Sluggin my 35’s today!

Well I hurt my back on Friday bending over and putting my safety harness on to get in my tree stand. I’ve been at home Literally screaming every time I take a step and apply pressure with my left foot and Also when I try to stand up or sit down until today. I literally look like a constipated duck waddling. I’ve been sitting on frozen 2 liter water bottles and rotating them when they finally melt for the last three days and then taking a couple hot showers. I’m sure I slipped a disc in my lower back...it happened years ago to the point I couldn’t put my foot down on the ground just as it happened on Friday. Instead of going to chiropractor I did the ice bottle and hot water thing. I’m sure in a couple days I’ll be back to normal. Everything happens for a reason...I’m sure somebody above didn’t want me to start slaughtering big bucks during the rut but it’s going to happen anyways in the next couple days. Lol. I think I’m gonna limp out there tomorrow as it’s tolerable to the point I can walk now (without grunting and screaming). I’m getting cabin fever and figured I would slug my 35s today.


I first logged my 35 Whelen Remington 7600 limited edition carbine. It came out it .358 on my average measurement. A couple of times I swore it said three .358 1/2...and then settled at .358”.

I don’t slug mice 35 Remington’s in my Limited edition model 7600 Carbine and marlin 336. Both slugged at .357”


I casted up a bunch of Lee 200 grainers a couple of years ago. I PCd,GCd, and them through my Lee sizer at .358“. I swear I bought a lease Sizer from somebody here that they polished out to .359” but I couldn’t find it I’ll have to do some digging. Even if I do find it it’s still going to be too small I’m guessing for my 35 Whelen I’m gonna need a .360” sizing die. If I find that day maybe I’ll try and polish it myself or see if somebody else here has a lee.360 sizer here for sale, or order one from Lee on their special order program.

I couldn’t find any pure slugs I had previously made up so I grabbed some 50/50 bullets that I PCD and didn’t size it out through my barrels.

The one on the left is my 35 Whelen that slugged at .358”, The one in the middle is the micro grove 336 in the one on the right is from the 35 rem 7600 carbine. The one in the 35 Rob The one in the 35 Rob carbine did not want to go through like the other two slugs did in the other rifles for some Reason. I’m guessing by the way the slug looks the diameter of that bullet was bigger than the other two as it left a long lead tail squished out the end of the bullet.


I would assume all the bullets I casted up and sized in .358“ I can use for both the 35 Remington‘s since they’re going to be .001” over.

What kind of confuses me is why my 35 Whelen an has a .358” bore when jacketed bullets made for it are the same size. I shot some hornady super performance ammo through it last year and got about an inch and a quarter group at 100 yards with it. I would assume jacketed bullets expand with pressure to grab the rifle and when they go through the gun? Otherwise my bore is the same size as jacketed bullets and I would get horrible accuracy correct?


https://i.imgur.com/D2fb0vM.jpg

It looks like the blue one made contact with the lands but not the grooves?

Here’s the other sides of the slugs in the same order...

https://i.imgur.com/n4wAhRT.jpg

I would assume that’s why I should have slugged with with pure soft lead so it takes a more even shape of the inside of my bore instead of showing more contact with one side of my slug. Or I just started my to hard for proper slugging slugs into my bore unevenly. You can see the whelen cartridge on the left that measured .358” with a lot less contact compared to the other two that measured. .357”.

I would assume if I wanted to use this bullet I would probably have to put two coats of powder coating on it to get it big enough in diameter to size correctly at .360” because as of right now it seems the .358” boolit is not be large enough in diameter with one coat of powder coating on it unsized. I’m getting nervous because I bought an MP mold in a 200 grain hollowpoint in a .358” and thinking it’s going to be too small in diameter as well. I found my “ .359 polished lee sizer die” I bought here from another member a couple years ago And it is of course sizes at .358” lol. I just ran a boolit through it to test. I remembered I sold my other one that was .358” thinking that I had a bigger one to use, oh well, live and learn. I’m not gonna modify this one since my other bullets are sized at .358” and Will wait to see if they shoot good in the 35 Remington‘s.

I just honed my .358 lee sizer die to .360 in about 15 minutes time. I followed this video...

https://youtu.be/IEa2jeV-BKs

So will it be ok to run my .360’s in my .357” 35 Remington bores? If not I’ll order another .358” for them.

Yes, IF the loaded cartridge will chamber
Mike

I don’t know how it would work for your rifle, but I had a Jes reborn .358 Win m700 Rem. that loved RCBS 200 rnfp sized .358” in a Lee die. It also shot .358” jacketed very well. It was a .358” 3 groove standard. They don’t always have to have fatter bullets it seems.

Well for $23 shipped on fleabay I might just order a .358” sizer to keep on hand.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tripplebeards

What kind of confuses me is why my 35 Whelen an has a .358” bore when jacketed bullets made for it are the same size. I shot some hornady super performance ammo through it last year and got about an inch and a quarter group at 100 yards with it. I would assume jacketed bullets expand with pressure to grab the rifle and when they go through the gun? Otherwise my bore is the same size as jacketed bullets and I would get horrible accuracy correct?

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Jacketed bullets need to be the same size as the groove measurement.
Cast Boolits need to be larger than the groove measurement.
So with your .358" groove, .358" bullets are correct.
With a 30-06, it has a .308" groove, so .308" bullets are correct.
With a 30-06 and cast Boolits, you can shoot .309", .310" or .311", what ever fits your throat and gives the best accuracy.
FWIW

Can't use a cast boolit for a slug they have too much springback to be accurate you need a dead soft lead ball. I favor the egg sinkers in the fishing section of wallyworld, they have a hole in the center that is useful.

Yes J-words are generally a soft lead core swaged into a gilding metal jacket. They can do some amazing things like swage down and go through a tight throat then swage back up to seal in the bore *IF* there is enough pressure, so yeah obturating to fill the bore is piece of cake, unlike a harder cast boolit.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tripplebeards

Well for $23 shipped on fleabay I might just order a .358” sizer to keep on hand.

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I got one in mail,all of a sudden it looks like I need a 359-360 bullet for a Rossi 357 carbine. Only got 356-358 sizers. I'm sort of bad at slugging barrels so I shoot different sizes / BHN:s in a new gun to find out. More shooting,less slugging. Now while waiting for the die I tried very soft unsized .360-361 bullets and they shoot fine... This is very interesting.

My existing 358 gives 3583 bullets (from my usual alloy) that can be pushed through a certain S&W revolver cylinders with finger force using a dovel. I do not want to touch that precious sizer.

Everyone should have extra sizers ready for honing. I use quite a lot mid-sizes,too like .4595 for a Marlin.

Doug is right - toss those and get some soft lead sinkers to accurately slug your barrels. That was good practice but inaccurate measure because of alloy springback.

All right Doug and Wayne got me paranoid.lol so I melted a bunch of sinkers in a 41 magnum case and tapped it out with my bullet puller. I just slugged my 35 Whelen again... It’s still .358”. The softer slug of course looks perfectly even all the way around but it’s still measured the same as my 50/50 alloy w/2% pewter. I remember a slug my new vaquero last year doing the same thing here. Lol...And I reslugged with sinker lead and got the same measurement. If it really bugs me later I’ll slug both my 35 Remington’s again but I bet you they’re both still going to be at .357”. The nipple is from the primer hole. Looks like a mini Brennecke slug. So on the process I took my lee .358” size or die and honed it to .360”. It seems like for some reason most of the posters here like going .002 over instead of .001 over on 35 caliber cast for some reason. I’m guessing it seals better, grips the lands a little bit better, a s stabilizes better when the bullet is pushed faster? I’ll have to order up another Lee .358 size or die and hone it to .359 If the .358” bullets I have casted up and already made don’t group worth a darn.

https://i.imgur.com/Sm5UYHM.jpg

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tripplebeards

Well for $23 shipped on fleabay I might just order a .358” sizer to keep on hand.

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No American household is complete without a .358 sizer brother. BTW, I fought the same back/leg problem and kept thinking that it would "heal" up until the left foot went numb and I started stumbling l and took a few falls on account of it. Turns out I had a collapsed disc and now I have a bolt and nut in my spine to jack it off the nerve, problem solved. Don't wait to have that seen to. Those nerves will only take so much.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by murf205

No American household is complete without a .358 sizer brother. BTW, I fought the same back/leg problem and kept thinking that it would "heal" up until the left foot went numb and I started stumbling l and took a few falls on account of it. Turns out I had a collapsed disc and now I have a bolt and nut in my spine to jack it off the nerve, problem solved. Don't wait to have that seen to. Those nerves will only take so much.

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Ouch! I iced my back for about 3 to 4 days straight and my disk popped back in. The muscles above it were pretty sore..and still are. I would rate a 2 on a scale of ten for pain now where it was a 10 for the first five days. I made the mistake of rolling on my side the night before last while sleeping and that disk popped in and out with in about two seconds. I’m bet my neighbors heard me scream through the walls of my house. it’s feeling pretty darn good today and I did go out and sit in my old man shack bow hunting yesterday instead of a tree stand with no issues. I’m gonna go give her a go right now again but I’m heading to the tree stand with the safety harness. It actually feels fine when I stand straight up for the first time but if I start to bend over I can feel it stretch and probably a 4 to 5 out of 10 on a pain scale if I had to measure it. I have a pretty high tolerance for pain as I was hit by a car years ago and had a concussion and lost my memory for a few days. Boy, I can tell you when I slip a disk I swear it hurts more than when I was hit by a car!

Just discovered creamy, liquid aspirin (Aspercreme) to use on my back. I cant use regular pill aspirin due to other RX's. Wow, what a difference, almost all sciatica is gone. Opening day for deer is tomorrow for us. Good luck Tripplebeards, get a bruiser!

Since I started powder coating, I'm seeing a trend. I'm finding that PC'd boolits can be sized .001" smaller than traditionally lubed boolits and still shoot as well.

For the last year I’ve been using my cheap Harbor freight caliber and it’s been jumping around and not zeroing out. I love YouTube. I went on there to see if there’s a way to re-calibrate it. I watch some guy honing it with a stone in a few seconds to remove burrs to zero it out consistently. Instead of throwing mine away and buying a new one I did the same thing. In about 10 to 15 seconds I got it to consistently zero every time. I then measured the bullet that I sized after I honed the inside of my .358 die. I took about 40 measurements with it and everyone of them measured exactly .3595”. So I am .0015” over. I’m not gonna hone it anymore and call it good till I test it. I would think that being over .0025” should be good to go on my 35 Rems as well? I’ll I have to get some more gas checks because I ran out and size a few and run my .001” and .0025”’ oversized cast in my 35 Rems and see it there is a difference in accuracy.