Love some of these resurrected threads. Since I was a co-conspirator within the earlier texts, I should add some more to the story and get onlookers up to date.
The story is a mixed bag, actually. I soldiered on with this little flatband carbine in 25-35, not finding any deer with it but strafing jackrabbits and a few ground squirrels from time to time. Both Hornady 117 RN and the NEI 114 FNGC figured in these depredations. Some time c. 2011 I noticed that extraction became balky all of a sudden while shooting the cast bullet loads using dacron filler. On the third such balky extraction, I took a better look at the fired brass I had just created, and saw that the barrel's chamber had been ringed at the neck/shoulder junction. I was sick over this, and it took a couple years of palavering around to finally arrive at the conclusion that there was no way to "salvage" performance of the 25-35 in anything like an affordable price or in a practical manner, so I had the barrel rebored to 38-55 by JES Reboring in Fall 2013, and have enjoyed it as a Brush Thumper ever since. I got out of the 25-35 caliber entirely after having the rebore finished, and likely won't return to it again. Dies, brass, and ammo went down the road in a down-sizing move that continues today with some of the other esoteric calibers I have entertained myself with over the years. I won't delve into the wherefores and whys here, but hobby vendor intransigence and arrogance for the past 6-7 years figures highly among the reasons.
In retrospect, if I was to take up the 25-35 "cause" again I would locate a Marlin 336 or Win 94 30/30 of some sort and have a gunsmith re-barrel it to 25/35. I would have it made up as a rifle--24" barrel and 2/3 magazine, shotgun or carbine butt profile. (Purists can go suck rocks--crescent rifle buttplates are as uncomfortable as a hair shirt and not half as practical). I would avoid the Ackley Improved version like the plague--it performs well, but cases won't fire-form and forming them is an unalloyed PITA--the form die set and custom reloading die set cost the earth, also. 1-8" 25 caliber barrels don't exactly grow on trees, either--1/10" will likely stabilize the 117 Hornady J-words (once you find the things.....) and 1-10" is much friendlier to castings. FWIW