Home Forums Lever Action Central Marlin 336 Lever Actions 35 Rem. +P loads

I shot 1 whitetail doe with the 220 grain Speer from a 356 and it didn't expand enough to suit me, so I switched to the 180 grain Speer for deer. The 220 grain Speers are tough, which makes them my choice for bear, elk, or moose, but too tough for lung shots on deer.

Jeff

JBledsoe,

You can't use primer flattening as a warning sign for low pressure calibers such as the .35 Rem. By the time that pressure sign develops you may have already exceeded the strength limit of the thin brass case, primer cup, or the strength of weaker action types.
For bolt actions and high pressure calibers, flattened primers can work as a high pressure sign and if the primer pierces they safely handle the escaping gases much better than lever actions do.

Wear good shooting glasses every time you shoot if you plan to hot load the .35 Rem. in lever guns.

Several points;
1) Yer fancy puter program is an extrapolation-a starting point, an a guesstimate. It crunches numbers with no real world response.
2) In order to truly assess pressure with straight walled cases you as a hobby loader have only a couple choices-you go find a shop with piezo-electric equipment, you work with a lot of factory ammo, fire enuff to establish expansion, pull bullets an dump powder-then start up with your favourite components till your numbers on this NEW UNFIRED BRASS OF THE SAME EXACT LOT offers similar expansion-or you trust sme number crunchin puter which is just about the same thing as sayin-gee, if I can stuff more powder into the case, well heck, I'm gonna go ahead an do it!
3) Velocity/pressure measurements will differ with each gun.
4) Levergun cartridges are not never no how gonna be your short magnums, so why risk so much for so little?
5) You better keep a close eye on headspace.
I'll say this much, I can't understand the rationale for any of you folks overloading this or any other cartridge. Did you at some point have somebody whisper in your ear that a lil more velocity is gonna turn your levergun into jack the giant killer?
Just remember, when the big boom happens an pieces of metal an wood are sailing all over, that hot damn, you got 200 more fps.
MAK out.

1) No [bleep]
2) No [bleep]
3) No [bleep]
4) No [bleep]
5) No [bleep]

I didn't just fall of the fucqing Turnip Truck.......

SAAMI standard is 39,885 lbs-psi

My point is that very good performance can be had, within SAAMI limits.

The Marlin action does fine with SAAMI 51K lbs-psi via the 444 Marlin.

I'm not convinced the 336 will come unhinged at 39-40K

Although the 356 Win doesn't have much more case capacity than the 35 Rem, 55 grains verses 51 grains, the advantages that I see are that the brass is much heavier and the headspace is on the rim, rather than on a very small shoulder. Also, a 35 to 356 Nonneman conversion gets you a precision cut chamber and a process that has been proven to be safe and fully functional hundreds of times over. Even if the 35 Rem +P loading program is safe, it doesn't appear (to me) to possess the additional margin of safety that a 356 conversion provides as a means by which to reach the maximum performance potential of a .358" bore cartridge in a Marlin 336.

If it sounds like I am preaching the gospel of St. Regan, I guess that I am, as I am a believer x3.

Jeff

Jeff,

Does the 336 action handle the 356 Win at SAAMI standard max pressure (52,000 lbs-psi)?

IIRC, Winchester kinda plussed-up the M94 with more steel around the locking lug area of the receiver to handle the pressures of some of the hotter rounds, as in the 444, and I believe the 356 and 375.

I have had 3 Nonneman conversions; a 30-30 to 307 and 2 35 to 356, all of which worked fine and showed no pressure issues. The 307 and 356 brass is heavy, compared to 30-30 and 35 Rem brass, and some of my brass is on its 5th loading without any splits or loose primer pockets.

Jeff

Some of you gentlemen are determined to protect us from ourselves. Do you work for the government? Thanks for the concern but we are grown men, old men in fact, with many years experience. We don't need lectures on reloading. What is it to you if I blow up my gun? Did you buy it for me? Or do you buy my reloading supplies? Until you do, don't worry about it, you'll just make your self look silly.

I don't give a rat's ass what you do, or what you say you do, when you are loading for your 35 Remington.

My only interest is sharing some of what I have learned from doing, so that others might cut some corners and time off their own learning curves. I think that if you are trying to get the maximum safe performance out of a Marlin 336 platform, using a non-wildcat cartridge, the current cartridge of choice in the .308" bore is the 307 and the current cartridge of choice in the .358" bore is the 356. If you would read and comprehend some of the good information provided by guys like Selsnslim, you might learn something, regardless of how old and stubborn you may be.

Jeff

The 307 and 356 make good sense. Not hard to see the advantages of better brass and more volume.

I see something of a parallel between rifle cartridges and automobile engines, in that the easiest way in either venue to increase power is by increasing capacity.

In engines, if there is a size restriction, like in F1 racing, you add a tubo-charger to the engine to boost performance, but you make the engine work harder and shorten its functional mean time between failures.

In cartridges, you seek the combination of powders and bullets that will give you the performance profile that you're looking for. We all know that manufacturers build some degree of safety into their rifles and ammunition, it is only prudent to do so. Our individual tolerance for risk generally determines how far into that safety zone, or mine field, we are willing to venture. If we go too far, we could be risking injury on every subseqent sqeeze of the trigger. Worth it to you? Maybe. Worth it to me? Maybe not.

The key weak point to hotrodding the 35 Remington, that I can see, is the brass. Since the 35 Rem was never intended to be hotrodded, the brass is made to be in sync with its mild factory spec pressures. OTOH, the 356 was intended to function at higher pressures in a rifle, the Winchester 94BB, that doesn't possess the (critical point!) escaping gas handling qualities as most modern bolt action rifles. The cartridges designers at Winchester/Olin worked in sync with the rifle redesigners at Winchester to arrive at a safe and functional integrated "system".

For the nominal cost of having Nonneman rechamber a Marlin 336 from either 30-30 to 307 or 35 to 356, I can't see any reason to incur unnecessary risk of hotrodding either the 30-30 or 35. In either case, if you want to use rimless cases, 308 and 358 brass will function through a Nonneman conversion's magazine, if you stick to 307 and 356 OAL criteria.

Jeff

JBledsoe,

If you blind yourself you will go on Social Security Disability so it does effect me directly because I am a taxpayer.

You innitally wrote "The cases show no signs of pressure and primers are not flattened."

Here is an excerpt from Steve Timm's excellent article in the Varmit Hunter Association magazine on primers as pressure indicators.

"Regrettably, primer shape and condition don't always follow our perfect world scenario. This is why reading primers is done more to substantiate other pressure indicators, rather than being a stand-alone signal.

The biggest problem in reading primers comes from the fact that primer cup material hardness and thickness varies slightly from lot to lot. Also, both hardness and thickness varies considerably from brand to brand. Like cases, some primers are hard and some are soft.

If a handloader uses a single lot of primers, it is a great deal easier to see the evolution of primer shape as chamber pressure advances. Additionally, by using a single lot of primers, and getting intimately familiar with it, we increase the possibility of noticing a development that is out of the norm. The key is to see the change and act on it (like a load reduction) before pressure becomes a problem.

I'm slowly growing convinced that flash hole size affects primer shape. Currently, I'm working with two large lots of Winchester .223 Ackley brass. The nickel-plated cases and the brass cases have precisely the same powder capacity, yet the brass cases flatten primers about �-grain (of H-335) ahead of the nickel ones. So what's the difference? The flash hole is very slightly larger in the brass cases. Is it possible that the gas back-pressure is slightly higher in cases with larger flash holes? Makes sense to me.

Cratered primers are not always a sign of high pressure. They also can be caused by a firing pin hole that is too large in relation to the size of the firing pin. If there is a significant gap between the pin and the hole, the primer material will flow into it at almost any pressure. It also is possible to experience pierced primers by using a firing pin that is sharp or too long. If a handloader experiences either of these problems at apparently low pressures, a trip to a fine gunsmith is in order.

My last comment on working to maximum may sound sort of sermon-like. I am the survivor of one total rifle blowup and one near-detonation. One was totally my fault and the other can be rightfully blamed on a non-shooting secretary of the old Kimber outfit. I've paid my dues and wear the scars and metal in my body (literally) to prove it.

Now listen up. If you load for a .223 Remington, but lust for .22-250 velocities, for Heaven's sake buy a .22-250. It just isn't worth the risk of hurting yourself by overloading the .223. Trust me, a rifle blowup, even with a relatively small cartridge, really spoils the hell out of your day.

Experience has shown that it is best to enjoy each cartridge for what it is. If you adopt this philosophy, you'll find that you will enjoy load development. Hey, just think of it as a compelling reason to buy that new .22-250 or .220 Swift. End of sermon."

You are never to old to learn. A lot of people who haven't survived as long as you could see the NOT pressure tested load data posted here and say those namby pamby wusses who write reloading manuals are just try to protect us from ourselves with wimpy loads and use them with unhappy results. So my cautionary note was not just for YOU. When you start your load development I hope you get a bench far away from innocent bystanders.

Touchy aren't we?

I did not think of you as being a member of the "some of you gentlemen" group refered to in my previous post. Sorry that you consider your self as such, I don't.

I will disregard your previous tirade and welcome any future comments and suggestions.

Still your friend,

Jim

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Whatever.

Your input on this matter, at least, is of little value to anyone who has any practical knowledge. I'd suggest that you put "260Remguy" on ignore, then you can be assured of living in ignorant bliss.

Jeff

From everything I have read over the last several years. The factory 35 Remington loadings from the big three at least of Remington, Winchester and Federal are all underloaded to even the current SAAMI spec. This is because of older Remington model 8 (I think) and other pump guns that were chambered in 35Rem. These actions are weaker than say a modern Marlin 336.

The exact same 336 action in a 30-30 is I believe 42,000. Also the 336ER in 356 win Marlin produced also used the exact same receiver. There are many myths that the 336 ER was a different receiver with heat treating etc but as far as I've been able to research there is absolutely no proof what so ever that it is any different than any other 336 receiver.

So while it is true that extrapolating data is not necessarily 100% accurate. It is also true that in modern Marlin 336 actions there is sufficient strength in the action to go above the 35 Rem factory SAAMI spec. There are people on other forums that are in fact doing pressure testing on the 35 rem. The testing so far proves that the factory rounds are well under the SAAMI spec even for an "underloaded" 35 Rem.

Check out marlinoweners and beartooth bullet forums. There is a wealth of information there. And there are many many people out there that seem to be loading the 35 Rem to 2200 fps and have been doing so for many years.

Yep, factory 35 Rem. loads are probably kept fairly tepid in deference to all of the old Rem. M14/M141 pumps still in existence. They supposedly follow the same practice with 8x57 loads and several others, for the same reasons: Old guns that might not withstand pressures that modern guns will.

I still shoot Rem. 200gr Core-Lokt factory loads in my M336 for these reasons: They were inexpensive, are very accurate and thus far have flattened a few deer with no fuss. When they're gone, I'll use that empty brass to whomp up a load that has a tad more oomph, providing they're just as accurate as the factory loads were.

The 35 Rem. is not a varmint or target rifle that gets fired hundreds of times per year, so ammo quantity demands ain't all that great. Doubt mine gets fired more than a half dozen times per year, but when I need more ammo, it'll be my own loads.

I have few reservations about loading stout loads in the Marlin 336 because I did it for years in my 444 without any problems. Although like someone pointed out, the hottest loads are not always the most accurate ones and accuracy is still the final answer in my book.

According to my info the factory loadings are only doing about 32 to 33K psi and the 30-30 is listed as 42K by SAAMI so there is room for 10,000 psi just to equal 30-30. Then the 356 and 307 push on up to 50,000 in the same action. The case may not allow 50,000 but I would think that the 42,000 level of 30-30's should be reasonable. That should give velocities in the 2200 fps range with 200 gr. bullets. Those guys on the other forums are running over 2300 fps with 200 gr. bullets at around 46K psi, that should be good velocity if the accuracy is still there.

I would like to try some experimentation when I find a good 336 in 35 cal. Sounds like fun!

Interesting discussion, thanks for your input.

Jim

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