I have the Remington 700 Classic that came out in 1988. I have never taken game with it and I shoot it very little. That 250gr. Rem will set your shoulder back a little. I bought it in hopes that I would eventually draw a Maine moose tag. After 15 or so years, I gave up. Never had a desire to shoot a deer with it. With less than a hundred rounds through it, it has basically been a safe queen for over thirty years.
I was reading storied written by African Professional Hunters. Kevin Robertson, a veternarian and PM commented that he 35 Whelen was the most under rated caliber he had seen. He preferred rifles of that nature over the 300 magnums tha tmade a lot of noise but did not always perform as well on game. Ballistic statistics have a proper anagram, BS.
I love the 35 Whelan. Mine is in a heavy laminated stock and I hardly notice the recoil. My favorite load is the 250 gr Hornady bullet at 2450fps. After all, I wanted it for a thumper.
Reloading and Hawk bullets go together well in the 35 Whelen, 350 Rem Mag. Own both, but the 350 has been with a friend for a few years (Ruger Stainless All Weather). About the same ballisticaly, the 350 seems to be harder on the cases. Can get the 35 Hawks with a standard pure soft copper jacket/ soft lead core that is absolutely DRT on lighter game like deer and hold together well indicating should work for much larger game. Most common commercial 35 bullets designed for something other than the 35 Remington, are harder to much harder and somewhat brittle.
These bullet test I did here, confirm the effect I was seeing on deer. Not the best bullets for those who like to eat up to the bullet hole, but great for folks who want the deer down now, even with marginal hits.
Probably one of the reasons the 35 Whelen is not as popular is eihter the desire for magums or the fact taht it is really more gun than many of us need. In most white tail situations many of us are shooting at under 100 yards and at that range the old 35 Remington is pretty effective. Go above it and you blow up meat. It has also been proven on black bear. If one lives in an area where bigger game is around then a more potent rifle like the Whelen is handy. I ahve always thought when you look at the down range performance it is a better choice than the 444. Most hunters I know who won the bigger magnums are also using rifles that are unnecessary. I go rid of my 270 because it wasted too much meat, and at most I shot up to about 250 yards. The 6.5CM I have now is good enough as is the 35 for closer range stands. Owning a big rifle is good for day dreaming but one can be over gunned.
The 9.3×62mm (also known as 9.3×62mm Mauser) is a rifle cartridge suitable for hunting larger species of animals in Africa, Europe, and North America. It was introduced by Otto Bock in 1905. The cartridge has a slight power edge over the popular .35 Whelen cartridge. Both these cartridges are real world stoppers and are greatly underrated because the word MAGNUM is missing. There really is little to chose between them, I use a 9.3x62mm on deer with the 230gr Lapua capped hollow point they really do tend to be DRT. Buy the 35 Whelen it too is a very fine cartridge and will stop most things that walk the earth. And cause less damage to a deer than you would think.GH
I hunted Elk and Moose for 3 decades with my custom built m700 35 Whelen, precision Douglas bbl and it was a tack driver. I mainly loaded 225gr for out West but when hunting Grizz country, I'd load 250gr pills. In 3 decades I never needed a second shot.
35 Whelen is a very versatile round that you can load up or down for your needs.
The 9.3×62mm (also known as 9.3×62mm Mauser) is a rifle cartridge suitable for hunting larger species of animals in Africa, Europe, and North America. It was introduced by Otto Bock in 1905. The cartridge has a slight power edge over the popular .35 Whelen cartridge. Both these cartridges are real world stoppers and are greatly underrated because the word MAGNUM is missing. There really is little to chose between them, I use a 9.3x62mm on deer with the 230gr Lapua capped hollow point they really do tend to be DRT. Buy the 35 Whelen it too is a very fine cartridge and will stop most things that walk the earth. And cause less damage to a deer than you would think.GH
Just for kicks I went on Midway USA and priced ammo for both cartridges. The 35 Whelen is loaded for North American use and as such the bullet weights are 200 and 250 grain for longer range shooting. The 9.3 was generally loaded with heavier bullets for shooting bigger game like it was designed to do. If you reload the 35W has bullets like A Square and Woodleigh available for larger game but the factory loads were generally for elk and moose. Surprisingly the cost for ammo was not all that much different but the 9.3 was a little higher. Some of it was due to the bullet selections and loadings. 9.3X62 is a fascinating cartridge but my 6.5 Creedmoor seems to do all I need on them, as does my 35 Remington, 8mm Mauser, 30-30 etc. Dead is dead and as Gareth pointed out some of the big game bullets really don't do that much extra as they are designed to penetrate. These big rifles are fascinating though.
Though I no longer own my 9.3 if I truly had only one rifle to HAVE to live/get by with and ammo wasn’t an issue it would be either the 35 Whelen or the 9.3x62 especially if I was living up North.
I bought an older Winchester 670 and had it re-bored to 35 Whelen and then Magna-Ported to eliminate muzzle jump. I'm very pleased with this project but I won't ever hunt deer with it because way too much energy for medium sized animals.
I had one fallow me home , a CVA single shot, I have loaded ammo for it , and want a day at the range. I still have no idea why I got it I have a .338-06 , 9.3x62mm Mauser and .375 H&H Mag. but it looked liked fun to play with.
Mine is build on an FN Supreme Mauser action and seems to like the 225 grain Noslers. I really like it. The recoil isn't bad and it is accurate. I see you are another Missouri guy. I would think the Whelen might be fun on the feral hogs we have running around.
I had to leave for work for 8 days and while I was gone my buddy sold the 35 Whelen . I forgot to tell him to put it back for me but I've got plenty of guns to hunt with. I live in rice country south of poplar bluff and so far we haven't got the hog problem yet
Kind of an interesting sidebar, some of the guys over at the CMP site have taken M1 Garands and had the old barrels re-bored to 35 Whelen. They put an adjustable gas port on and have a pretty neat semi-auto in a hard hitting caliber. I'm surprised no piggies around Poplar Bluff. They are about an hour south of us in the Piedmont area. A friend has a cattle ranch/farm down there and he has declared war on them. He has the Conservation Dept. trapping them and he has put together an AR10 with suppressor and night vision. He is pretty serious about getting rid of the pigs.
I've heard there's a bunch of them around Greenville and around the lake but I live in naylor that's only 5 miles from the state line and I don't figure there's enough woods for them here
I had a 35w on a 03 action before Rem standardized it. I didn't have it built, bought it at auction. I've had a couple since on trades but the only one I shot was the custom 03. It was a very accurate rifle and would do 1" at 100yds average. I never had a 350mg in other than 600 series rifles but they weren't near as accurate as the 35w. I might not be a fair comparison against a standard rifle. If I wanted a 35 in this power range I would go for the 35w over the 350mg.
Late-comer to this thread, but I have some good input... I have been intrigued by this cartridge's history and power for years, and finally spec-ed out a Shaw Mk-VII bolt gun in late 2018. Bought factory ammo of 6 different flavors (Buffalo Bore, Barnes Vortex, Remington Core-Lokt, Federal, etc.).
Very erratic, very disheartening results. 100 yards groups struggling to get below 2 inches, no rhyme or reason to the zero wandering all over the place, no consistency beyond 200 yards. I was ready to take the scope off and start from scratch,concluding that the Leupold VX-5 CDX was jumping around or damaged.
Then, just before starting the tear down... Tried one last flavor of factory ammo; Nosler Trophy Grade, 225 grain.
Wow.
Fired one shot to clear the bore, then produced this 3 shot group at 100 yards. .63 MOA from a historic caliber that can't leverage modern high BC bullets. An hour later the rifle was hitting a 10 inch plate at 415 yards, and I don't even have the correct CDX turret yet. I have not seen any other results like this from factory ammo, and I will be buying a lifetime supply once Nosler does another run.
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