Just curious if a 35 Whelen could be rechambered to 358 Norma Mag without much difficulty?

I asked the same question not too long ago, and the responses I got were yes. The Norma reamer should clean things up nicely. The only other work would be to open up the bolt face and possibly tweak the feeding.

Yes it can, and the 358 Norma is a most overlooked caliber, it will compete with the 338 or the 375...I have not owned one but I have seen it perform on some very big tough animals and it impressed me to no end.....

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Originally posted by Sniper:
Just curious if a 35 Whelen could be rechambered to 358 Norma Mag without much difficulty?

Actually it depends.....if you have a pushfeed bolt it'll take a little more.....and frankly I'd rather keep the whelen than convert it. If you have a claw extracter in a CRF it's a lot easier to do.

If you really want a .358 Norma.(agree with Ray.....extremely powerful) start with a 7MM mag or some magnum in .531 Diameter now....it's a cake walk to convert them regardless of feed type.

I had one done on a M98. Be sure the smith is comfortable with doing the feed work. Mine wasn't so I only paid for the rechamber and boltface but did the feeding myself.

It most definitely will get your attention, esp. with 280gr Swifts, but I have not managed to work up better than about 1.75" @ 100yd groups with a 1-14" barrel.

It'll definitely kick buitt with 250's, but if you;re really into the 270-310g bullets, go 1-12.

What 35 Whelen are you converting? The 358 NM is at its best with 250-gr. and heavier bullets, but Remington and Remington factory 35 Whelens have a 1:16 twist, which is a bit slow for 250-gr. bullets. The faster speed of the Norma might make up for the slower twist, but it might not. If it's a custom 35 Whelen with a faster twist, all the previous advice applies. Also, the factory 35 Whelens have 22" barrels, which is kind of short for the Norma cartridge.

Okie John

My M-77 Mk II had a 22" barrel and a 1:16 twist. Before you rechamber, work up to the max load of RL-15 (per the Alliant website) under a 250-gr. Nosler Partition or either 250-gr. Hornady bullet. If your Ruger is like mine, you'll get 2,550 fps and 1 MOA with all three. Then crunch the numbers through the ballistic calculator on the Norma website, then hump that little 7.5-lb rifle over some steep terrain in elk country. You may decide that with a 35 Whelen loaded to its full potential, you don't need a 358 Norma after all.


Okie John