- By Richard Mann
Sporting rifle cartridges that do well in America generally get a lot of ink and support from gun writers. No one has really championed a .35-caliber anything with the exception of Townsend Whelen and the .35 named after him. But, heck, that was a long time ago. For all practical purposes only one .35-caliber rifle cartridge remains strong. Remington’s old three-five has been around since 1906 when it was introduced in the company’s model 8 auto-loading rifle. Since then it has been chambered in many different rifles and I will gladly hang my hat on it.
The Marlin 336 is the rifle most associate with the .35 Rem. cartridge. However, the 336 in 35 Rem. was introduced more than 40 years after the cartridge was first offered in Remington’s Model 8 autoloader. |
At ranges where most hunters can stand on their feet and still hit a deer, the 35 Rem. is more than adequate. With it, hunters who want to throw big heavy bullets can do so without getting the slobbers knocked out of them like they would with a .358 Win. or .35 Whelen. And, for a woods hunter, a 150- to 200-yard range limitation is not a handicap.
I was born on January 22, Jack O’Connor’s birthday. I spent a lot of my youth reading what O’Connor wrote, and growing up in the Appalachians, I dreamed of hunting the open west. My first rifle, a bolt-action 270 Win., reflected those dreams and O’Connor’s tastes. For years I toted a far-reaching rifle even though all my hunting occurred in cluttered confines of the timbered hills. As my experience grew I began to develop my own preference for a rifle that would be best suited to my hunting environment. Hunters have a fascination with how a cartridge looks on paper, but deer could care less. When a hunter accepts that fact, a much more realistic approach can be taken toward cartridge selection.
Why does the .35 Rem. work as well as it does on deer- and bear-sized animals even though its numbers don’t produce a shock and awe when you look at them in the ammunition catalog? Two reasons: The .35 Rem. hits with plenty of velocity and momentum to drive its bullets through animals and because the bullets, which are perfectly constructed for their impact velocities, expand very wide creating larger wound cavities than some smaller-caliber bullets impacting at higher velocities.
In 2001 Remington produced a limited run of pump rifles with a synthetic stock in .35 Rem. From the early 1900s until the ’60s a pump rifle in .35 Rem. ruled the Northeast woods. |
My first attempt at an all-around woods rifle was a Marlin 336 in .35 Rem. I was so impressed with the performance of the light-kicking .35 Rem. lever gun on whitetails I had my friend Melvin Forbes at New Ultra Light Arms build me a light-weight bolt-action .35 Rem.
Factory .35 ammunition worked superbly on whitetails, but I could not resist the urge to handload for the bolt-action 35. This was partly because I am addicted to handloading and partly because in a modern bolt-action rifle, you can greatly improve the ballistics of the .35 Rem. The cartridge, as loaded by the factories, is kept to moderate pressures due to the rifles it is offered in.
I found that I could safely push 200-grain bullets from the Ultra-Light’s 20-inch barrel at more than 2,300 fps. This extended my range a bit but I really couldn’t tell any difference in killing ability. If I hit ’em right with standard .35 Rem. ammo, they went to my freezer. Same thing with the hotter, bolt-action loads. Of course, any real rifle guy likes that added power and what I liked about the souped up loads was the extended range, without the heavy recoil of the next step up the .35-caliber ladder; the .358 Win.
For the most part, with the .35 Rem. I had found a deer hunting cartridge for the hardwood ridges and thickets I routinely prowled. Problem was, I am a bolt-action kind of guy and the custom New Ultra Light Arms with its 20-inch barrel was a longer rifle than what I wanted to wrestle through a laurel thicket. I re-chambered the Ultra Light to .358 Win., It kicked noticeably harder so I traded it off. Then I started looking for a compact bolt-action rifle in .35 Rem., like the Model 600 that Remington made for a while, or at least a rifle I could re-barrel.
I also had a wicked plan up my sleeve. Instead of just up-loading the .35 Rem. for a bolt action and running the risk of accidentally poking one of the hotter rounds in my lever gun, I contacted Dave Kiff at Pacific Tool & Gauge. We modified the .35 Rem. case by taking the taper out and increasing the shoulder diameter. This way the hotter loads would not chamber in a standard .35 Rem. and the new case would hold about two extra grains of powder. The best part: A bolt rifle chambered for the new cartridge would still chamber and fire standard, factory .35 Rem. ammunition!