Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Express Rifles and Big Bores Only Question for the .400 Whelen Crowd

I was sure disappointed in the first batch of 350 Hawks. I’m glad I decided to try them again.

I think your assessment is on the mark. From what I’ve been able to garner from folks who have used Hawks more than me, is they perform well at moderate velocities.

I’m not sure how much expansion you’d get from a .050 jacket at Whelen velocity. Ought to penetrate well. My one moose with the 400 grain Hawk was a .025 jacket. The bullet exited and showed damage consistent with good expansion. It must have held together as I never found any shrapnel. No jacket slivers or slivers of lead.

I’m tempted to order some North Fork but to be honest I have so many Woodleigh and Barnes 400 grain it’s hard to justify buying more bullets.

The 400 Whelen is a great cartridge, mine holds 5 down with one in the pipe, 400 grains at 2255 fps on an '06 sized case is the very definition of efficiency.

LOL, damnit Man! ; ]

You aren’t kidding there.


This thread is hard to watch. 400W has always been on my radar.

Sorry....not sorry.

My 'smith just got all the parts today to put together a .358 Norma for me. I robbed a .358 barrel off a Montana Rifle Company 1999 .35 Whelen for that build so now I have a nice CRF action freed up for the .400 Whelen. The 1999 fed the .35 Whelen great so should be an excellent donor for the 400. While he was here picking up stuff we got to talking about possibly doing a Nilgai hunt in south Texas. Would be a fun hunt for the Norma or the 400. Maybe bring both and smack some pigs.

Man, AND the 358 Norma. Those are two I wanna do. I have barrels and all that jazz along with a Supergrade Classic action for the 358.

The 400 should be excellent. Kind of a nice darned big bore. Shouldn’t be a bad recoiler either with a decent made gun. Can’t wait to see how it comes out. What stock are you going to put on it?

The MRC 1999 was already bedded in an HS Precision so sticking with that for now. I think a little extra weight is not all bad in something spitting out 400 grain bullets. I would like to find a nice wood stock as well.

I agree. Should be a slick set up.

I need to find a donor for it but it’s always on my brain.

My road to the .400 Whelen and .400 Whelen-B of 2013 included this from 2000 AD:




That would make a nice rebore to .458 WinMag.
I wonder if JES can do a 1:10" twist .458 rebore ?
I would shorten the barrel and thread it for suppressor if it could be re-bored with 1:10" twist.

To stay on topic: Cast lead bullet sizing is good in a regular single stage reloading press.
Jacketed and monometal copper and brass requires more, but it is cheap and easy to come by:

If a person wanted to size some bullets down for paper patching to shoot in the 400 Whelen with duplexed BP,
I bet the right size could be found here, amongst this set of custom-ordered LEE bullet sizers:





Remember back when a person could do things like order bullet sizers from Lee and CH4D and expect to see them in a few weeks ?

I think the LEE and CH4D are both good sizers.
LEE sold them for a more reasonable price.

That’s a cool Ruger!

And very neat about the bullet sizing. Never done it. I should though.

Great stuff Riflecrank! My first Whelen (.35) is a Ruger 77 Stainless also.







I like that resizing setup. Interesting process.

LOL, it's a dandy big Buddy.

Many Thanks for all that Sir Ron, best i can tell it'd take around 400 bucks to get set up with the press and CH4D dies, i may have to regroup or rethink this project, iirc have between 2 and 300 of the 400gr partitions.

Sir Jerry,
If turning a few of the 400-gr/.416 Partitions into 400-gr/.411 Partitions is all you want to do,
send a sample to me and I will return them to you post transformation.
Or I'll just bring the equipment to the next Square Table Picnic.

MedRiver,
I do love the Zytel Canoe Paddle stocks. Indestructible and light weight.
Love the Ruger M77 too.
The only inaccurate one I ever had was an M77 Ultralight Pushfeed .270 WCF with a pencil barrel in a skinny walnut factory stock.
It would generally shoot into my hat size at 100 yards.

All of the CRF Mark II and Hawkeye M77s I have had were accurate, as was my first M77 Pushfeed .30-06 circa 1981,
which would shoot 3 shots into 0.5 MOA, and still does, over 40 years later.

A most accurate .300 WinMag in a Zytel stock, even with a Tasco "World Class" 3-9x40mm mildot scope,
I would not change a thing about her 9 pounds and 2 ounces as shown here:



Other Zytel Wunderrifles:
The .458 WM that weighs 9#4oz with the 2.5X Leupold scope:





The bare-rifle weight with iron sights of a 20"-barreled .416 Ruger in Zytel stock is 7 pounds 0 ounces:



The bare-rifle weight with iron sights of a 20"-barreled .375 Ruger in Zytel stock is 7 pounds 5 ounces:



Ye olde Hogue factory stock weighs about 2.5 pounds. Zytel weighs about 1.5 pounds.
Easy one pound off the rifle.
Those silly laminated grip panel inserts would add an ounce and need to be checkered.
The standard Zytel grip panels are better.
I do like to have the noisy sling hangers replaced with Uncle Mike's studs.
And either a replacement recoil pad or a slip-on LOP adjuster is a treat.

Back to Whelens:

A factory Ruger M77 Hawkeye .35 Whelen weighed 7.0 pounds out of the box,
with 22" barrel of only 0.560" muzzle diameter (OH MY ! ):









That M77 Hawkeye was re-barreled to .400 Whelen (Petrov-G&H-JGS)
with a Shilen No. 5 sporter of 23.6" length and 0.725" muzzle diameter.
It weighed 7 lbs 14 oz in the factory walnut stock, slick-barreled/bare/dry/empty.
I let the gunsmith keep that .35-cal take-off barrel. I never fired the rifle as .35 Whelen, before the re-barrel to .400 Whelen.

Great looking rifles! My go to big game rifle has been a paddle stock .300 Win Mag for quite a while now. It has the new swivel treatment. Loses the aesthetics of the swivel but sure is nice to remove a sling easily or add a bipod.



Been a very accurate and reliable killer with the 180 TTSX

That'll work, many Thanks Sir Ron.