Levergun loads: the .35 Remington

Guns Magazine, April, 2003 by John Taffin

The .35 Remington was not a copy of anything. The .35 Winchester -- which existed at the time in the Model 95 -- was more powerful than the .35 Remington, in fact falls between the .35 Remington and the 358 Winchester, The .35 Remington survived for several reasons.

It was chambered in lightweight, easy to pack rifles; recoil is relatively mild compared to other big bores; and most importantly it's an exceptionally good deer and bear cartridge, especially when used in the woods or heavy brush.

And let's make no mistake about what a "brush gun" is. No rifle that is light enough to carry will penetrate brush nor should it be expected to. If it's not a clean shot, it should not be taken. A brush rifle is simply one that it easy to carry in heavy cover with a cartridge powerful enough to stop deer and black bear at close range.

Tubular Magazine Cautions

One of the "drawbacks" in using the lever action rifle with a tubular magazine is that one cannot use spire-pointed bullets. The problem, of course, is that a pointed bullet pressing against the primer of the cartridge ahead of it could cause a discharge in the magazine as the gun recoils. This caution also extends to round-nosed bullets in heavy recoiling rifles such as the .45-70.

I have never heard of this being a problem with the relatively easy recoil of the .35 Remington, and round-nosed factory loads for the .35 are available from several manufacturers. Various loading manuals also give data using round-nosed bullets in the .35 Remington.

Good Tools Produce Good Ammo

For reloading the .35 Remington, I use Lee dies in the RCBS Rockchucker press. I prefer Remington nickel plated brass when I can get it. All brass, whether brand spanking new or previously fired is lubricated with Midway spray-on lube and then full-length resized.

CCI's No. 200 Large Rifle Primers are seated with an RCBS hand priming tool, and powder charges dropped from an RCBS powder measure are checked on my RCBS digital powder scale. As with all sixgun and rifle cartridges destined for use in tubular magazines, I crimp all .35 Remington loads.

Several .357 Magnum bullets are useful in the .35 Remington. Standard 158-grain JHPs can be loaded at the 2,200 to 2,300 fps level to give sort of a super .357 Magnum with an explosive bullet for use on varmints. I take a different path, and instead use heavyweight cast bullets designed for the .357 Magnum, and they are fired at very modest velocities. The result of which is exceptional accuracy and very mild recoil.

Cast And Jacketed

My favorite bullet for this task is Cast Performance Bullet Co.'s 187-grain FNGC. I normally shoot these bullets to 1,200 to 1,300 fps in .357 sixguns, and the same load is duplicated in the .35 Remington with 15.0-grains of Accurate Arms XMP5744. This load clocks out over the Oehler Model 35P at just over 1,200 fps, and is also the most accurate load I have found in this particular Marlin 336. It will place three shots at 50 yards into 5/8 inch. This with a commercial cast bullet, and in an iron-sighted levergun.