I’m loading for my cousin’s Ruger No. 1 in 35 Whelan. We’ve been having problems with light primer strikes and misfires with this rifle. When he first purchased the gun (new) he had misfires with both my reloads and Remington factory ammo. He had a local gunsmith work on the gun and things seemed OK for a while but the problem returned. Doesn’t do it every time. When the gun fires, primer strikes look normal but are very light on misfires. He took my advice and sent the gun back to Ruger. They returned the gun without much information on what was done, but did indicate that they polished the chamber and feed ramp. Didn’t mention anything about headspacing. They said the firing pin protrusion was within in spec. and they test fired the gun with Hornady ammo.

When he got the gun back he brought it over my house for some testing, so I took a few of his fired cases and just primed them to see if they would fire. The first shot just went “click.” Very light primer strike. Tried four different primed cases of which two fired the primer and two didn’t with very light primer strikes. The ones that fired had normal looking fired primers.

I used an RCBS FL resizing die to deprime the cases. The die is set for partial sizing without bumping back the shoulder. His fired cases chambered easily in the gun before resizing/depriming. When I raise the ram on my Rockchucker press the shellholder doesn’t contact the bottom of the sizing die. There is a .021 space between the shellholder and the bottom of the die. He just picked up a box of Remington factory ammo and we’re going to run in through the rifle to see how that works before contact Ruger again.

Anyone have any insight to this problem? Seems like it could be a headspacing problem to me with the small shoulder on the Whelan. Do you think a neck sizing die would help? I don't have the gun or cases with me, so I can't post pictures.

BTW – It’s a really nice gun and very accurate with 225 Gr. Nosler Partitions. It’s a limited run gun in stainless steel with better wood than you see on most black pad Rugers.

Thanks for your help.

The 35 Whelan is known for this mostly because the brass is undersized. Experienced it myself on two that I owned when using new Remington brass.

Here is what I would do. Load the cases up with a stiff load and seat the bullets out as long as possible. Hopefully the bullets will engage the rifling and you can still close the "bolt".

After shooting these rounds this resize the brass a little at a time until they will chamber without resistance. Do not resize more than needed.

It should fix the issue if the chamber was cut properly. Easier to do on a bolt action but you should be able to fix it on the Ruger.

I bet anything that your brass is too short, headspace wise. I know, you aren't Fl sizing it. Is it factory brass or made from 06 brass?
If it shoots Hornady factory ammo, then you will have your answer. I am sure, I hope, Ruger checked the headspace while they had it but you can do the same with a no go gauge. Try this; partially seat a primer in an empty case and chamber it. If the breech block does not fully seat the primer then you know you have excessive headspace, either in the chamber or in the brass.
The "doesn't do it every time" thing tells me that it is your brass, being variable in headspace. Maybe.

Take a few cases - say about 5 and expand them with a tapered .375 expander. If you have a .400 or .408 expander you could try it too.

Then carefully size the cases back down with out an expander in the FL .35 Whelen die.

One of the Stony Point/ Hornady "headspace" guages is good to use for this next part.

Size the case down until the length is about .020 longer than a fired case. Check for possible chambering.

Keep creeping the die setting down and resizing that one case until the breech block with just barely close with some drag. Put the expander back into the die. FL size and load one case and fire it.

Once you determine the exact number the breech will close on, set the die to that dimension and lock it. The cases should control the headspace and fire everytime.

BTW the .35 Whelen has a larger shoulder than the .35 Remington. The .35 Remington also suffers from misfires some times and it is cured the same way.

dpcd - It's Remington factory Whelan brass. Thanks guys for all the suggestions. Keep them coming if anyone knows some other tricks.

quote:

Originally posted by Labman:
dpcd - It's Remington factory Whelan brass. Thanks guys for all the suggestions. Keep them coming if anyone knows some other tricks.

All my issues were with new Remington brass. It is slightly undersized for most chambers.
Just look at it as needing to fire form brass for a wildcat

Yep, treat is as if fireforming cases for a wildcat; I use the "jam a bullet into the rifling" method, with a medium, not max, load. Opening up the neck is too much work. for me.

Ruger #1's can be touchy when it comes to sizing brass...as all break action or falling block actions can be. Without the camming action of a bolt, shoulder setback when resizing can lead to teeth gnashing and verbal abuse toward your shooter.

The Whelan has had problems in the NEF also with Rem factory ammo having a "short" shoulder and misfires. Basically boiled down to undersized cartridges and oversized NEF chambers. Many solved the problem by rechambering to the AI version.

Once you get a round to fire then measure the shoulder. You can use the Stoney/Hornady tool or just make one by drilling out a squared off piece of alum/steel/brass etc, and keeping it for future reference...13/32 drill is perfect....basically do a copy.

Compare it to an unfired new case, it will probably raise your eyebrows.

Weak firing pin springs don't help the situation or slightly short firing pin protrusion can be a "hidden in plain sight" problem.

I have a couple of rifles that have headspace's of OVER 0.025"...I use Redding competition shell holders I purchased direct that are 0.025" and 0.030" thicker than standard. Then I shave the bottom of the sizer down to fit...I DON'T LIKE PARTIAL SIZING...you need the ram to contact the bottom of the die and NOT cam over to square the case and make sure the case shoulder is sized back uniformly on each and every case...that doesn't happen during partial sizing....arguably.

ALSO...reset the sizing die to the fired case...DON'T BELIEVE WHAT CAME BEFORE, it's a sure path to going in circles...start from scratch following SR4759's advice...what he posted is pretty much standard procedures for wildcats or "messed up" chambers.

Not to put too fine a point on it but, Ruger's repair service sucks...I've sent many rifles in for repair (in the distant past) and only two came back "fixed"...one was just a stock replacement, the other was a barrel replacement. Maybe just my bad luck back then...

Thanks for all the suggestions and here's an update:

First I tried dcpd's suggestion with the primer and the breechblock didn't completely seat the fired primer. I then took a dozen cases (Remington is all we have) and loaded them with 55 Grs. IMR 4604 and Hornady 200 Gr. bullets. These are relatively short bullets but was all we had on hand. I loaded them as long as possible and you could just feel a slight drag on the breechblock when they were chambered. Tried 12 rounds and they all fired. Take a look at the pictures below and you can see the shoulder was moved forward on the fired case. The loaded round on the right is one that previously misfired. It was loaded to a length of 3.222.





Not the greatest pictures but you can see how the shoulder was moved. Looks like the problem may well have been the Remington brass. Next step will be to reload these rounds without pushing the shoulder back with bullets seated to normal depth.

My cousin is looking to buy some Hornady brass but we can't find any. May buy Nosler (which I believe is made by Norma)or Norma.

I"m hoping a different brand of brass will solve the problem without having to resort to fire forming. Do you guys think a neck sizing die (versus partial resizing) would help when reloading new brass (non Remington) or reloading brass that we have fire formed?

Thanks again for all the help.

IMO just fire form and be done with it. No need to buy another die.
Fire forming cases is a great way to get in some good off hand practice. Plus as you already found out, it works.

Good job; as Snow said, if you use the brass now, it will fit if you don't push the shoulder back. You only have to do it once.

My old Whelen was a custom rifle in the 1950's so it's chamber is it's chamber anyway. Even though I have a FL die that came with the rifle, I use a Lee Collet Die to neck size 90+% of the time. Works great and is easy on the brass life. I use both Rem 35 Whelen brass and upsized FA Match 30-06 brass. Love the old Match brass. 50 years old and still going strong.