Oh well, crap happens!

I was hunting deer last week on the last day of Alabama's season near Union Springs. The tract I was on is knee deep in deer, and, as is typical of Alabama deer, the bucks were in full rut (Alabama is the only state that has deer rut this late).

I was hunting with my brand new, old rifle. I guess I need to explain that one. You see, in 1965, my dad gave me a Winchester Model 70 in 30-'06 for my 15th birthday (yes, it was the "new" stamped-parts, push-feed, post-'64 model, but a 15-year-old receiving his first rifle could care less).

Over the years, I used that rifle to take dozens of whitetails, a bear, and numerous other critters. Even though I accumulated a few dozen rifles of various calibers over the years, I kept coming back to this one as my "go to" deer rifle, partly because of sentimental reasons.

Then a few years back, the gun started shooting rather inconsistantly at the range. I (incorrectly) assumed that I had finally managed to "shoot out" the barrel. Then I got a bright idea: why not re-barrel the gun to a caliber that I had always wanted to try -- .35 Whelen? (I now have two other '06s)

So I took it to a gunsmith who had done a bit of work for me on other guns, and had him rent a reamer and buy a Hart barrel and begin the work. Then about a month into the project, he called me and said that he was finished with the rebarreling and chambering, but when he was fitting the action back the the original Winchester stock, he found a long, length-wise crack in the bottom of the forend channel of the stock that extended into the action (which is probably what ailed the gun in the first place).

He recommended a new stock, and said that he had a Hogue Overmolded take-off stock that would fit it. I said ok, and he finished the gun.

That was four years ago, and to make a loooooong story short, the rifle would not shoot worth a damn. We tried handloads, standard factory loads, custom loads; we tried setting the barrel back; rebedding the action; full-length bedding of the action; re-crowning the barrel -- nothing worked!

For the last two years, it just sat on the rack in his shop while he was "thinking" on what to try next. Finally, I decided to give up on it (him?) and went and paid a discounted price for the work performed and brought the gun home, along with the split stock.

One day, a friend walked into my gun room and noticed the Model 70 stock leaning against the wall and inquired about it. I related the whole story to him, after which he said, "why don't you simply repair that stock with epoxy and bed the .35 action into it to see if that won't solve your accuracy problem?

My first reaction was negative, seeing as we had bedded and rebedded the Hogue stock, but then I thought "what the hell?

Not wanting to go to the original smith, I took the gun to Neal Spruill, owner of Hogleg Smiths in Gainsville, Georgia. Neal has done accuracy work for me before and is a very conciencious smith. He looked at it and said he'd give it a try.

A few days later, he called and said he was finished, and felt like this would solve my problem, as the Hogue stock was ill-fitted and seemed to bind the action. He said the split in the original Model 70 stock had been an easy repair, and felt like it would hold well without cross bolting. He charged me a hundred bucks.

When I picked up the gun, I went straight to the range with two different handloads: one with 225-grain Nosler Partitions, and another with 225-grain Nosler Ballistic Tips (I bought them before they were discontinued and replaced by Accubonds).

Low-and-behold, the gun shot well -- not great -- but well: one-and-a-quarter inches at 100 yards. Not too shabby for a first range experience with a generic load. So I decided to take it hunting!

Now, keep in mind that I had only one range session with the rifle, and only shot it at 100 yards. I know that with this caliber, a little extra practice is necessary if it is to be used at longer ranges, but I didn't have the time to or ammo loaded to shoot at the longer ranges, besides, 90 percent of all deer in the southern U.S. are taken at ranges under 100 yards.

So it was that I took this rifle when I was invited to hunt a piece of property in Alabama by a neighbor of mine in Atlanta who owns it, but was in the process of selling it. For this reason, he said all antler restrictions were cancelled and to shoot whatever I saw. "Cool beans", I thought, "I need more venison in the freezer."

When we got to the property after a three-hour, pre-dawn drive from Atlanta, I was directed to walk up a power line to a green field that lay just off the line, and climb a stand on the field's edge. I had just pulled my rifle up and chambered a round and noticed that there was a deer crossing the field. A glance in the scope confirmed that it was a moderate-sized eight pointer that I would probably pass up on my own property, but, hey, I had been instructed to shoot everything! So I placed the crosshairs on the shoulder, squeezed the trigger, and missed!

I couldn't believe it. Thinking that there is no way I missed, I figured I'd find him piled up in the woods just off the field. I waited a hour-and-a-half before going to look for him (passing up several does that crossed the field in the mean time)

When I finally got down and went to look for blood, I got a rather strange feeling, because the more steps I took out to where he as standing, the further away the spot seemed to be from the stand. When I got there, I looked back at the stand, and realized that it was about 250 yards away. Over an hour of scouring the field and the woods withoud finding any blood-sign confirmed my fear: I had shot under the buck with a low-in-the shoulder hold.

Knowing that I had blown any chance of seeing any more deer that morning on this field, I walked back to the power line and started walking to the top of the hill. When I topped the hill, the recently mowed line stretched out before me for a clear half-mile of visibility. Not that I needed a half-mile, as the three deer that were standing in the middle of the line were only about a 150 yards away!

There they were, three does. I contemplated taking one, when I noticed that they all three were distracted by something taking place off the power line. So I waited. Sure enough, a few seconds later out runs a tall-racked buck and takes to running one of the does. I eased over to a power pole, braced my rifle on the side and took aim a the center of the buck's shoulder when he stopped. I squeezed the trigger, and missed!

This time I knew I missed, because the buck only ran a couple of yards and stopped again to look back at what the heck was causing all that racket. I chambered another round, and quickly decided that I had misunderestimated the range -- again! This time I aimed at the top of the buck's shoulder and squeezed the trigger.

This time, the deer hunched forward and ran off the power line. About that time, one of the does comes running back onto the line and stops and looks at me. I decided that this is a sign from God that he wants me to shoot her, so I took aim high on the shoulder, and squeezed the trigger -- snap!

This is when I remembered that I had started the day with only two down and one up, and I had fired all three of them. So I calmly reached in my pocket and pull out a 225-grain Partition and dropped it in the chamber, closed the bolt, took aim at the doe that had not budged and fired. She bolted forward, dragging an obviously broken leg on the off-shoulder.

"Wow," I thought, "I've got two deer down even after missing that one earlier." But then, darker thought set in, "I've also got no dead deer in front of me, so there is a chance that I will not recover one of them, or worse, both of them!"

With this dark thought in mind, I headed down the line to the last point I had seen the buck. The pines he ran into were fairly open, and I had a pretty good fix on where he had been, but I could not find any blood. "Don't panic," I thought. "You know they sometimes run 50 yards before the start bleeding." So I walked into the woods with that in mind.

I had walked about 25 yards when suddenly I spotted the deer piled up against the base of a pine tree about 50 yards into the woods. I walked up and found that my bullet had hit him right on the tip of the shoulder bone, dead center of mass, and, surprisingly, had not exited. I quickly field dressed him and walked back to the power line to hunt the doe.

I had a less-good fix on where the doe was standing, and the woods on that side of the power line were much thicker. My recurring nightmare at this time was that broken leg she was dragging. Had my shot simply passed under the chest into the leg? If so, I knew I was in for a long, and frustrating search.

I walked into the woods at the approximate location she had exited and found no sign. So I decided to parallel the power line, about 25-yards into the woods. After finding no sign of blood or the deer, I moved deeper into the woods and started another sweep, when suddenly, there it was -- a blood trail! Check that: it was more like a blood highway!

Never have I seen a wider, more voluminous, blood trail. It was almost continuous, with only about five feet of gap between the puddles. My confidence returned, however I did start to wonder a bit what was going on, as I followed it further and further away from the power line. Suddenly the blood trail stopped. Fortunately it stopped right at the dead deer about 125 yards from where I shot her.

A quick post mortum revealed that my bullet had entered the very bottom of the deer's chest and barely clipped the bottom of the heart, before exiting the chest and breaking the off-leg. Two more inches, and it would have been a clean miss!

After getting both deer drug to the power line, I stepped off the distance from where I shot each deer. The buck was 260 yards away when I shot it, and the doe, 240 yards. Something tells me that it might be time to invest in a range finder! (Just kidding: I have one that I use on western and African hunts.)

So, there's the story, albeit a long story, of my first hunt with my new, old .35 Whelen. It wasn't a "perfect" first hunt, and I aired out some pretty embarrassing details. But I did manage to bring home two deer, and in the process, breathed new life into an old rifle, which, by the way, means an awful lot to me.

BTW, when I left the truck that morning, I almost took an open-sighted, Remington Model 141 Gamemaster in .32 Remington caliber instead of the scoped Whelen. Imagine what kind of story I would be telling had I stuck to that plan?

Good story, sounds like a little more range time to get used to your rifle is all that is needed.

I've been using a .35 Whelen with 250 Grain Nosler handloads(@2,525 fps)
since 2001 and have made some long shots with it. The longest being a Shiras moose
that I knew was 280 yards away. A hold on his nose dropped the bullet right into his brisket.
Sighted 3 inches high at 100 yeards, a .35 Whelen can do the job out there a ways if you know
the range and are familiar with the drop table......................................

Range
Velocity Energy Momentum Drop Windage Lead Time
(yards) (ft/sec) (ft-lbs) (lbs-sec) (inches) (inches) (inches) (sec)
0 2531.6 3557.7 2.81 -1.5 0.0 0.0 0.000
50 2433.1 3286.0 2.70 1.5 0.2 10.6 0.060
100 2336.9 3031.4 2.59 3.0 0.9 21.7 0.123
150 2243.2 2793.0 2.49 2.9 2.0 33.2 0.189
200 2151.1 2568.6 2.39 1.1 3.6 45.3 0.257
250 2061.1 2358.1 2.29 -2.6 5.7 57.8 0.328
300 1973.3 2161.4 2.19 -8.3 8.3 70.9 0.403


Rich Elliott

I can think of one area where it might be okay. Nothing much over 250 yards but for the other two areas..I think I'd rather have something just a bit flatter to fill that $15,000 (ouch) license.
Rich Elliott

Just kidding, Rich. I'm afraid my African hunting ship sank at the same time as the housing market.

I'm a residential builder and developer, you see. Or, more accurately, "was".

Right now I'm shooting the 225 grain partitions in my Whelen. I sight it 2" high at 100 yards and it's dead on at 200 yards.

59 Grains RL-15 (from Nosler's website) gets me about 2,700 FPS and it drops into a deer at 300 yards without a hold over.....but the real trick is knowing the range.....and that's why I'm now searching for a deal on a rangefinder! I want a minimum 1500 yards range finder to assure me of a reading on a soft target at 500 yards.....and armed with the right information the .35 Whelen is capable of all of the 500 yards.....it's definitely not the rainbow trajectory I originally thought it was.....it's a darn fine long range weapon and until I get into something better it's my "go to" elk rifle!

It's also a fine african round so don't forget it the next time you go on safari.....

btw.....it'll shoot well inside a half dollar at 100 yards so do a bit more work on the bedding and it'll give you some surprising groups too!

Congratulations on stickin' with it. A lot of folks would hang their head and spend a lot of good Hunting time feeling sorry for themselves. The 35Whe is a great cartridge which you will really enjoy.

Continued good Hnting and clean 1-shot Kills.

Nice outcome on the hunt.
I use 200 grain bullets in my 35 Whelen for deer and up to 250 grain for everything else.
So far I have done a number on coyotes out to 135 yards and deer out to 300 + - yards it will reach out and do the job quite well.

GA:

I have been using 225 Ballistic tips or Accubonds, with IMR4064 @ 2750FPS 2" high at 100 yds, and I am shooting elk @ 225yds with a right on hold.Like others have said, a great cartridge.

Jerry

I liked the story. It makes me want to push my brother-in-law more about arranging an Alabama hunt for me. As usual with Bro-in-laws, he talks alot, with little results re hunting. My sister has him trained very well indeed. The price of happiness.

Recently I acquired a really nice 35 Whelen too. It kinda fell into place. It's one of those rifles that offers little challange in load development or at the range, so I've shot it very little. My first round of handloads produced what I was looking for, so I stopped. Someday, I'll get to use it on deer and hogs, and maybe a black bear.

Congrats, and happy hunting.

KB

Here's a picture of my 35 Whelen:

Don't know that this will help any, but in my whelen, I use 225 grain Barnes "X" flat base with consistent results on game.

quote:

Originally posted by Kabluewy:
I liked the story. It makes me want to push my brother-in-law more about arranging an Alabama hunt for me. As usual with Bro-in-laws, he talks alot, with little results re hunting. My sister has him trained very well indeed. The price of happiness.

In all honesty, this particular tract is not typical of all of Alabama. It used to be part of one of the best Black Belt plantations in the state, before it was subdivided into three different tracts -- this one being the smallest. In fact, if you ever used to watch Buckmaster TV, you saw the very greenfields I was hunting over. Jackie Bushman used to film all his special handicapped hunts there.

I felt privledged to be able to hunt it, even if it was just this one time.

There is a lot of deer in South Alabama. Covington county was listed as 35/sq mile several years ago. At that time there was no limit per day. Adjacent counties are also high. My brother averages one/year with his truck. My oldest son has wrecked 2 cars from deer jumping out of ditches and my youngest son hit one on his motorcycle. Fortunately he was well dressed and going slowly. In the rut they are really stupid.
They are there but you still have to look for them most of the time.

quote:

Originally posted by Crazyhorseconsulting:
Don't know that this will help any, but in my whelen, I use 225 grain Barnes "X" flat base with consistent results on game.

Although I haven't tried it yet, the 225 TSX would be my bullet of choice, assuming it shoots well. The only reason I haven't tried it yet is because I have maybe 160 of the 250gr bullets in Hornady RN and Woodliegh RN. I need to shoot them first, because if I had 35 cal TSX bullets, the others wouldn't get used.

KB

To me using anything lighter than 250 grain bullets in a .35 Whelen sort of defeats the orginal purpose of the round.
Rich Elliott

The original purpose of the round was steeped in hype. Whatever that was got messed with, as many factory rifles have 16" twist rate, which isn't the best for heavy bullets anyway. Besides, the TSX wasn't available back then, and since it's intro, it changes the game.

Besides, we have the excellent 9.3x62 to cover that niche.

My rifle has a 14" twist rate, so 250gr works well. I firmly think that whatever the heavy 35 cal bullets will do, the 225 TSX will do as well, and in some basic regards, better.

KB

quote:

Alabama is the only state that has deer rut this late

Bullshit! Look at a map. Alabama backs up against Florida. And Florida goes a whole lot further south than Alabama does. So, the rut in Florida is actually a little later than it is in Alabama. I'll be in Florida next week catching the last week of the muzzleloader season. I'll be hunting the Perdido River, which is the border between Florida and Alabama. And if it is like all the other years, the deer should be rutting up a storm.

Here's a rut map from the end of January. It shows that only bucks in South Alabama and that portion of Florida adjacent (Panhandle) to South Alabama in which the buck were in rut. Most of Florida shows the deer there to be in post rut.

http://www.versus.com/blogs/rut-map/

quote:

Originally posted by GAHUNTER:
Here's a rut map from the end of January. It shows that only bucks in South Alabama and that portion of Florida adjacent (Panhandle) to South Alabama in which the buck were in rut. Most of Florida shows the deer there to be in post rut.

http://www.versus.com/blogs/rut-map/

So, if the deer rut in the Florida panhandle at the same time, doesn't that prove that Alabama isn't the only state with deer rutting this late? Isn't Florida a different state than Alabama?

Where I hunt is just across the river from Alabama and I assure you the deer there rut right about now. I'll let you know when I shoot a couple next week.

Bullet Performance in The 35 Whelen: Here's a couple examples of bullets I have removed from elk. A 250 Grain Speer Hot Core @ 2600fps, entered between the ribs, and blew up in the heart, recovered weight 56 grains. Now I know some will bitch about lack of weight retention, but the elk was dead right there. Range was 133yds. 225 Grain Nosler Ballistic Tip, my favorite bullet in the Whelen, I like Accubonds as well, but haven't used them as much. This bullet entered the left side in front of the rear quarter, as it was a running shot, traveled the whole length of the elk, and stopped on the inside of the hide at the center chest. Retention weight 206 grains, only lost 19 grains of bullet weight, if that is important. The range was 225 yds, velocity 2750fps. I have not used many Barnes bullets, as I have a hard time getting them to group well in my rifles. I do however, love the 300MZX for muzzel loading.

Regards

Jerry

I have read that in Fl, you have does coming into season just about year around. And you can see fawns just about any time. I'm sure there is a time where more activity takes place but considering that the deer don't have the rigors of winter to confront, they could breed all year.

yes, any caliber can be used to shoot longer ranges as long as we know thier trajectories. Not to stir the pot or anything but none of the 35's were designed to shoot long range. Their mission was to deliver more energy inside a shorter range window and the bullets that are available tend to support that theory.

The 30-06 is clearly a better choice using 180 grain bullets over the 35 Whelen but the Whelen shines using 250 grain bullets. IMO!

Captain:

I have shot elk with both cartridges and bullets. It'd be hard for me to choose the 30-06 over the Whelen on elk out to say 300 yds. The 225 Ballistic Tip/Accubond, @ 2750fps+ extends the Whelen out at least that far, although I have never had the need to shoot an elk over 225yds. Most have been 100yds or less, the last one was at 25yds. The 180 Nosler Partition in the 30-06, will travel right thru a bull elk shot behind the shoulder @ 200yds. Excellent performance by any standard. Choose either for elk, with the right bullet, and you have no worries. But as you say for close range work, with heavy bullets, the Whelen is excellent.

Jerry