I recently did a good amount of shooting with my CVA Scout 35 Whelen v2. Sorry to dredge up an old thread, but I figured it made more sense to add here than start a new one.
TLDR; my take is that this rifle is sort of an odd combination if one's purpose is hunting whitetails.
From my perspective, the main reason why one would choose 35 Whelen over a milder cartridge like 350 Legend is
increased effective killing range. Perhaps 350 yards for the 35 Whelen, vs maybe 200 for the Legend.
However - from my testing, this is a 2 MOA gun. And that is under optimal conditions (bench with sandbags, no wind, all the time in the world). I tried several bullets and powders, and even tried some downloads (358 Win type speeds). Over the 130 rounds or so I fired, the average group size was 2.1" for 5-10 shot groups. I've attached a couple targets as examples. There were some smaller groups but they couldn't repeat. As a comparison, my 358 Win averages around the 1" mark for 5-10 shot groups.
And maybe I just got a lemon as there are a few youtube videos on this gun with sub-MOA 3 shot groups. But small groups can be deceiving so it's difficult to compare their results against mine. And yes, I removed, degreased, and torqued the rail, and was using a known good scope.
Anyway - for my gun, under real world hunting conditions, I'd expect extreme spread to grow at least 50%. So let's say it's a 3 MOA gun in the field. 3 MOA gun is probably acceptable for 200 yards, but 350 yards would be a 10.5" group
before any wind, which for me is not acceptable.
So I need to limit my range to around to 200 yards due to dispersion. But now - why do I need a 35 Whelen that is heavier, louder, kicks harder, and is more expensive to feed than a milder 200 yard gun?
I got this rifle because I was hoping it could replace my (expensive) 358 bolt action and increase my range. The Scout is shorter, handier, less expensive, robust, and reliable. But in the end - it just wasn't accurate enough to give me increased range, so I can't justify the extra weight, blast, and recoil over a milder cartridge. And it's also a difficult gun to shoot accurately, the forend is super short and you have to break position and rebuild every shot to reload.
I think both the 35 Whelen cartridge and the Scout rifles are awesome. I'm just not sure they are meant to go together, at least for me
. For someone needing a short range elk or moose hammer, this could be ideal. For me, next I might try a Scout in 360 Buckhammer, or maybe build a Tikka 35 Whelen.
Just my 2cents to throw in. Would certainly like to hear if others have a different viewpoint. Maybe there is something I am missing about how to shoot this gun accurately or what to feed it, or benefits I'm not thinking of.
