Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles The 35 Whelen Is Dull & Boring

Fixing to be there pretty soon myself. Loading up about 100 rounds for bigger cartridges and 2-300 of each for 222 and 223.

I wished Browning would have made the BLR and BAR in 35 whelen. A Winchester 1895 in 35 whelen too.

The poor bear must have got between you and big buck.

I wish Ruger would chamber their guide rifle or Alaskan in the 35 Whelen. I was all set to have a re-bore done on a 30-06 guide rifle, now I am debating on leaving this one as is. Those darn rifle decisions.
I do think the 35 Whelen is a step-up. I may have to look for another donor rifle.

No 35 Whelen, but I have a Remington 673 in 350 Rem mag. Seems to be a short action version of the balliatics

This! The closest thing I see to this is the pricey Remington 7600's in .35 Whelen that pop up on GunBroker regularly.

If you've never seen it before, this blog post from a guy who found a rebored 30-06 Winchester 1895 on GunBroker in 2014 is an interesting read. I doubt you would find one today for $800 though:

https://762precision.com/2014/06/28/1895-browning-35-whelen-beautification-project/

Mississippi & Louisiana allow breech-loaded single-shots with an exposed hammer chambered for >= .35 caliber to be used during primitive season. So I wrote a letter to Winchester asking them to make an 1885 in .35 Whelen, .350 Legend,..., basically anything that started with .35*. They thanked me for my suggestion and promptly ignored my request but fortunately I wasn't holding my breath thinking they would actually do it. At the moment my Mississippi hunting is fairly short-ranged so I'm getting by with an 1885 in .44 Magnum.

Here's my 1895 in 35 Whelen. It's one of my rifles that's not going anywhere. Rebored by Labounty Precision long ago.

I'm a one-trick pony so had to diversify a bit.

I loaded a ton of 5.56 and some smaller stuff along with enough to hunt with last fall, but apparently I have a bigger shooting problem that I'd originally thought.

I used a 7600 35 Whelen while I was in Kodiak. It was pleasantly accurate. Not overly uncomfortable on the shoulder. I only killed one deer with it. With a 225 grain TBBC bullet, it penetrated through the near side shoulder, exited the opposite rear ham and demolished lungs along the way. I sold it when I left AK. I had no need for it down here on the Gulf Coast.

That certainly doesn't suck!

If having a need for a rifle is the reason for owning a rifle, then I’m doing it wrong.

I’m originally from south LA. I have two friends down there who both have a single-shot .35 Whelen CVA but that’s because of the primitive hunting requirements. It’s definitely overkill for the game they’ll encounter. A .350 Legend would probably be a more practical choice for that area.

They do (or did) offer BLR’s in .358. I had one. With modern powders a .358 does everything “legacy” .35 Whelen’s did, with the exception of 250+ grain bullets, where COAL will be the limiter.

I can get 2700 fps with 200’s out of my 20” bolt .358. That’s definitely in the realm of factory Whelen loadings. I throttle it back to around 2650 just because that’s my normal MO, but I never saw a single pressure sign at those speeds in either .358 I loaded for, the BLR or my M7. That’s using RL7.

They also used to offer the BLR in .325 WSM. Had one of those, too. That’s Whelen-esque.

The .358 is listed as still in production on 3 out of 4 models on the Browning website. The .325 is listed as “out of production”. Now how that translates into actual availability during these times is another question entirely. The .358’s available on GB are going for 100’s over MSRP. But for certain models & calibers of rifles that seems pretty common lately.

Yeah, used prices for anything desirable are nuts.

If anyone ever runs across a used pistol-grip BLR in .325 WSM with a matte finish on the wood and the best trigger they've ever felt on a BLR... buy it! That was mine. I dulled the finish with fine steel wool (came out great) and I found a guy (Neil Jones) who’d work on BLR triggers and he “fixed” it. It was a good rifle. Quite accurate with with everything I loaded for it. It did copper-foul like nothing else I’ve ever run.

I grew up shooting a Remington 7600 in 30/06 so the choice of my Whelen was easy enough. Besides I shoot left handed so my choices in a left-hand Whelen in a factory rifle were zero. As stated above we can use a 35 caliber or larger single shot rifle with an exposed hammer in our "primitive weapons" season in Louisiana so I also have a CVA single shot for that.

Does anyone have any experience with the Barnes 200gr TTSX and white tail deer? I've killed a fair amount of deer with a Marlin in 35 Remington and a BLR81 in 358Win. The Marlin sees nothing but hand loaded 200gr
Core-Lokts and the 358 has been used with 200gr Hornady RN, 220gr Speer FP Hot cores and 225gr Nosler Partitions. While I love round nose bullets the partitions have become the favored load...not that they're needed for white tails but they shoot good and will penetrate from any direction.

I feel like the Hornady RN are too soft to run at max speed in the Whelen or I would have already tried them on deer. I know the Barnes TTSX will out penetrate anything else but wonder if our smallish deer offer enough resistance for it expand without hitting bone. I've never used a Barnes bullet so I would like to hear real world experiences of the Whelen and the TTSX. Any expansion or should I shoot something softer?

I bagged a smaller buck this year with the Whelen loaded with the 200gr Barnes TTSX. It performed as expected. He piled up close to where he stood and was very easy to find in the taller grass of an uncut prairie. I find that the Barnes open up quickly and hang together for virtually zero weight loss. It's an excellent bullet and one of my favorites.