Bought a CVA/BPI Apex single shot in .35 Whelen last year for our so-called "primitive weapon" season here in Mississippi, which is ridiculous but now legal (single shot, exposed hammer, any caliber .35 or larger).
Mounted a Zeiss Conquest 3x9x40, bought some of the new Hornady Superformance loads, 200 gr. psp @ 2850 fps, which is one hell of a powerful pill out of the '06 case, amazing.
Didn't really expect this load and gun combination to stack bullets, but thought anything under 2" would be fine for the occasional deer or hog.
The gun won't shoot this load or Hornady's new Custom load, a 175 gr. psp @ 2900 fps. 4" groups with both loads is the best it will do.
The CVA tech guy first suggested a heavier bullet (250 gr.), to which I said absolutely no due to recoil and being totally unnecessary for my use. He then said he thought it might be a problem with the scope base that came with the gun, saying there has been some problems with bad tolerances where the rings clamp on. I was highly skeptical this was the problem, but they wanted to send me, at no charge, one of their Durasight one-piece base scope mounts (
http://www.durasight.com/), which I said was fine. Then...
I put my old rifleman's cap on and asked what the rate of twist is on this caliber in the Apex. He told me 1 in 14, which I immediately thought is too slow to stabilize these bullets. Would have figured at least 1 in 12 for this cartridge would have been more appropriate. Do I have it backwards, a slower rate for lighter bullets? Have I got a rifle that I can't use with 200 gr. or lighter bullets. Not going to start back reloading, and only Remington loads a 250 gr. slug @ 2400 fps.
Whatchall think?
JR
