I'm sure it is discussed in the 400 Whelen thread but I missed it. What is the length of Quality Cartridge's 400 Whelen brass?

ramrod,

I'm up on the slope and not where I can get a measurement but 2.52 seems to stick in my head. I have some new unsized QC 400 Whelen at home. I'll measure it next week when I get home.

Mart

Ramrod340:

Don't like to read, eh? I am gonna ask you to try this anyway:

Re. Quality Cartridge 400 Whelen headstamped cylindrical brass:

I recommend it for your 400 PDK. It is not as soft as the batch of AHR stuff we tried.
It will give you about 3 grains of water greater capacity than the AHR also.

The older make of QualCart brass might be as Mart says,
but it probably has an internal donut in the last half of the neck.
Rusty and I rejected it and had Pete remake it.
Now much better and drawn out a little longer, + 2.600" as cylindrical.
Maybe a final draw step has improved the hardness too.

From "the other thread":

"The QualCart 400 Whelen cylindrical brass that is 2.606" long to start with
grows to 2.620" when it is run through the RCBS 400 Whelen FL sizer."


The "400 Whelen Berry of 2013" dummies:





The first fired cases:

I got rained out of chronographing, but did fire 10 rounds into a dirt berm in a backyard, in the rain.

6 pieces of QualCart brass were fired for first time, with 300-gr TSX.
Starting load was 52.0 grains of H4198, with F215 "Magnum" large rifle primer, in the 400 WB.
No problems with the QualCart brass so far.





Rusty de-capped the other 3 pieces and measured the primer pockets with his guage. No primer pocket expansion was noted.

The Quality Cartridge brass seems to be adequately hard.
I will anneal the case necks after I get a big enough batch fired.

The QC brass is also lighter in weight and has about 3 grains H2O greater capacity than AHR and RP brass.
They grow about 0.005" in length on initial fire-forming of the sized cases. These cases went from 2.487" to 2.492" average of only 3 cases:

Weight of case: 176.1 grains, including spent primer.
H2O gross, fired, not resized: 82.2 grains.

By comparison, the AHR basic and the RP 35 Whelen fire-formed both weigh about 202 to 205 grains and hold about 79.0 to 79.1 grains of water, latest check.

The QC brass has quite a bit of needlessly removed brass from the head for that funky taper above the extractor groove cut. That will not make the brass stronger.
Seems good so far, however.
Feeds well, fits bolt face and extractor well.

Maybe the Magnum primer was "overkill" on the ignition of starting load.
When I get to chronograph the H4198 I will start over with the Winchester WLR standard large rifle that has worked so well previously in the 400 WP,
with extruded powders up to about 60-grain charge.
Save the magnum primers for the ball powders, for now.

I get to update QuickLOAD to 82 grains instead of 79 next time I QL the 400 WB.

quote:

Don't like to read, eh? I am gonna ask you to try this anyway:

Don't believe I said I didn't like to read. Only that I had missed it.

Seeing where you had posted the info I know for a fact I had ASSUMED it to be in the early part of the tread and had simply given up. I know I had talked to QC a couple of years ago and had remember a number in the 2.5+" which didn't do me any good.

I did notice that AHR didn't list brass on their site the other day. Wayne might be out of the brass business.

I have about 75 RP from z-hat which I use for hunting. I use the AHR for my light pistol bullet loads. I have noticed a variation in the neck tensions of the AHR brass. Just enough to allow me to feel it when I load the bullet.

Be interested to see how your brass holds up. Might need to get a couple of pieces from you and form them in the PDK and see what the capacity is. But for now I don't need to hit anything any harder.

Thanks for taking the time to post the info for us old shooters that have trouble seeing or are simply to lazy to read the last page.

I'm not a handloader but those shoulders seem a bit slight to me. Wouldn't the "improved" case shoulder be better?

quote:

Originally posted by 376 steyr:
I'm not a handloader but those shoulders seem a bit slight to me. Wouldn't the "improved" case shoulder be better?

376,

Do an internet search for "400 Whelen" and you will come up with an article by Michael Petrov that completely dispels the headspace myth of the 400 Whelen. I can attest, as can several others here, that the 400 Whelen in it's original form (which is an improved design), has ample shoulder on which to headspace. I have over a thousand rounds down range with mine with no failures to fire.

I would recommend reading this thread in it's entirety. It will answer most any question you might have regarding the "slight" shoulder. There are also some long threads on the Campfire that cover the same ground.

Mart

quote:

Originally posted by mart:

quote:

Originally posted by 376 steyr:
I'm not a handloader but those shoulders seem a bit slight to me. Wouldn't the "improved" case shoulder be better?

376,

Do an internet search for "400 Whelen" and you will come up with an article by Michael Petrov that completely dispels the headspace myth of the 400 Whelen. I can attest, as can several others here, that the 400 Whelen in it's original form (which is an improved design), has ample shoulder on which to headspace. I have over a thousand rounds down range with mine with no failures to fire.

I would recommend reading this thread in it's entirety. It will answer most any question you might have regarding the "slight" shoulder. There are also some long threads on the Campfire that cover the same ground.

Mart

Thanks, Mart.
You mean "The Other Thread" not this thread.
The 400 Whelen Berry has .003" greater difference in shoulder diameter and neck-1 diameter.
If the 400 Whelen Petrov is fool-proof, then the 400 Whelen Berry is idiot-proof.
The Other Thread:

http://forums.accuratereloadin...043/m/7511088471/p/1

Yes, I did mean the other thread. Good catch. I must of suffered from cranial gas passing.

Back on topic. I bought 80 rounds of unfired, unformed Qual cart from the classifieds here a couple of months back. I checked them today. the OAL was 2.550. I formed 50 of them for load testing with AA 2495 and some 400 grain bullets. Can't seem to find any H4895 so have to try what is available.

Mart