This article from the "Speaking Frankly" series, was written by Frank Marshall and appeared in the July/Aug 2002, #158 issue of the Fouling Shot.
In the wooded eastern states, from the Georgia hills and the mountains of West Virginia, and clear to the Canadian border, meat hungry, out-of-work, folks in the 1930’s found their old .32-40’s, .30-30’s or .35 Remingtons, all performed well on deer, bear or occasional wild pork, when meat on the table was the only objective. Cast bullets at moderate velocities were the prime meat-getter, as they were on the Western frontier, since most of us had no money for store-bought ammunition, and it was reload or nothing. Ideal moulds and tong tools which seem primitive today were cherished, and lucky was the fellow who owned one, or had a friend who would load shells for him or barter the loan of a tool. Just as often, tools were improvised, since there was lit-tle to choose from.
Popular bullets of the time were the #311291 (175-grs.), the #321297 (188-grs.) and the #358315 (210 grs). These bullets were entirely satisfactory in the woods rifles of the period, having 12” twists in the .30-30, and 16” twist in the .32 Spl. or .32-40, as well as in the 35 Rem. Though the ballistics were modest by today’s standards, they were actually nearly full power at 1900 f.p.s. with a cast bullet. Factory .30-30 and .35 Rem. loads seldom hit much over 2000 f.p.s. from a carbine length barrel. The .303 Savage also falls into this category.
In the wooded eastern states, from the Georgia hills and the mountains of West Virginia, and clear to the Canadian border, meat hungry, out-of-work, folks in the 1930’s found their old .32-40’s, .30-30’s or .35 Remingtons, all performed well on deer, bear or occasional wild pork, when meat on the table was the only objective. Cast bullets at moderate velocities were the prime meat-getter, as they were on the Western frontier, since most of us had no money for store-bought ammunition, and it was reload or nothing. Ideal moulds and tong tools which seem primitive today were cherished, and lucky was the fellow who owned one, or had a friend who would load shells for him or barter the loan of a tool. Just as often, tools were improvised, since there was lit-tle to choose from.
Popular bullets of the time were the #311291 (175-grs.), the #321297 (188-grs.) and the #358315 (210 grs). These bullets were entirely satisfactory in the woods rifles of the period, having 12” twists in the .30-30, and 16” twist in the .32 Spl. or .32-40, as well as in the 35 Rem. Though the ballistics were modest by today’s standards, they were actually nearly full power at 1900 f.p.s. with a cast bullet. Factory .30-30 and .35 Rem. loads seldom hit much over 2000 f.p.s. from a carbine length barrel. The .303 Savage also falls into this category.
.The powders used with jacketed bullets then worked well with somewhat reduced cast loads. Cast loads outshot factory ammo in most hunting rifles, though the economy of cast loads was the big factor. I think the reason we did so well with them was that the moulds were really much better than we realized, while the quality of jacketed bullets was more variable then than it is today.
The top choice among woods-wise hunters was the .35 Remington, praised in many fireside accounts as a ‘real meat and potatoes gun.” Ammo was scarce and “meat in the pot with one shot” was the goal.
Around the turn of the century, the fine performance of the 9x56 Mannlicher on boar and other tough native species did not go unnoticed by the U.S. gun makers. Remington introduced its Model 1908 semi-automatic rifle for the .35 Remington in that year, and the cartridge remains a strong seller today. It should remain so, since it is probably the best deer and bear cartridge for woods hunting that we have. The old Remingtons still survive and have lots of company in the large numbers of Marlin lever guns, Savage pumps, Remington pumps, and a few bolt actions like the Mohawk 600 and old Winchester Model 70’s.
Among my circle of cast bullet purists, though, we frowned on semi-autos and pumps, but we sure liked that .35 Remington! The .35 had a certain anchoring effect on deer and black bear. There is indeed some-thing about the bigger bullet—perhaps its larger frontal area helps it expand more easily, or its weight helps it penetrate better without being deflected as much on heavy bone—can’t say for sure. Those who have never used the .35’s on game won’t be convinced by this, I know. But, those who’ve used the medium bores for hunting don’t need any convincing. The flat trajectory and higher retained energy of the .30-’06 class cartridge would clearly be superior for longer range hunting, but you have to remember we were looking for a clean one-shot kill and never had any need to shoot past 150 yards, and usually not over 75. Folks in the thick woods of the Appalachians, the Ozarks, Michigan’s Upper Peninsula or Washington’s coastal rainforests, know exactly what I mean.
Not many years ago I lucked onto an old hunting rifle which would have been a true “grocery gettin’ gun” 50 years ago. It’s a Lee Speed (Lee-Metford pattern, originally made as a sporting rifle, though similar to the military rifle). It has express sights, and all the typical British appointments, though as I received it the bore was nearly smooth from long neglect. The immediate cure, of course, was a rebore, which I had done, to the .35/.303. This required opening the chamber neck only, and rerifling. I specified a 16” twist with lands half as wide as the grooves, as I had been witness to the grand success of this form with cast bullets in the .35 Rem. The .350 British, as I call it, holds a wee bit more powder than the .35 Rem., though with today’s powders this gives the advantage of being able to get the same range of velocities at lower pressure. Ed Harris gets equal ballistics with his .35 on the .30-30 case ‘though he admits to be running higher pressures in his Remington 788 bolt action than I’d want to shoot in my Lee Speed.
Thanks to Alox lubricant and the 16” twist, I can get 2000 f.p.s. with good accuracy using the proven#358315 bullet, cast of wheelweights with 2% tin added. This is equal in hardness to our old 95-3-2 alloy which gave excellent mushroom effect at average striking velocities at woods ranges of 40-75 yards, assuming muzzle velocities of 1850-1950 f.p.s. The effect I often witnessed on deer back in the 30’s when that bullet was used by other hunters in their slide-action Remingtons is duplicated exactly in my rejuvenated Lee Speed .350.
Using 36 grains of IMR-3031, the #358315 hits dead on at 100 yards, using the-original standing bar open sight intended for .303 British 215-grain cordite cartridges. It took a bit of experimenting, of course, to find the right load, but that was half the fun! Accuracy wise, the .350 wasn’t fussy at all; nearly any reasonable load shot well.
The 16” twist and soft alloy are favorable for a hunting load, since the faster 12” twist of the .358 Win. often requires a harder alloy for optimum accuracy, which will not expand at moderate velocities. Hotter loads push you into the non-mushrooming, nose fracturing arena.
Another advantage of the .35 caliber is that you have access to a variety of small game and plinking bullets: all the .38 Spl. and .357 Mag. pistol bullets and even 000 buckshot (.36 cal.) for inside-the-barn, rodent busting with 1 gr. of Bullseye. Soft swaged or cast pistol bullets shoot well with 4-5 grains of Unique, or not over about 1000 f.p.s. With harder cast Keith types you can go up to about 1450 f.p.s., using up to 10 grains of Unique, but these will require Alox lube. They are quite accurate even at 100 yards for plinking purposes. A very accurate load is to use the old factory 200-grain blunt nose bullet for the .38 Special, the one they used to call the ‘Super Police.” I don’t know if the bullets can be had any more as loading components, but the Lyman 195-gr. #359430 is almost identical to it. Anyway, I lucked into a whole mess of these a few years back
The top choice among woods-wise hunters was the .35 Remington, praised in many fireside accounts as a ‘real meat and potatoes gun.” Ammo was scarce and “meat in the pot with one shot” was the goal.
Around the turn of the century, the fine performance of the 9x56 Mannlicher on boar and other tough native species did not go unnoticed by the U.S. gun makers. Remington introduced its Model 1908 semi-automatic rifle for the .35 Remington in that year, and the cartridge remains a strong seller today. It should remain so, since it is probably the best deer and bear cartridge for woods hunting that we have. The old Remingtons still survive and have lots of company in the large numbers of Marlin lever guns, Savage pumps, Remington pumps, and a few bolt actions like the Mohawk 600 and old Winchester Model 70’s.
Among my circle of cast bullet purists, though, we frowned on semi-autos and pumps, but we sure liked that .35 Remington! The .35 had a certain anchoring effect on deer and black bear. There is indeed some-thing about the bigger bullet—perhaps its larger frontal area helps it expand more easily, or its weight helps it penetrate better without being deflected as much on heavy bone—can’t say for sure. Those who have never used the .35’s on game won’t be convinced by this, I know. But, those who’ve used the medium bores for hunting don’t need any convincing. The flat trajectory and higher retained energy of the .30-’06 class cartridge would clearly be superior for longer range hunting, but you have to remember we were looking for a clean one-shot kill and never had any need to shoot past 150 yards, and usually not over 75. Folks in the thick woods of the Appalachians, the Ozarks, Michigan’s Upper Peninsula or Washington’s coastal rainforests, know exactly what I mean.
Not many years ago I lucked onto an old hunting rifle which would have been a true “grocery gettin’ gun” 50 years ago. It’s a Lee Speed (Lee-Metford pattern, originally made as a sporting rifle, though similar to the military rifle). It has express sights, and all the typical British appointments, though as I received it the bore was nearly smooth from long neglect. The immediate cure, of course, was a rebore, which I had done, to the .35/.303. This required opening the chamber neck only, and rerifling. I specified a 16” twist with lands half as wide as the grooves, as I had been witness to the grand success of this form with cast bullets in the .35 Rem. The .350 British, as I call it, holds a wee bit more powder than the .35 Rem., though with today’s powders this gives the advantage of being able to get the same range of velocities at lower pressure. Ed Harris gets equal ballistics with his .35 on the .30-30 case ‘though he admits to be running higher pressures in his Remington 788 bolt action than I’d want to shoot in my Lee Speed.
Thanks to Alox lubricant and the 16” twist, I can get 2000 f.p.s. with good accuracy using the proven#358315 bullet, cast of wheelweights with 2% tin added. This is equal in hardness to our old 95-3-2 alloy which gave excellent mushroom effect at average striking velocities at woods ranges of 40-75 yards, assuming muzzle velocities of 1850-1950 f.p.s. The effect I often witnessed on deer back in the 30’s when that bullet was used by other hunters in their slide-action Remingtons is duplicated exactly in my rejuvenated Lee Speed .350.
Using 36 grains of IMR-3031, the #358315 hits dead on at 100 yards, using the-original standing bar open sight intended for .303 British 215-grain cordite cartridges. It took a bit of experimenting, of course, to find the right load, but that was half the fun! Accuracy wise, the .350 wasn’t fussy at all; nearly any reasonable load shot well.
The 16” twist and soft alloy are favorable for a hunting load, since the faster 12” twist of the .358 Win. often requires a harder alloy for optimum accuracy, which will not expand at moderate velocities. Hotter loads push you into the non-mushrooming, nose fracturing arena.
Another advantage of the .35 caliber is that you have access to a variety of small game and plinking bullets: all the .38 Spl. and .357 Mag. pistol bullets and even 000 buckshot (.36 cal.) for inside-the-barn, rodent busting with 1 gr. of Bullseye. Soft swaged or cast pistol bullets shoot well with 4-5 grains of Unique, or not over about 1000 f.p.s. With harder cast Keith types you can go up to about 1450 f.p.s., using up to 10 grains of Unique, but these will require Alox lube. They are quite accurate even at 100 yards for plinking purposes. A very accurate load is to use the old factory 200-grain blunt nose bullet for the .38 Special, the one they used to call the ‘Super Police.” I don’t know if the bullets can be had any more as loading components, but the Lyman 195-gr. #359430 is almost identical to it. Anyway, I lucked into a whole mess of these a few years back
when a local police department switched to a light bullet+P load. They shot great when smeared with a little Alox and loaded with 10 grains of Unique, for about 1400 f.p.s. These charges are based on cartridges like the .35 Rem. or my .350 Brit., but you wouldn’t get in any trouble using them for a .358 Win., .35 Whelen or .350 Rem. Mag.
Lyman’s #359430, show in its 150 grain variation. A long time, highly respected “woods wizard” friend of mine from “back up the hollow” is one of the last Eastern mountain man types who has a .35 Rem. Marlin carbine with what he calls “Micro-pope” rifling. He was highly impressed by the couple of shots at game he’d witnessed with my .350 British in heavy brush, using that #358315 at around 2000 f.p.s. He got all fired up to try the same in his Marlin, his enthusiasm further kindled by the rising cost of factory loads. The .35 Remington is not a reload problem, and as Andy Barniskis has shown in the last several issues, Marlin lever actions can be made to shoot cast bullets well if the bore isn’t too rough, nor the chamber too sloppy, and if the twist is suited for the bullet and the velocity level. My friend’s barrel was fairly smooth from long use with jacketed loads, and had a close, reasonably concentric chamber. In reloading the .35 Rem. the chief caution is not to set the shoulder back or to size the neck back excessively as you’ve only got a minimal shoulder to headspace on. Partially size cases in a full-length size die, to assure easy chambering afield, backing the die off a half turn, so as to stay off the shoulder. This works fine, provided you have cases originally fired in the rifle you’re loading for. I use loads that are 5%below those advised for 200-grain jacketed bullets, and seat them to the base of the neck, which is expanded to .001”, under the bullet diameter. The bullet should be .001” over groove diameter. Marlin Micro-Groove barrels usually slug .358” groove in a .35 and .308” in a .30, but the bore runs oversize, typically .303” in .30 and .352” in .35 caliber, because of the shallow grooves. This requires bumping up the bullet nose to fit and is a big factor in getting satisfactory accuracy. At the same time I flatten the noses of the bullets for safety in the tube magazine and also to improve their expansion. This occurs partly because of the flat shape, but also because it works the nose slightly and seems to give it a precondition which aids expansion. Dennis Marshall explains this as recrystallization, caused by the deformation. I don’t go into the big scientific explanations, I just know it works better that way.
Once he was instructed in the basics, my friend was busy making up his own cast bullet loads. He settled on a load of 37 grains of IMR-4064, which gives him perhaps 1900 f.p.s. with the #358315 bullet. The bullets from this load have proved to mushroom well without breaking up using current wheelweights plus 2% tin. He feels no need whatever for those expensive “store bought-en” cartridges again.
The beauty of the .35 caliber for hunting, I feel, is that you are already starting with an adequate diameter in a cast bullet to give good killing power, even with minimal expansion, though the large frontal area and flat nose definitely seem to help expansion at low velocities. The .30 caliber cast bullets never expand to get as big as the .35’s, and their faster twists usually require harder alloys which are less forgiving of low striking velocities for effective game performance, like the larger bullets.
Having successfully made one convert, who had never used a cast bullet on game until recently, and who now has no intention of going back to jacketed loads, even if the cost were the same, I think we have a strong case for the cast game bullet. My mountaineer friend tells me nobody has ever gone hungry in that hollow, even in the stark days of the 1930’s, and he lives a long mule ride from the Safeway or Winn Dixie. The woods are his grocery store and his rifle is a charge card. He needs only two loads; the #358315 for deer and bear and a 148-grain wadcutter with 7 grains of Unique for turkey, squirrel, ’coon, groundhogs, etc. He gets 1000 rounds and lots of good chow from a pound of powder with that load. Now that’s a one-gun man. If I were completely honest with myself I could dispose of a lot of other guns and just use that .350 Brit., though I have to admit it’s fun to have that tack driving .30-’06 Winchester Model 70 lead slinger around when it comes to serious shooting, like getting Sears or Harris to buy Sunday breakfast before our next match.
Once he was instructed in the basics, my friend was busy making up his own cast bullet loads. He settled on a load of 37 grains of IMR-4064, which gives him perhaps 1900 f.p.s. with the #358315 bullet. The bullets from this load have proved to mushroom well without breaking up using current wheelweights plus 2% tin. He feels no need whatever for those expensive “store bought-en” cartridges again.
The beauty of the .35 caliber for hunting, I feel, is that you are already starting with an adequate diameter in a cast bullet to give good killing power, even with minimal expansion, though the large frontal area and flat nose definitely seem to help expansion at low velocities. The .30 caliber cast bullets never expand to get as big as the .35’s, and their faster twists usually require harder alloys which are less forgiving of low striking velocities for effective game performance, like the larger bullets.
Having successfully made one convert, who had never used a cast bullet on game until recently, and who now has no intention of going back to jacketed loads, even if the cost were the same, I think we have a strong case for the cast game bullet. My mountaineer friend tells me nobody has ever gone hungry in that hollow, even in the stark days of the 1930’s, and he lives a long mule ride from the Safeway or Winn Dixie. The woods are his grocery store and his rifle is a charge card. He needs only two loads; the #358315 for deer and bear and a 148-grain wadcutter with 7 grains of Unique for turkey, squirrel, ’coon, groundhogs, etc. He gets 1000 rounds and lots of good chow from a pound of powder with that load. Now that’s a one-gun man. If I were completely honest with myself I could dispose of a lot of other guns and just use that .350 Brit., though I have to admit it’s fun to have that tack driving .30-’06 Winchester Model 70 lead slinger around when it comes to serious shooting, like getting Sears or Harris to buy Sunday breakfast before our next match.
