Need Powder Recomendation, .35 Remington Light

[PBSmith]

I'm trying powder puff/plinking loads in a Marlin 336, caliber .35 Remington, using cast bullets from my .38 Special collection. These include 148-gr solid wad cutters and several different round/flat nose specimens in the 150-190 gr. weight range.

Unique has produced some decent groups for the lighter bullets, but it burns quite dirty in the small charges (8-9.5 grains) I've tried so far.

Have any of you tried my game, and if so, what powders gave best results? Hope to find something cleaner than the Unique, which is leaving the bore looking like black powder times.

Mostly I will be shooting soft lead (BHN 10 or less). Lube to date has been Lee Liquid Alox. Am I missing something by not trying different bullet lubes?

Look forward to your suggestions.
PBSmith

[Larry Gibson]

I use 5 gr Bullseye under the Lee 356-120-TC for 1150 fps out of a 26" barrel.

My Lee's drop at .358 cast of COWWs + 2% tin.

I use 3 gr Bullseye under the Lyman 358477 (150 SWC) for 850 fps.

I size and lube both in a .359 H&I die and most often use BAC or 50/50 lube. LLA should also work quite well on both bullets and both could then be shot as cast.

Accuracy is excellent and both are very pleasant to shoot.

Larry Gibson

[Outpost75]

Using plain based pistol bullets in the .35 cal. rifles, .35 Remington, .358 Win. and .35 Whelen, I've had best results keeping loads subsonic. A charge of 5-6 grains of any fast-burning pistol powder such as Bullseye, Red Dot, 700-X, 231, TiteGroup or 7-8 grains of the medium burners like Unique, Herco, or PB work great. No filler is needed. You can safely increase these charges a grain or two if needed to improve ignition in the larger cases, but in the .35 Remington the suggested loads are spot-on with 170-200 grain bullets.

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[dragon813gt]

Any of the fast burning pistol powders should work well. I've used W231 for this type of thing. Have some Bullseye now so I will see it it works any better.

[Motor]

Post #2 is very good. I wanted to quote it but my i fone sometimes gives me fits when posting quoted posts.

Motor

[gpidaho]

I use TiteGroup for all my plinking rounds in rifles, I love that powder. Works like Bullseye and burns a lot cleaner for me. Gp

[williamwaco]

I do not have a .35 Remington but I use 8 to 10 grains Unique in all my plinking rifle loads.

.30-30, .358, .30-06.

I have not found it to be noticeably dirty.

I would expect 9 gr to be just about perfect for your use. Around 1000 to 1200 fps depending on bullet.

Are you sure the "dirt" is not bullet lube?

My first suspicion is that you are using too much LLA.

Your bullets should look like the middle bullet in the first photo on this page.

http://reloadingtips.com/pages/exp_111201a_lla_test.htm

[357Mag]

PBS -

Howdy !

Have no shot it on game, but will say that ( in my gun, my loads ) 14.5gr "Trailboss" completely filled the .35 Rem case; when shooting Rem 150 "J"-words from a M-336 XLR. Safe pressures.


Best powder I have tried for "Light " .35 Rem was IMR4759.
18.6gr under swaged / patched 195gr SPBT and under Rem 150 "J"s both shot well.
Again, I was doing pure target wrk; and cannot speak to effectiveness of these loads on live game.
the IMR4759 load certainly featured less recoil than more-frequently seen 200gr full power loads.

With regards,
357Mag

[PBSmith]

Thanks, all, for your responses. I'll try some of the faster powders and see what happens. Have shot Unique in other applications and never seen such a black bore as what I'm getting with 9.5 grs behind a wadcutter in the .35 Remington case. It is accurate, however.

Would like to find Titegroup, but haven't seen it for a long time. I have most of the others that Outpost suggests, so can spend balance of summer trial loading.

Mr. Waco, you could be right about too much LLA making the dirt. Thanks for that link. I'm currently putting together additional test loads with just a smear in the lower groove.

Mr. Mag, I've had great luck with IMR 4759 as well. Kind of saving it for the .45-70

I appreciate your help.
PBSmith

[CGT80]

Been there, done that.

IIRC, 8.0 grains of red dot and a 158 copper plated jhp was my final load. Lower charges shot OK but it set the shoulders back on the 35 rem brass. The 8.0 loads were a great plinking round for ringing steel at 100 yards and were intended for my neighbor to target shoot with something that wouldn't punish his shoulder as bad as his full power loads (his full power loads weren't as bad as I expected and were much softer than 30-30 full power loads).

Trail boss is a great powder but is kind of expensive, so that is why I went with red dot. I use the trail boss for 460 mag cases to make bunny fart loads of a 270 grain boolit at 1,000 fps.

I think I ended up using large pistol primers for that 35 rem load as well, and it worked out just fine.

[jaysouth]

Go to this link. Go to the left of the page and go down to .35 Rem and click on the bullet weight you want. There are dozens of loads for pistol powders in each weight

http://www.gmdr.com/lever/lowveldata.htm