Once upon a time I was the sort of guy who gave in to temptation without stopping to think about whether something was logical or not. It was exactly that sort of lifestyle which caused me to end purchasing my 'dedicated elk rifle(which is also used for deer hunting) in .35 Whelen. Once upon a time, as an impressionable hormonal teenager I had read an article in Bugle about the .35 Whelen, and I swore that someday, I was going to have one. Well, eventually, I got my wish.
Another part of that vision was that I was also going to learn how to reload...someday. That part of the dream hasn't come to fruition yet.
.35 Whelen ammo being a little bit unusual, I kept an eye out for it. Back then there were only 3 factory loads I could find in the stores...2 from Remington, and 1 from Federal. The Remington loads were both in their basic 'Green Box' line...and uninspiring. The Federal load was a nice 225gr Trophy Bonded Bear Claw load...but it wasn't cheap. A bit of internet research found me a few online manufactures...one place called Conley Precision Cartridges, and the The Hunting Shack in Montana.
Both were cheaper than what was being asked for the Federal load in stores, and had more impressive ballistic tables than the Remington loads. All things appearing equal, I went through The Hunting Shack, because shipping was cheaper from Montana than Mississippi. A short time later, Sportsman's Warehouse decided to get out of the .35 Whelen business, so I was able to get 4 boxes of the Federal stuff for 50% off.
This gave me about 300 rounds of .35 Whelen, and 4 years later, I still had 80-100 rounds of it...which is nice for some hunters, but is starting to hit the worrying point for me. About a year ago I did some looking, and it was pretty tough to find, even online(forget stores...hadn't seen .35 Whelen other than Remington's 'Green Box' loads in person for a while). Conley still had it, but their prices had gone up a bit since last time, and The Hunting Shack didn't have it listed. I guess the nice thing about getting worried with 100 rounds left is it gives you time to keep an eye out instead of panicking. Was I going to be forced to learn to reload...or would it be easier/cheaper to use this as an excuse to go pick up something new .30-06?
Finally, I jumped back on the computer today and did some more searching...and to my mind at least, there seem to be many more choices available for me than a year ago. I have found .35 Whelen offerings from several 'custom order' places($$$$) but there was a loaded offering from Nosler, Double Tap, Buffalo Bore(They call it 'Supercharged'), and a new Superperformance load from Hornady.
It was the Hornady load that caught my eye...both because of it's ballistics(2900FPS!!!!!!) and the fact that it is actually in-stock at Midway's website. I see an order in my future.
The only real concern I have is that the load uses a standard soft-point bullet. This doesn't worry me for deer, but on elk, I would have to do my part to avoid the near-side shoulder(which is the right thing to do anyways). The ammunition industry, in addition to trying to convince everyone that the NEED the newest Ultra/Short Mag cartridge, does a pretty good job of marketing the newest 'controlled expansion' bullet.
But, just like the .30-06 and .30-30 can drop game just as good as .300 RUM when the bullet is in the right place, a basic non-name brand SP bullet can do the same thing.
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