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Craig SanfordA sleepless night. I experienced back to back misfires in my .35 Whelen. Ammo was Remington factory 250 grain core lokt. One of the two misfired cartridges did fire on a second try. Bolt disassembly revealed no damage, nor excess fouling. I previously had a couple misfires in this rifle but they occurred far enough apart and under different enough circumstances that I never felt concerned, and the rifle has otherwise reliably fired hundreds of rounds with very good accuracy. One of the previous misfires was with a hand load using fire formed .30-06 brass (which could have been attributed to human error) and the other previous misfire was with factory Barnes ammo that was a leftover partial box and had been kept in less than ideal conditions for some time. Having these two new misfires back to back with properly stored Remington factory ammo has now shaken my confidence. Turning to the web reveals a number of threads on the topic of headspace and the .35 Whelen. The consensus is that rifles built before the cartridge was SAAMI standardized may be more prone to the problem, as these were all custom builds and by default used only ammo specifically hand loaded for each individual rifle. My rifle falls into this category. Yet there are still anecdotal reports of this problem occurring in Ruger and CVA rifles of much more recent manufacture. Considering that this chambering is not extremely common it may seem reasonable to conclude that this may be a problem with a disproportionate number of rifles. The seemingly more knowledgeable commentators on the topic are adamant in their assertion that there is nothing wrong with the cartridge design and that it has ample shoulder to control headspace. They say poor manufacturing of the guns themselves is the true culprit. I tend to concur, except that I would choose the word sufficient rather than ample to describe the shoulder. I find several comments relating of misfires with Remington's Whelen ammunition and some consensus that it may be problematic. I have personally shot a good amount of this Remington ammunition myself before experiencing this problem. Examining the misfired cartridge (the one that didnt work on the second try) I find the shoulder looks and feels somewhat more rounded and slight compared to other unfired cases. This begs the question (at least in my mind) could this cartridge design, though not inherently flawed, simply be uncommonly sensitive to subtle variations in brass and individual chambers? |
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Scott StruifRe: .35 Whelen headspace?Hi Craig. If you suspect a light firing pin strike to be the culprit, You could try increasing the firing pin spring pressure by addding a washer behind it. |
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Ed SybertRe: .35 Whelen headspace?Craig said: "The consensus is that rifles built before the cartridge was SAAMI standardized may be more prone to the problem, as these were all custom builds and by default used only ammo specifically hand loaded for each individual rifle. My rifle falls into this category." And in this lies the solution. Craig can use one of the commercially available tools to measure the "headspace" from the datum line on the case to the head - after depriming the case without resizing it. He can then set-up a full length resizing die to leave the case shoulder just short of this measurement. He will most likely find that factory ammunition has case "headspace" measurements far short of his fired cases. |
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Craig SanfordRe: .35 Whelen headspace?Yes, Ive only had one misfire with hand loaded ammo. That one may have been due to human error (as previously speculated) or maybe just a dud primer. I wasnt worried about that one misfire out of hundreds of reloads. The main concern is getting multiple misfires (not consistently or regularly, but rather randomly and sporadically) with saami spec factory ammo in a chamber that is within spec. I probably only muddied the water by saying my gun is an older one, which is not really the issue here, but cant go back to edit that out. Anyway. The easy answer is always roll your own but this isnt always an option. The supply of reloading components is inconsistent at best in my area and there are times when grabbing a box or two of factory ammo is appealing or just plain necessary. This gun has fired a great many rounds of factory ammo before these misfires, in fact had her out again a few days ago without a problem, nice groups too. Chances are she will go bang when needed, but the possibility that she wont will be in the back of my mind. I just cant fully trust factory ammo in this chambering going forward. |