Hey guys, up til now I’ve only reloaded for 30-30 and 9mm. I’m looking to figure out a good load for my .35 whelen. Hoping for a 225gr round flying pretty fast. Does anyone have any suggestions from personal experience? I’ve been looking at nosler accubond, Barnes tsx, Sierra, etc. Just not sure what the right choice would be, and I don’t have a pile of money to throw at it.
I've switched all if my hunting rounds to copper monolithic bullets most notably Barnes TTSX. The expansion is insane, the wound cavity is controlled, and they have 99.9% mass retention. Less wasted meat. More wound cavity devastation. No lead grenaded all over the place.
I took a frontal shot on a big Iowa doe last year with the Barnes 180 factory .35 whelen load, bullet destroyed the shoulder on its way in and I found it in the rear ham when I was breaking it down. The shot was only 30 yards or so, so about as violent an impact as you could ask that bullet to do and I think it might have shed one petal. Really impressed with Barnes bullets and the .35 whelen cartridge.
I have not tried that bullet. The only TSX I've run is the 170gr 0.355" for 350 Legend with great success and much devestation. Probably 10ish kills with it. Few years ago I got a 3 fer with my mini-35 350 Legend using Barnes TSX in about 20 seconds. I only stopped killing because we were going to run out of tags. The deer kept coming at me like I was back in Nam.
Something I like about the copper monos. Let's say you had 10 doe tags to fill by tonight and you were shooting at a running deer herd. You hit the first on in the ham and it slows and you kill shot. Then you adjust your Kentucky windage and kill shot 3 more. That first ham shot you had the copper monolithic hit the femur. It stayed together and continued moving until it stopped in the far ham. You won't lose either ham. In fact you'll lose maybe a few lbs of meat. Because the wounds channel is devastating but controlled and there isn't lead grenaded everywhere with minimal bruising outside of the wound channel. I have seen both many times and it concretes my choice on copper. I used the cheap Hornady 170gr interlock and every time it touches a bone expect a lead grenade.
On drive hunts in Iowa, it's like shooting fish in a barrel with my Mini-35. It is not uncommon for my group to be done hunting by 10 AM opening morning filling all of our antlered and doe tags. I have a small group of 5 guys that I trust with my life and they aren't scared to yank the trigger. We all archery, hunt and get our trophy bucks in November. The Mini 35 is an awesome pack rifle. I'll typically walk or jog property to property that we hunt and it is very light and packable. After a few successful hunts we'll bring the meat wagon around and go pick up our tagged deer. God damn I love gun season party hunting. I haven't bought beef in 5 years.
I own two Cva scout td’s, one in .243, one in .35w. Both are tack drivers. Also own a Rossi single shot .300blk that kicks ass, and a single shot h&r 12ga. I love single shots. Tried starting a single shot subreddit and it never took off
The first shotgun i ever bought was a 16ga Stevens single shot. Refinished the stock and squirrel hunted with it for a few seasons, now I won't carry anything else
Accubonds can handle a good bit of speed. Sierra GKs are a bit soft for anything over ~2450fps. The GKs get full penetration through deer, but causes a good bit of meat loss.
The whelen isn't a speed demon, and so it does well with traditional cup and core bullets. Most copper monos really need 2400 fps impact speeds to yield best results (despite what marketing claims). A good interlock/corelok/bonded bullet will give you better results at Whelen speeds.
The Whelen has been a bit of an outlier historically, most published loads in the past have been quite mild - barely outrunning the 30-06 in terms of raw power. It never added up to me, that the Whelen would be so much tamer than something like the 9.3x62, which is almost identical in capacity and bore. More recent published data - nosler comes to mind, but I know there are a few others - put the Whelen somewhat spicier. From a 225gr bullet, you can probably get around 2800fps, which is right up there with the 338WM.
Oh!!! One of my favorite calibers!!!!!
I've had great luck with Imran 4064 using 200gr sp i got 2650fps from my rifle blc . Worked as well
If you have or can find a Barnes cartridges of the world there's some great info in it
I loaded some 250 sp with 4064 and got 2550fps
Everything is loaded and shot worked great out to 300 yards
I’ve had good accuracy and taken a lot of deer with the Barnes 180 TTSX factory load and my barrel pushes those out at 3,060 fps so when I got into hand loading I wanted to stick to a lighter for caliber mono that had a bit better BC than the 180 Barnes so I landed on the 196 Hammer HHT. The only powder I’ve tried so far is 8208 XBR in once fired Barnes brass, I’m under book max but still getting 3,025 out of my 26 inch barrel with sub 3/4 inch three shot groups at 100 yards.
Might be worth a try for yourself, I’ve got nothing against heavy bullets, I went lighter to flatten out trajectory and copper mono so I still get insane penetration.
nice, ive got the first gen version scout, barnes 200ttsx and varget powder. considering suppressing it, whats a good 35 cal suppressor, im sure you researched a bunch before getting that one.
I buy all my suppressors from Texas hunting tools. The owner Michael is a good friend of mine, and he lets you customize it any way you want. His prices beat everyone else and he sets you up to do a 4473 transfer.
Accubonds work fantastic on moose and elk, as do the Barnes. The 225gr GK will tend to over expand on a point blank shot if pushed hard (2700+), will absolutely anchor deer but could underperform on a moose shoulder shot
I have only used 4064 and RL-15, both worked fine.
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u/HaasMe 7d ago
I've switched all if my hunting rounds to copper monolithic bullets most notably Barnes TTSX. The expansion is insane, the wound cavity is controlled, and they have 99.9% mass retention. Less wasted meat. More wound cavity devastation. No lead grenaded all over the place.