them down too.  I made them with pure lead cores, and type L copper tubeing that i drew into jackets.

  Anyway, i just thought i'd add to a bit this great thread.

  Drilling Man