Ok, so what would you do?

[Jevyod]

I am wetting my feet in casting, have cast a few 9mm's. Anyway, I have a beautiful Marlin 336 in 35 Rem that was made in 1951. I restored it last year, and thought it would be lots of fun to cast for this rifle as well, and use it for whitetail. All was good, until last eve. I had a box of Hornady FTX and some LeverEvolution powder. I was going to try and replicate the factory loads since my gun seems to like them fairly well. I loaded some up, and headed to the range last eve. Lo and behold, the one load shot absolutely FANTASTIC!!!!!!!! It was 39.4 grains leverEvolution, CCI 200 primers, and the FTX. At 100 yards, 2 shots were in the same hole, with the 3rd just slightly high. It made one ragged hole. That is the best handload I ever did! SO NOW WHAT?? [smilie=b:That shoots beautifully and I am afraid I will not be able to come close to that with cast. What would you do? I still wonder if I should cast because of cost. Maybe I could cast for plinking, and use FTX for hunting. Any input/advice?

[Dan Cash]

Cast! You will never know what will develop until you try. Before you get too high on your one group, though, repeat the shooting 10 times. I doubt you have that good of group each time. You should get 1" to 1 1/2" groups on demand with your rifle and cast.

[Epd230]

It's not always about the destination. Enjoy the ride!

[btroj]

Cast!
In a 35 Rem there is no reason a good cast bullet shouldn't shoot just as well as any jacketed.

You have a rifle that screams to be shoot with a cast bullet, do it proud.

[Larry Gibson]

I would get a RCBS 35-200-FN and go for it.

Larry Gibson

[MBTcustom]

I would get a RCBS 35-200-FN and go for it.

Larry Gibson

What he said X 10. Larry Gibson gave me the same advice a couple years ago, and buying that mold was the best money I ever spent on this hobby. (Thanks again LG, someday I'm going to buy you a beer or a cigar or something!)

Matter of fact, I have since that time, bought myself an RCBS 35-200-FN mold on my birthday every year since. I love it that much. If there is such thing as the perfect boolit, that one has got to be it. It shoots like a dream in any weapon that has a caliber that starts with "35".

[Char-Gar]

There is no reason on earth who you should not be able to equal your jacketed bullet accuracy with cast bullets in your rifle. The process is a mite more complex, but thoroughly within the realm of possibility.

Cast bullets do not give way to jacketed bullets in the area of accuracy. These two bullets are different critters for certain, but the difference does not lay in accuracy potential.

[texassako]

Why not use it as a goal to work towards with cast loads? You know the rifle is accurate; so start working towards matching that load with cast.

[454PB]

My 336 in .35 Remington shoots equally well with jacketed and the RCBS 35-200-FN.

[gwpercle]

Write that load down, several times and put it away in several locations, so you will be able to find it. Don't just commit it to memory or store it in some cell phone or computer place where it can crash and be wiped out forever. I allways write loads like this in my reloading books, multiple times in multiple places. Yeah ..the memory is not what it used to be.
Now get a mould and try to replicate the accuracy with cast. You know what the rifle will do with J-word's so you got a new mission in life. Find that cast boolit load.
Gary

[JayinAZ]

You can also have fun with a good 38 pistol bullet. My .35 shoots a gas checked 358156 very well. I forget how much 2400 I used but it's a mild load that's fun to shoot or would probably do a number on a coyote.

[Jevyod]

So if I cast, should I start with the LeverEvolution powder since the gun likes it with FTX? Or is it a different ballgame altogether? I realize there will be differences like bullet seating etc. which will make different pressure levels......

[runfiverun]

i'd just sell the rifle to some one like R5R and forget about it.
those store-bought bullets are gonna cost too much to keep up with the amount of shooting you are gonna try to do.

[paul h]

The 35 caliber is one of the friendliest for cast bullets, the 35 rem IMHO is a perfectly sized case for driving cast bullets at their sweet spot 1700-2000 fps in rifles, and there are lots of molds available. Are you likely to shoot sub moa with cast on your first trip to the range? Odds are against that, but with a good clean bore and some decent cast bullets I'd think you should be able to get 1 1/2" 3 shot groups at 100 yds, certainly close to 2" your first time out.

I don't know what it is about cast bullets, but I find I'm quite happy with 2 moa or better. While if I my jacketed loads aren't at or preferably under moa I'm upset.

[Jevyod]

i'd just sell the rifle to some one like R5R and forget about it.
those store-bought bullets are gonna cost too much to keep up with the amount of shooting you are gonna try to do.

In your dreams!! That is one gun I don't EVER want to get rid of!;) There is a story behind that gun! Hope its ok to post stories;)
it started out about 16 yrs ago. Dad picked up that gun from a local gun store for 200 if I remember. That was the first rifle he bought for we boys to use.(3 of us) So we cut our teeth with that rifle. Anyway, time moved on, and when we turned 18, dad gave each of us a new Ruger M77 MkII in the caliber of our choice. So we started using those guns and the 35 went to the gun cabinet. My dad is not really a hunter, so when we were old enough to hunt on our own, he quit hunting. He started selling off some of the guns in the cabinet. He went and sold that 35 to his cousin, not knowing every one of us wanted that gun!!! Well my younger brother wanted it so badly, he bought another of dads guns (a model 700 in -06) that was barely used and offered to trade it with the old 35. (as we called it) He accepted, so the gun was in the family. I knew there was no way I was EVER gonna get that gun! Fast forward to about 2yrs ago. We went salmon fishing in New York. I was planning on getting one of my salmon mounted since my taxidermist owed me some work. Lo and behold my brother caught a pretty nice salmon. At that time, he was in financial difficulty. But he really wanted to get that salmon mounted. Being the nice brother that I am, I offered to trade him straight up; salmon mount for 35! And to my surprise he accepted!!!! The gun was in pretty bad shape, wood was almost bare, some rust, bluing almost all gone etc. So I got al the metal re-blued, and refinished the stock with 16 coats of tru-oil. It looks like a new gun, and it helps that it shoots like a dream! So I would say the chances of you ever acquiring that gun are pretty much non-existent! Sorry to break it to you!:kidding: Sorry for the long post, but now you know why this gun means so much to me!!

[Shiloh]

It's not always about the destination. Enjoy the ride!

And eventually, sooner or later, it all comes together, you cast good boolits with fine results.

Shiloh

[dverna]

You will want to cast for inexpensive plinking and fun shooting.

I am different about jacketed bullets. I do not hate them. If you cannot get an accurate cast bullet load (but I think you will), use the FTX for the few rounds a year you will hunt with and be happy. What is the big deal???

I see no downside to investing in casting for your .35 Rem. If you get a cast bullet that shoots and expands as you wish, you are ahead of the game. If it does not, you have lost nothing as the FTX load is there for you.

Don Verna

[Larry Gibson]

Thanks again LG, someday I'm going to buy you a beer or a cigar or something!)

It's written in stone.....I'll buy the second round as a good cigar lasts more than one round and probably more as you've not heard all my war stories yet.......:smile:

Larry Gibson

[dkf]

With the crazy world we live in it is good to have a backup plan in the event you cannot get the bullets you want. The equipment can be sold if you find it just sits and collects dust.

[Bret4207]

I look at it this way- yeah, you got a great load with a fancy-schmantzy jacketed bullet and some high tech, high dollar, hard to find powder. Great, kudos, good on you. Now, go find a nice FN of 180-200 grains and pick a nice simple fun load, something like the semi-standard 10 grs Unique of 15-16.0 2400 or 12-13.0 grs RD and go shooting. The very first load I tried in my 336SC 35 Rem was just such a load with a cast 180FN that pops out the muzzle at about 1650fps +/-. What a fun rifle that makes the 35! My boys loved shooting it, it pounded the centers out of the target and it's cheap to shoot. About 10 bazillion deer have fallen in the Adirondacks to 38-40 rifles shooting about the same bullet at about the same speed, so it's not like it's a useless load either. It doens't kick the snot out of you, it's not loud, it's just fun.

Try it, you'll like it.

[runfiverun]

well it was worth a try...
I alway's wanted to buy the rcbs 35-200 mold and thought this was worth a shot...
great story b.t.w.
as Bret points out above casting just gives you a lot more quality trigger time, and a chance to get another youngster started on that rifle [giving someone else a chance to love it too]

[geargnasher]

If it hasn't been done already, clean all the old copper fouling out of that gun before sending cast boolits through it. Pay particular attention to the first six inches of the barrel.

Gear

[Jevyod]

So it sounds like the general consensus is to cast! I hear it loud and clear! Has anybody used the RCBS-35-200-FN for hunting? If so, will I need to watch my alloy hardness to make sure I get proper expansion? I looked at the mold and it really looks like it would drop a beautiful boolit!

[DeanWinchester]

I would get a RCBS 35-200-FN and go for it.

Larry Gibson

I cant repeat that enough times! My marlin LOVES that boolit and shoots it EXTREMELY well.

[DeanWinchester]

So it sounds like the general consensus is to cast! I hear it loud and clear! Has anybody used the RCBS-35-200-FN for hunting? If so, will I need to watch my alloy hardness to make sure I get proper expansion? I looked at the mold and it really looks like it would drop a beautiful boolit!

Air Cooled WW's is what I use. I load with AA2015 and recently I shot into 5 two liter bottles of water lined up. the first had a nice big hole in it. The last looked like a pipe bomb went off inside.
Deer? I predict Bang/Flop provided you put it in the engine room.

[jmort]

"I cant repeat that enough times!"

I don't own a .35, but if I did I would get that bullet. If Larry and Dean like it so much, that is all I would need to know. You could always sell it in a worst case scenario, which I highlyh doubt would happen. You always have to be concerned about your alloy, but even if it did not expand, the FN meplat would do its work well enough. Don't over-think this.

[Jevyod]

Ok so maybe I was overthinking a bit. So am I right in thinking that with the size of meplat, whether I get good expansion or not is beside the point? The wide flat nose will dump a lot of energy into the deer. Do I have this about right? I must confess that I didn't know much about meplat so I did a search. Stumbled across an article of a guy comparing meplat of several boolits for a 30-30. He made the comment that if grizzlies roamed where he hunted, he would use the RCBS because of the big meplat plus the weight would do a lot of damage. So I guess cast is a lot different than jacketed! In jacketed I like to know how my projectile expands.

[Bret4207]

Cast is not like jacketed. In jacketed it has to expand to work because you're fighting the jacket from the start. In cast you start off with a nice soft alloy (relative to the jacket) and you use a FN or blunt RN. The face of the boolit is already approaching 35 cal which is about all some jacketed bullets may expand to in some cases. The cast boolit is cohesive and tends not to shatter or fly to pieces when it hit's tough gristle, bone and muscle, it tends to deform. I think that's a more accurate word to sue than "expand" which brings those old Remington Core-loct ads to mind. What cast tends to do is penetrate a lot more than an equal weight jacketed round at equal or greater speed and the FN tends to do damage all along the trip. You may find you don't get the "bang, flop" type kills you get with a 270x130 at 3K. What you do get is a lot less blood shot meat, better penetration and often through and through penetration. 2 holes always bleed better than one. Without doing a lot of experimenting it's pretty hard to say exactly what to expect as far as expansion because our alloys, FPS, designs, etc. vary so much. Just figure in 35 cal you're already ahead of the game in many ways. If you really feel the need for expansion use a HP tool and rad up on the guys here who've done a lot of work on game with them.

If you want the "dead right there" type kills where the animal falls almost right away, learn to break the shoulders. If they can't use their front end, they can't move.

[Smoke4320]

I would get a RCBS 35-200-FN and go for it.

Larry Gibson
great mold for 357 herrett as well

[Comrade Mike]

This thread really makes me regret not picking up a Remington model 8 in .35 at a screaming deal a couple months ago.

[OverMax]

I still wonder if I should cast because of cost. Maybe I could cast for plinking, and use FTX for hunting. Any input/advice? If you intend to shoot allot. There are two options. You could home cast or buy cast boolits. I think you should save those FTX's for hunting as I doubt you will better your FTX's accuracy recipe with any cast. If lucky you may get close with cast by reducing speed but not {better} the recipe as I see it.

[Jevyod]

Thanks for all the input! I think this was the nudge I needed! Now need to start looking for a good deal on a RCBS-35-200-FN Mold!

[mac266]

Why not cast AND shoot the load you just made? Play around with it, have fun, enjoy the ride!

[Jevyod]

Why not cast AND shoot the load you just made? Play around with it, have fun, enjoy the ride!

Oh I plan to! I threw 50 pcs of brass in the tumbler! I plan on loading them up with some more FTX and see if I can shoot the center out of a few targets!