All right everyone, having a problem with my amazing .35 whelen AI. it was a gift from my stepfather, and originally all the brass he had used was Winchester 06 brass sized in his dies then fireformed. When that brass finally went to the happy hunting grounds I bought some remington brass in 35 whelen. But I am having some interesting issues now and think that they are due to the brass.

loaded the loads for expanding, and didn't notice at the time, but noticed when I had the problem with the full loads (I'll get to that) that the primers had backed out on some of the rounds, but no flattening, flow, cratering, just backed out. Again, I noticed this sunday when I went to chrono full loads and sight the rifle in.

Anyways, first thing I noticed was saturday as I was loading the expanded brass I was seating the primers and they were going in real easy, and when seated rather than being flush with the base of the case they were sitting in deeper. I don't know how to measure that so can't say, but it was enough that you could see and feel that they were in pretty deep.

sunday I go to shoot and it is a load that was fired in the gun before and gave good results, they weren't so good this time (just over 2700fps with a 225g sierra game king out of a 26" douglas tube). anyways, the primers were flattening and it felt like there was a VERY SLIGHT snugness to the bolt on opening. That was when I looked at the remaining expanding rounds I had with me and noticed that when fired the primers backed out.

I even had one of the improved rounds that the firing pin barely indented the primer, so it didn't fire, I rechambered and tried again and it did fire.

My question then I guess is two fold (after the obvious question of could it be the brass)

1. Does it sound like the damn primer pockets arent' right? a bit too big and deep?

2. Is it possible that the 35 whelen factory dimensions are slightly different from the "wildcat" original dimensions and I have a problem there?

I am going to go back to standard winchester 06 and try it again and see what transpires. what a pain in the butt, my favorite rifle too. seems that every frickin' rifle I have is out of commision right now (except the open sighted 270 mauser)

thanks all.

Red

Primers should be "below" flush, so I'd say your pockets ore NOT to deep.
Remington brass has slightly less capacity than Winchester brass. In a 30-06 Rem brass needs about 1/2gr LESS powder than the Win brass to equil the same load.
Also Rem brass tends to be a little softer than the Win stuff (your Win brass had also been work hardened, to boot).
There is no standard for Wildcats, thats why there Wild.

I talked to my stepfather about this at lunch and he said that when he first had it built and was playing with loads he had primers backing out on him, he took it to the shop and final verdict was that his loads (for expanding) were underpowered and causing it to push the primer back.

I'll work on it and see what transpires.

Red

Dago There is nothing wrong with your primer pockets. Seat the primer to the bottom of the pocket as Tailgunner has suggested.The reason the primers are backing out is you have some headspace in the non fire-formed cartridges. The firing pin pushes the case as far forward as possible and is creating a space between the bolt face and case head.You had enough headspace on one round it wouldn't fire. It also sounds like your fireforming load is too mild and not properly forming your cases. I would suggest you seat the bullets far enough out that they will positively engage in the rifling. You should feel resistance in the last 1/4 to 1/8 of bolt travel.This will hold the case head firmly against the bolt face when you fireform new cases.You also want to use a heavy enough charge to properly form the case. I would suggest a starting load for a std 35 whelan with the bullet seated into the rifling will be fine. If you don't form those cases completly you will still have excessive headspace and could end up with case separations when you attemt to fire a full throttle load.

snowman,

i think you hit it on the head! I love this group. I will do it like that. I will make up a dummy, smoke the bullet, and find out exactly when it hits the lands, and make sure I get them so they are just on it for the fireforming.

Interesting, very intersting.....

thanks again.

Red

I do .280 AI's and .338-06's fairly frequently.

I FIRMLY seat the bullet into the lands. None of this smoke a bullet, figure out OAL and seat AT that distance. I seat maybe .030'-.040" too long so I KNOW I am into the lands, requiring firm pressure on the bolt to close it. NOT talking you need a 2x4 to close the bolt or you break into a sweat, but FIRM pressure.

I also use a starting load from the current Nosler manual with a powder on the FAST side of the burning rate chart. NO slow powders like 4831. BUT use IMR4895,etc.

As soon as I started fireforming by this method my problems stopped. Once you have good fireformed brass these guys are the same as loading a .30-06,etc.

FN in MT

[ 10-03-2003, 03:27: Message edited by: Frank Nowakowski ]

Dago Don't bother smoking that bullet. Frank has it right. Make sure that bullet is firmly in the rifling.Firm resistance on the last 1/4 to 1/8 of the bolt travel.

There is yet another way, Grasshopper.

Expand the necks of your .35 brass with a .375 expander ball, then size them back down in your .35 WH IMP sizing die BUT ONLY enough to allow them to enter the chamber with a bit of resistance. This is done by starting with your die screwed about .1" off of the shellholder and screwing it progressively deeper until the desired base-shoulder dimension is achieved.

This will give you a case that is properly headspacing on the new "false" shoulder. Headspacing on the shoulder (as a rimless cartridge properly should) will allow you to use full-power loads which shoot accurately on your first firing.