Is anyone still shooting this? At the Las Vegas show this past weekend I came across a newly made Mauser in that calibre, 26" barrel, very attractive and well made classically styled rifle with no maker's name on it. Looked the ammo up, Kynoch is making it again, 225 grains at 2625fs, Woodleigh bullet. Taylor thought this was a very good general African calibre. In power rather stronger than a .35 Whelen. I am tempted by the nice rifle, I like the long barrel, and would appreciate any opinions.

According to my reloading manual, the .35 whelen will do that with a 22" barrel and a .338-06 will do 2700'/sec with a 225 grain bullet in a 23 1/2" barrel.....but of course they don't have the classic "Rigby" name attached.

For me, if I was all set for a .35 caliber, I'd be a checking out the .358 Norma Magnum. VERY SERIOUS madicine in that round.

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vigillinus

If you had decent brass you could load the 350 Rigby to leave the 35 Whelen in the dust. One of the forum leaders Paul H has one made up and he was using 375 H&H brass with the belts machined off them. Bertram make brass but it might be soft but should be fine for doing original 350 Rigby ballistics.

With all the activity occurring on CZ 416 Rigbys I thought that the 350 Rigby might get going to some degree.

Mike

ALf

Why are bullets hard to come by?

Does not Woodleigh make good usable bullets for this caliber?

I'm buliding one of these soon!

S

ALF,
That is one classic rifle!

Talking about bullet sourcing, Barnes makes a couple good ones as does Speer. The Woodleigh bullets are also still available from Midway in 225 gr and 310 grain softpoints. Expensive, but available. Another good reliable bullet is the 225 grain Nosler Partition.

I load my 35 Whelen up to 2625 with the 225 grain Barnes X and found it near perfect for plains game out to 300 yards. I think I would still rather have a 350 Rigby though.

How about brass where can you get it? Ive been gathering parts to build a bolt gun. thinking either 35 whelen or 350 rigby. Really would like to try the rigby if its not too much more hassel.
Dean

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I am rebuilding one in my shop. However I would like to point out that the older 350 Rigby is also known as a 350/400 N.E. and it is a rimmed (flanged) shell and the 350 magnum is a rimless shell. They are NOT the same. Both are from Rigby. The older 350 was used in single and double rifles before 1898, and Rigby had Mauser make slant box M-98 square bridge actions after the great old action was introduced, to feed it.
The later shell, the magnum, was designed by Rigby , also to be used in the Mauser action, but with the regular magazine. I am working on one of the early slant box rifles.
The older shell fired a 310gr bullet, and the magnum was only available with the 225 grain bullet. Getting good brass for either one is very difficult today, and very expencive. (I have not had good luck with Bertram)
One common quote, which we've all read, is that the 93X74R was a German shell offered to compete with the 375 H&H. Not so. The 9.3X74R is older than the 375 H&H. It was designed to compete with the Rigby 350. In fact, the 9.3X74R and the 350/400 shells are so similar that it is posible to re-barrel the older slant box mauser in the 9.3, and no action work is reuqired at all. It works flawlessly. This is something to think about if You need to rework an old 350/400, but are having ammo problems. The 9.3X74R is an outstanding shell in it's own right. Low pressure, low recoil, and it will do anything the older Rigby shell will do, and will beat the Rigby magnum shell in it's effectiveness on game up to about 200 yds.

Just info...............

As John mentioned, he re-chambered my 35 Whelen Ackley to 350 Rigby. As an Ackley, the gun would only group 250's when pushed to 2700 fps, which is simply too hot for that size case in a 24" barrel. I also didn't like the way the nearly straight Ackley case fed, so with Mike 375's evil idea planted into my head, John S having a reasonably priced set of used dies, and Al Foden lending a reamer for the project, the barreled action was sent down to John to work his wonders. I guess you could the gun was an AR collaboration.



With very little load work, 2-3 sessions, I found that a 250 gr hornady rn over 66gr Varget was the magic combo for 3 shot 5/8" groups at 2700 fps on the dot. Not bad for a cheapo Midway barrel, military mauser trigger and 2.5X glass. The case capacity is nearly identical to the 358 Norma, hence the same performance level at modern pressures. I've also found a wonderful cast bullet load, 358009 Lyman ~280 gr over 44 gr RL 15 for an estimated 2000 fps, and 5 shot moa groups.



As John Ricks mentioned, the round feeds to perfection. Case body taper is for all intents and purposes identical to the 375 H&H, but with the 45 degree shoulder, no belt is needed. It is interesting that the 350 Rigby Magnum pre-dated the 375 H&H Magnum by 2 years, with essentially the same case, sans belt.



So, with the a wonderful classic round, sexy case, perfect 35 bore, what could be wrong with this round? That wonderful sexy case is either very expensive and dog doo soft from Bertram, or a torturous exercise to modify. Yes, you can chuck the brass in the lathe, cut off the belt, deepen the extractor groove, cut down the rim. Then you can fl size the case and hope to get that 45 deg shoulder back where it needs to go, then back on the lathe to trim to 2.76". If you did get the shoulder back, then you'll have great brass. If you didn't set the shoulder back far enough, the bolt won't close on the chamber, and no matter how many times you try and run it through the die, you won't be able to set it back any more. If you try once fired 375 H&H brass, you'll find the cases like to separate at the shoulder/body junction.



The Bertram brass is fine with the cast bullet loads, but flows into the bolt head will full patch loads. I'll have to do some more load work to see at what point the Bertram brass flows. Huntingtons did have 350 Rigby brass on clearance $10/20, much better than the previous $60/20. Hornbear lists the case, but as others will attest, actually receiving the brass is a time consuming and uncertain process.



(editing note, don't know why ' and " hosed up the post?)



If you can get the gun with a decent supply of quality brass, then by all means go for it.

Yea, I wish Betram would find a way to solve their soft brass problem. A shame, as they do offer a lot of old cartridge cases.