.35 Remington cartridge review

.35 Remington cartridge review.
I am always interested to explore new cartridges and ballistic possibilities for sporting use, but sometimes I am drawn back to the cartridges of yesteryear that are still valid in today?s sporting scene.

The .35 Remington is one such cartridge, designed more than 100 years ago. In 1906, the Remington Arms Company developed a series of rimless cartridges primarily for use in its Model 8 semi-automatic rifle.

These included the .25, .30, .32 and .35 versions, which were meant to rival Winchester?s range of similar rimmed cartridges in its lever-action Model 94 rifle.

The .35 Remington was principally developed for use in woodland, in carbine-length rifles, to deliver a .358in diameter bullet for deer and even black bears.

Its accuracy, coupled with mild recoil yet effective striking energy, made it great for short-range stalking in the back country.

That?s all well and good in the US, but how can a 100-year-old cartridge fit in today?s deerstalking scene in the UK?

CARTRIDGE DIMENSIONS
I had to source an old rifle because few newer models are able to chamber the round.

You can have a custom chambering fitted for a donor rifle or, as I did, you can purchase a barrel for a Contender carbine that has exchangeable barrels, so that testing odd calibres is simply a matter of changing the barrel.

The cartridge length is 1.92in with a trim length of 1.91in and has a shoulder angle of 25°:25?.

This shoulder is shallow, so it is critical to have the correct headspace when resizing cases for reloading.

It also operates at a low overall chamber pressure of 35,000psi to 39,000psi, rather than the usual 50,000psi of a standard .308 round, for instance.

The Remington cases that I used had a measured case capacity of 50.7 grains of water, so you can see that the .35 Remington is not a high-velocity round; it is more a substantial short-range cartridge that is capable of delivering a heavy bullet with good sectional density.

This provides effective penetration yet with solid knock-down power, which will cause little venison damage from over-excessive hydrostatic shock.

BULLET CHOICE AND FACTORY LOADS
The bullet diameter of 0.358in is common to rifles chambered in the .35 calibre, but the .35 Remington can also shoot smaller and lighter 0.357in pistol bullets.

However, this compromises the initial premise of the round to shoot heavy bullets.

The smallest rifle-diameter bullet that I used was the 150-grain found in the factory Remington loads, though 180-grain to 250-grain bullet weights are more common.

I used a single-shot Contender carbine with a 23in barrel for the tests, which is ideal for woodland stalking, where the first shot is of critical importance.

I managed to obtain some factory ammunition for the tests.

This included Remington?s 150-grain Core- Lokt pointed soft-point load, the lightest tested, which gave an average of 2,216fps and 1,636ft/lb of energy.

However, this amount of energy is not deer legal in England, where 1,700ft/lb is the minimum required, so you could only shoot muntjac or Chinese water deer with that load.

Accuracy at 100 yards, which is long for its intended use, was good, putting three shots into 1.5in.

The Remington 200-grain Core-Lokt soft-point gave a healthy 2,118fps for such a big bullet, generating 1,993ft/lb energy.

This is great for deer in England, but is not legal in Scotland due to the slow velocity – below the 2,450fps limit – which is a shame, as it would make a good woodland-stag round.

The final factory loads were both Federal 200-grain. One was from an old batch and the other from a newer lot number.

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The heaviest of the bullet weights was the 250 grain, which really is too heavy for a sedate cartridge such as the .35 Remington, which is best suited to a 180 to 225-grain bullet weight.

However, the cartridge still managed to propel a Speer Spitzer soft-point at 2,081fps and gave a whopping 2,403ft/lb energy.

A FEW PROBLEMS
When reloading the .35 Remington, there are several important steps that you need to pay special attention to. Because the shoulder on the case is shallow, it is easy to push it back too far when resizing the brass and this will cause a headspace issue.

The case is slack in the chamber and when the hammer hits the firing pin it moves the whole cartridge forward a fraction and loses energy, giving a light strike.