.350-Savage anybody?

[kens]

I'm thinking (thinking out loud) about a little boolit launcher based on common available parts from around the workshop and garage.
A deer thumper and plinker rifle.
I am proposing a small ring 95 mauser in .35 cal that can shoot pistol boolits for cheap plinking or, .35 rifle for deer.
Barrel obtained from Midway online in M98/.35whelen cal.
turn barrel down to small ring threads.
use .308 brass push shoulder back with .300 savage dies. this leaving a long neck. 308.
upsize neck to .35
fit up barrel with .300savage headspace gauges.

My reasoning is that 35rem wants to fall out of a mauser magazine and not feed.
.308 brass is readily available, this proposal would be in between power of 35rem and .358.
all components are economical and available. It can be built with a slow twist barrel of a known .35 whelen just cut it down.
this will prevent a .358 from getting chambered in a small ring action.

Any thought?
Pro's & Con's???

[reed1911]

Dang fine idea really. At most cast velocities you should be able to get away with NS only for quite a while. I'm not sure you would need a set of custom dies for the project at all. If you found you did, a set of Whelen or 358's with the excess material cut off should work just fine since we normally have all the room in the world for a longer neck in the RZ die. Economical, and a good use of what is handy.

[Larry Gibson]

With that M95 action the .308W case can give a lot of feeding problems because of the minimal case body taper. I know because I did basically the same thing except kept it .30 caliber; I call it a 308 CBC. Took a lot of work on the feed rails to get reasonably reliable feeding and then loading 5 rounds in the mag still will not give reliable feeding. I suggest you have a very good idea there except you may want to look at the 30x57 cartridge. It is simply formed using shortened standard 35 Whelen dies.

The standard readily available dies are shortened (very easy to do) so that an 8x57 has the neck expanded and the shoulder set back to standard 35 Whelen length. You can also use 7x57 cases or use 30-06 or any of it's full length derivatives cases and form them. This leaves a case with close to .358W cases capacity while maintaining the case length and taper the action was designed to feed. Formed and loaded 35x57 cases feed slicker than snot in M95 actions. Also the case capacity difference in loads with cast bullets between it and the 3oo Savage capacity or the even the 35 Rem are negligible.

If you decide you might want to take a look at the 26" Shilen 35 cal barrels with 14" twist threaded for the your SR action and short chambered in 35 Rem. While a little more spendy than the Midway barrel they are better quality and not much is left to do but screw them into the action. I have used several myself for conversion on M91, M93 and M95 Mauser actions. My own 35 Rem is on a M91 action with the Shilen barrel. I planned on also reaming it out to 35x57 but haven't gotten around to it yet. The others I converted to 35x57 are going strong.

Another benefit besides the easy to fit barrel and use of standard 35 Whelen dies instead of custom dies is a standard 35 Whelen finishing reamer is used which can be rented for a reasonable price. It's simple to shorten the FL die and form 3 cases. Those can then be used to headspace the chamber when finish reaming with the Whelen reamer.

As you say the cartridge is excellent with 38/357 cast and jacketed handgun bullets for small game and plinking. I load the Lee 120 TC 9mm bullet and the 358477 SWC over small charges of Bullseye for 800 - 1050 fps and excellent accuracy. I've become very fond of the RCBS 35-200-FN for big game. I push it at 2150 fps with 4895 and it is quite deadly. I have some test loads using LeveRevolution powder, should be interesting to see where that goes. However, the 35x57 is an excellent cartridge capable of 2400 - 2500+ fps with that bullet and even a canother 215 gr bullet I'm also going to test.

Larry Gibson

152481

[rking22]

35 on a 308 case, works well :)
http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll40/rkingk75/3506x2s_zps1rhnvf6o.jpg (http://s284.photobucket.com/user/rkingk75/media/3506x2s_zps1rhnvf6o.jpg.html)

Just a set of 35Whelen dies shortened and a 2inch deep 35 Whelen chamber. thsi ones on a 760Rem

[357Mag]

Kens -

Howdy !

A .358Win reamer can be run-in " short ", for a base diam of .466" .
7 X 64 Brenneke would be utilized as the parent brass, as it has the required base diam. It is also .308 bolt face compatible.
This brass is readily available, and at a good price. I use Norma-brand 7 X 64 cases, as parent brass for my " DEEP 6 " wildcat.
This .35 calibre wildcat has case capacity of a .35 Rem, in a shorter / fatter case. Might help the "falling out of magazine " issue ?

Something similar could be done using a 9.3 X 62 reamer w/ a .35 cal-compatible pilot.
This wildcat would allow plenty of room for shooting " patched " boolits, fer sher.


With regards,
357Mag

[kens]

Well then, just how far can you shorten a .35 Whelen size die before you start swaging down the dia. of the brass base?
I like the idea of a short .35whelen die, this sounds easy to do, but at some point in shortening the die you must begin to make the base smaller, like swaging down the diameter?
This an interesting concept,

[Larry Gibson]

If you have the Whelen FL die take the decap rod out and size a well fire formed '06 case. Measure the case diameter back from the case mouth 1.8". That will be about where the expansion ring is on a .308W case. I found in initial test of .308W cases for my 308 CBC the case head would have to be sized down. The 7.62 NATO cases I wanted to use were very hard to size down enough. W-W .308W cases sized fine but was not what I thought I wanted. I went with the shortened .308W die......mistake. The feeding problems far overshadowed the small cost of commercial cases.

The 35-06x2 sure does look very usable in the M95 action w/o any feeding problems though. I do know for a fact how smooth the 35x57 feeds in Mauser actions thought. Might try the 35-06x2 first and if it does give sizing or feeding problems the chamber can easily be finish reamed to the 35x57.

Larry Gibson

[kens]

I just took this little M95 Chilean and tried to run commercial .308 thru it. The rounds hold firmly in the magazine and they run up the feed ramp to the throat nicely. Yeah, its 7mm Chilean, but the .308' will act like they want to feed.

[kens]

Can you guys help me with some dimensions, please.
Im thinking of this wildcat as a .35whelen x 2.075"
Here is why:
Use 35whelen die cut down by .419" this should leave a OAL of 2.075"
However, using 308 brass this will result in a little shorter neck than the full neck of 35 whelan ( but lot more neck than .358)
Sizing brass at this length will not get involved with swaging down the base.
Trimming FL die at this length will prevent a .358 cartridge from chambering in the new chamber (small ring mauser)
This length will have a smaller case capacity than .358 thus being very efficient
This length will have much more oomph than 35rem
This short length would work in a light handy carbine barrel.
Powder capacity is small enough to get really good plinker boolits out of a Lee 6 banger pistol mold.
Powder capacity would allow a .358 200gr rifle boolit and turn a deer inside out. (35XCB is not off the table)
What do you guys think about this .35Whelen die cut off by .419"

[Larry Gibson]

I just took this little M95 Chilean and tried to run commercial .308 thru it. The rounds hold firmly in the magazine and they run up the feed ramp to the throat nicely. Yeah, its 7mm Chilean, but the .308' will act like they want to feed.

Problems arise with the 1st round with 4 under it in the mag at the rear. Many times the wider shoulders of the .308Ws bind not letting the rear of the case to come up for the bolt face to catch on, especially with fire formed NS'd only cases. Also as the rifle is shot recoil can move the remaining cases forward in the magazine so the rim of the 2nd and 3rd many times won't come up either.

Did you take the milsurp 7x57 barrel off? If not then the action may be from the ones converted to 7.62 NATO use. Many of them had the rails modified to feed correctly. If you've one of those....lucky you!

Larry Gibson

[rking22]

On the 35-06x2 case forming. I shortened the case to 2.0 to be sure I had the full Whelen neck and throat, it still has slightly more capacity than th 35Rem and a higher pressure potential. I have found I do not need (nor want) to exceed the 35Rem loads for what I seek. I want the ability to drive a 230 gr boolit to 2000fps with slower burning powders, and that is easy. I get 2023fps from 40.5 gr of AA4064 and good accuracy. Still room for more powder too.
Now the bad part. The brass is an easy form on a RC press, just lube lightly and shove them in. They need trimming and neck reaming( or turning) and anealing. I use a 38special seating die(RCBS) to hold the case neck and a 9mm chucking reamer. This gives me a .003 clearance to my chamber with a .360 sized boolit. Also the base is a very tight fit to the chamber due to the taper of the chambering reamer. I just polished it out after reamin to fit my formed brass. It was a one off for me and that was way easier than dealing with another form step every time I want to make some more brass. A note on dies, I used Lee due to price, you will need a 35 Rem expander/decaper rod. The 35 Whelen will not work in the shortened die ,interferes with the neck-shoulder junction. At 2.075 it might be OK, don't know.
I went this way because I like efficient things and I can always run in a 358 reamer or the 35 Whelen full depth. It's got a 14 twist , 26 in long barrel that I may shorten to 22 then 20 in the long run. Really just an inexpensive rifle (I spent 350$ TOTAL including the NOE Mold)to let me play with 35 cal boolits. Not a lot of load development, I have a lot of AA4064 and had a measure set at 39gr, filled to base of neck. It shoots that load at 1864 fps and 1 1/8 at fifty yards over 3 groups of 5, the 40.5gr load was about the same accuracy but rattled my teeth! I dislike bench shooting and tend to rush, those 3 groups were shot in 5 minutes from a Rem 760.You did not want to pick it up by the barrel! Going to shoot some of the Lee RCBS 200 clones next week on the same charge. I will do some more testing sometime but gotta go shoot a deer first :)

[kens]

Problems arise with the 1st round with 4 under it in the mag at the rear. Many times the wider shoulders of the .308Ws bind not letting the rear of the case to come up for the bolt face to catch on, especially with fire formed NS'd only cases. Also as the rifle is shot recoil can move the remaining cases forward in the magazine so the rim of the 2nd and 3rd many times won't come up either.

Did you take the milsurp 7x57 barrel off? If not then the action may be from the ones converted to 7.62 NATO use. Many of them had the rails modified to feed correctly. If you've one of those....lucky you!

Larry Gibson
The mil surp 7mm barrel is still on it, I just tried to chamber some .308 rounds, and they act like they want to feed, they stayed in the magazine, and went up the ramp.

[Landy]

.350-Savage = .35 IHMSA

The .300 Savage was necked up for tipping rams with authority.

Should be at least as good of a deer and such round as the .35 Remington, and that's not faint praise.

[Frank46]

35 savage. I made some 300 savage brass from once fired lapua cases someone had given me. So yes you could use 308 cases sized down to 300 then neck size them to 35 cal. Or use a 358 win die to neck them up. yeah I know too much time on my hands. Frank