Cast boolit suggestions for .35 Remington

[Last Spike]

Hi Y'all,

New to this forum and cast boolits - I have a Marlin 336C lever action in .35 Remington with microgroove rifling.

I need your suggestions as to boolit molds I should consider for this gun and any tips you'd have for this boolit casting noob.

Thanks for yer help and have a great day!

[JDL]

Last Spike,
Welcome to the board. Some Marlins have larger bores so you need to slug the bore and throat to see what you need.

I think the RCBS 200 grain would be among the first picks if the bore isn't over .358". With surplus 4895, 3031, or WC-844 you'd probably have no trouble attaining up to 2000 fps with accuracy. For plinking or small game the Lyman 358156 works swell in the .358 and should do as well in the .35 Rem.

Should the bore be much larger than .358, you will probably need to get a mold from the custom makers. Mountain Molds makes very good molds and you can use his web page to design your own, with little more cost than a RCBS. -JDL

[drinks]

Spike;
I am using the Lyman 358315 in my .35 Whelen, comes out 214gr with gas check.
I am getting about 2400fps with waterdropped ww's, no leading and good accuracy using IMR 4198 and Reloder7.
Don

[Buckshot]

...........Welcome to the crew! I have a 35 Rem built on a small ring Mauser. I've used both the RCBS 200gr and the Saeco 200 gr. I have the Saeco mould and was given a bunch of the RCBS's to try. I found both easy to shoot accurately. The rifle has a 16" twist BTW.

One of the best loads I've found as it's both very accurate and FAST is 41.0grs of surplus WC846. As I worked up loads, the boolits left faster and grouped better and better. I finally ran out of room at 41.0grs with the slug sitting on the powder and a velocity just shy of 2300 fps.

Your Marlin M-G barrel is going to want them HARD and FAT. My Saeco drops (from the 17 bhn alloy) it's slugs at a bit over .360". The RCBS's came to me lube-sized @ .359".

Mike the ID of one of your fired cases. Since the casemouth springs back a bit it should give you a good idea of how fat you can go and still have release room. If it measures only .358"-.359" then it would be a good idea to upset a slug in the chamber neck and throat to see actual real ID. Of course, if it measures .361" or so, then there you go.

.............Buckshot

[jethrow strait]

Last Spike, what with that .35 girth and a slow and easy 1:16 twist, the .35 Rem is a cb natural. The Microgroove complicates things a bit; just make sure the boolit is hard for the pressure of the load and oversize at least a thou or so, to give it full opportunity to grip the shallow mgroove rifling.

I traded off my first two 35Rems, a pre-Microgroove Marlin 336 and an old Rem Model 14 pump. Have been in a general funk over it til last week, when I picked up a 1939---and like new---Rem 141 pump with an ole El Paso Weaver fine crosshair 4X mounted low over the top. Dang thing shur doesnt seem much like the woods-friendly ones I had in the past, weighing in at a full 9lbs, with a 24" barrel and a beefy high-comb stock. But, boy what a "bench gun", believe it or not! I don't need no stinkin 35Rem boltgun no more. With that RCBS 200 grainer(and that's about the best all-arounder for the cal)and enough 4895 to bump em out at 1600-1800fps it will outshoot just about any medium-bore bolt action sporter. Loads in that range should do just fine in the Microgroove as well.

Best of luck, and happy to hear them Liberals haven't confiscated Canadian leverguns as yet--------jethrow

[Last Spike]

Thanks guys, I'll be slugging the bore and throat to see how fat cast boolits will need to be for this gun and take it from there. I'll be back with further questions as needed.

[sundog]

I'll ditto the RCBS 35-200-FN. Works good in 336CS (MG bbl). Pick yer poison for powder. I think I ran a bunch of WC844 through mine with good results. I was going to suggest looking at castpics, but it appears to be down this morning...?????? uh-oh. There is a whole page of data there when it comes back up). sundog

[KYCaster]

I don't have a lot of experience with real boolits in long guns and the 35Rem. in a Marlin 336 was my first attempt. To tell the truth, all the horror stories about Marlin's MG rifleing made me pretty antsy about even trying it. I'm happy to say that so far none of the professied problems have reared their ugly head. Although my best results have been with harder alloy(Teracorp Magnum 92,6,2) I've also had some very nice results with WW. A 200SWC from a Magma mold with the magnum alloy sized .358 over 14.0 Alliant 2400 gave me about 1400fps and a .724in. group at 50 and 2.375 at 100. The same boolit with 27.0 Alliant Rx7 did 1940 and 2.57 at 100.
I've also tried Lyman 35875, Lee 180RF, Magma 158SWC, Magma158RN and Lyman 358911, all with WW sized .358 and have gotten some very promising results. My expanding and seating dies need to be altered to accept larger boolits so have not yet tried anything larger than .358.
My goal is to duplicate my best jacketed load with cast.(Sierra 200JSP at 2050 with 31.0 Rx7-1.62in. at 100) I have a way to go but it does look possible.
I don't know who said it, but it applies here, "The quarry makes not the hunt, nor the goal the game." Have fun.

Jerry

[26Charlie]

You got a lot of good advice about the RCBS and SAECO 200 gr. bullets.
Those bullets work in both regular and microgroove Marlins. The Lyman 358009 is a 285 gr. Round nose designed for 35 Whelen, and I found that the nose of the bullet was too fat to chamber in the older regular rifling of three .35 Rems, but would chamber nice and snug in the microgroove barrel. I had found a .35 Rem M336 Centennial carbine with microgroove rifling in virtually new condition for $250 back about 15 years ago (when $250 was real money, not just 100 gals. of gasoline). It came tricked out with a 3-9x Bushnell in a tip-off mount and sling swivels, so I took it home and started to experiment with the 358009.
My best load turned out to be all the IMR 4895 I could get in the case, 32.0 gr., and the bullet as I said weighed 285 gr. and sized .358, not having any other sizer die. .358 worked just fine. This load is super accurate - I refer to this gun as my lever action sniper rifle - and that big bluff bullet is a thumper. The gun also shoots the RCBS 200 gr. well, but the other .35's won't chamber the 358009 so this is the load that gets shot in this rifle most of the time.

[beagle]

I just ran a bunch of tests using the .35 Rem. In my case, an old cut rifling model 336 from 1951.

For available moulds, the 35-200-FN RCBS is the winner hands down.

The 358315's nose is a little smaller than I like but will group around 2" at 100 yards. The 35-200-FN will do better.

The #352 Seaco gives you more weight but most of the .35s have a short throat and that makes deep seating a necessity and this bullet has to seat down into the powder space. Still accuracy was about 2" with the small amount that I had to test.

I have used the 195 grain Lyman 358430 with the base band sized down to take a GC. This is a very accurate bullet in the .35 Rem but requies the modification which is a little trouble.

I just acquired a Lyman 35875 and it shows promise using the GC trick as well. Both the 358430 and 35875 are PB.

4759 shoots pretty well in mine. The .35 Rem is defininitely a great cast caliber and as the old eastern mountain folks say, "It shoots hard"..

I've had no problem using neck sized cases in mine and use the TC die from my .38/357 set as a neck sizer. Takes an extra step in decapping but there's not the mess of all of the lube./beagle

[beagle]

26Charlie... What overall length are you using with the 358009 in the 336 and any idea of the velocity?/beagle


You got a lot of good advice about the RCBS and SAECO 200 gr. bullets.
Those bullets work in both regular and microgroove Marlins. The Lyman 358009 is a 285 gr. Round nose designed for 35 Whelen, and I found that the nose of the bullet was too fat to chamber in the older regular rifling of three .35 Rems, but would chamber nice and snug in the microgroove barrel. I had found a .35 Rem M336 Centennial carbine with microgroove rifling in virtually new condition for $250 back about 15 years ago (when $250 was real money, not just 100 gals. of gasoline). It came tricked out with a 3-9x Bushnell in a tip-off mount and sling swivels, so I took it home and started to experiment with the 358009.
My best load turned out to be all the IMR 4895 I could get in the case, 32.0 gr., and the bullet as I said weighed 285 gr. and sized .358, not having any other sizer die. .358 worked just fine. This load is super accurate - I refer to this gun as my lever action sniper rifle - and that big bluff bullet is a thumper. The gun also shoots the RCBS 200 gr. well, but the other .35's won't chamber the 358009 so this is the load that gets shot in this rifle most of the time.

[26Charlie]

Beagle - These are seated deeply, crimped over the top band. OAL is about 2.45" give or take .005". Thats why 32 gr. of 4895 is all I can get in the case - the .35 Rem is normally a 40 gr. case if bullets aren't seated below the neck.
I looked in my records for chrono data, but have nothing. I looked at group sizes - the groups at 100 yd. run around 2 9/16" for five shots (fired wrist-rest and using the magazine), with four in tight less than 2" and one flyer widening the group. This rifle with jacketed of various sorts has given 1 3/8" groups at 100 yards now and again.