The .400 Whelen cartridge was developed by Colonel

Townsend Whelen Townsend Whelen (March 6, 1877 – December 23, 1961), called "Townie" by his friends, was an American hunter, soldier, writer, outdoorsman and rifleman. Whelen was a colonel in the United States Army, and a prolific writer on guns and hunting, ...

while he was commanding officer of

Frankford Arsenal The Frankford Arsenal is a former United States Army ammunition plant located adjacent to the Bridesburg neighborhood of Northeast Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, north of the original course of Frankford Creek. History Opened in 1816 on of lan ...

in the early 1920s. The cartridge resembles a

.30-06 Springfield The .30-06 Springfield cartridge (pronounced "thirty- aught-six" ), 7.62×63mm in metric notation, and called the .30 Gov't '06 by Winchester, was introduced to the United States Army in 1906 and later standardized; it remained in military us ...

case necked up to .40 caliber to accept bullets manufactured for the

.405 Winchester The .405 Winchester / 10.45x65mmR (.405 WCF) is a rimmed centerfire rifle cartridge introduced in 1904 for the Winchester 1895 lever-action rifle.Cartridges Of The World, Frank Barnes, Krause Publications It remains to this day one of the most ...

Design

Colonel Whelen asserted the very small remaining portion of the .30-06's 17° 30 angled shoulder was likely to cause potentially dangerous

headspace Headspace may refer to: Science and technology * Headspace gas chromatography, a technique in analytical chemistry * Headspace or ullage, the unfilled space in a container * Headspace technology, the gaseous constituents of a closed space abo ...

difficulties.Sharpe, Philip B. ''Complete Guide To Handloading'' (1953) Funk & Wagnalls pp.206&398 The headspace issue has been widely discussed. Frankford Arsenal machine shop foreman

James Howe James Howe (born August 2, 1946) is an American children's writer who has written more than 79 juvenile and young adult fiction books. He is best known for the Bunnicula series about a vampire rabbit that sucks the juice out of vegetables. B ...

necked down cylindrical

brass Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc, in proportions which can be varied to achieve different colours and mechanical, electrical, acoustic and chemical properties, but copper typically has the larger proportion, generally copper and zinc. I ...

available in the arsenal manufacturing process to form cartridges with a shoulder to fit the chamber of his rifles. Experimenters had less success forming cartridges by enlarging the necks of .30-06 cartridges with (or smaller) shoulders, but could form brass from

.35 Whelen The .35 Whelen is a powerful medium-bore rifle cartridge that does not require a magnum action or a magnum bolt-face. The parent of this cartridge is the .30-06 Springfield, which is necked-up to accept a bullet diameter of . This cartridge i ...

cases. Quality Cartridge has manufactured unformed, cylindrical empty brass cases

headstamp A headstamp is the markings on the bottom of a cartridge case designed for a firearm. It usually tells who manufactured the case. If it is a civilian case it often also tells the caliber: if it is military, the year of manufacture is often added ...

ed for this cartridge.

Performance

Griffin & Howe Griffin & Howe, Inc. is an American firearms manufacturer headquartered in Andover, New Jersey. Founded in 1923 by Seymour Robert Griffin, a New York City cabinetmaker, and James Virgil Howe, foreman of the machine shop at the Frankford Arsenal in ...

chambered custom-built rifles for this cartridge; and using neck resizing with cases carefully fire formed to the chamber in which the loaded cartridges were to be used, these rifles were reportedly very effective for killing

elk The elk (: ''elk'' or ''elks''; ''Cervus canadensis'') or wapiti, is the second largest species within the deer family, Cervidae, and one of the largest terrestrial mammals in its native range of North America and Central and East Asia. ...

moose The moose (: 'moose'; used in North America) or elk (: 'elk' or 'elks'; used in Eurasia) (''Alces alces'') is the world's tallest, largest and heaviest extant species of deer and the only species in the genus ''Alces''. It is also the tal ...

, and

bear Bears are carnivoran mammals of the family (biology), family Ursidae (). They are classified as caniforms, or doglike carnivorans. Although only eight species of bears are extant, they are widespread, appearing in a wide variety of habitats ...

at ranges up to .

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:400 Whelen Pistol and rifle cartridges

Design

Performance

See also

References

External links