Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Gunsmithing Remington 760 35 Remington rechamber?

Since I have to take a 2nd mortgage on the house to cover the magazines I've bought for it that don't work, any downsides to rechambering to 358 Win?

I know short action mags are said to 'work' with the 35 Rem, but so far, no go and I ain't buying any more.


It's an early model, before they drilled/tapped them, I think it's 1954 or 55.


And if a rechamber, who?

Thanks

Since the rim diameter is smaller on the 35 Rem, the bolt face might not work. Then again Remington might have used an oversize face for the 35. Something to check.

People like to quote that as a problem, but it's not. Remington used the same bolt face for 35 Rem and all the .473" case heads.

Not sure what to suggest here. All of my short action magazines work for 35 Rem in my 1955 action. If they don't work in yours, I wouldn't count on them working for a 358 either; I'd want to figure out why they don't work and what's wrong before rechambering in hopes that fixed it.

My lone 35 Remington magazine works fine.

What do the others do differently; how do they fail? Mag lips do get bent sometimes, you might measure the gap between lips on the 35 Rem mag and compare to the others.

I know the 35 Rem mags have the little spring spacers front and rear, but the lack of those in other mags has never affected mine. Assuming we're talking about factory 760 magazines of course; aftermarket magazines for these are junk, and the newer 7600 magazines don't always work right either in these old guns.

I only have a couple 35 Rem magazines as well, the rest are other short actions like 308 and 6mm Rem; all of mine function and feed the same way. Only difference I've seen is some lock into the gun differently than others and can benefit from a little tweaking of the magazine catch (that's just variation in mags and nothing to do with 35 Rem vs the others).

My magazines all work even with wide flat nose bullets.

I think yours is a magazine problem or the catch. But for a rebore I have guns by JES. Be Well, Rustyzipper.

Regan Nonneman in MO, does that conversion on a regular basis... or at least used to.

Beyond the re-chambering I’m pretty sure he has to change out the extractor (35 rem is rimmed, 358 is not).

No, that is not correct. The 35 Rem is not rimmed. There are no other modifications needed other than the chamber to convert one of these guns to 358 Win, and with long action mags it can be made into a 35 Whelen as well.

The downside is there are not as many 35 Remington rifles around any more.

yep... I was thinking about a 356... my bad

Probably easier to convert a 760/7600 in 308 to 358 than mess with a 35 REM

Easier? No definitely not. Converting a 35 Remington is a simple rechamber, nothing else to it.

I had one rechambered to 358Win years ago. I sold off the 35Rem mag and used a 308 magazine w/o any issues at all. It was a good conversion but I would not do it to a nice condition 35Rem 760. Mine was a beater.

I've always heard that the ROT of the 760s in 35 REM, 1-16"(?), was too slow to work well with bullets heavier than 200 grains, so rechambers to 358 WIN or 35 Whelen were generally unsatisfactory 'cause the heavier bullets that you'd probably want to shoot wouldn't work well.

IIRC, Paco Kelly recommended heavy 35 REM loads for strong rifles like the 760, but not applicable for the Remington 8/81 and 14/141, Standard, or Stevens 425.

As long as you stay with 225 grain or less you should be fine..

Faster would be better but I had no trouble with Speer 250s in mine as well as in 3 different 7600s in 35Whelen.

I traded into this exact set up years ago and had the rifle for awhile. Don't know who did the work except that it was described as a simple rechamber. The rifle shot 225 Noslers well, Speer 250s not so much. Interestingly, at the same time I had a rechambered 600 with the same ROT that bug holed the Speer bullet. I had no issues using the regular .308 magazines.

With my 358’s I ran into problems with COAL of anything over 225 grains anyway - so the bigger lead issues may not be as bad as they look.

I have two 358’s, one a BLR, and the second a Winchester 70 custom shop.

Remington used the same 1:16 twist for all of their 35 Whelen rifles as well. It's plenty adequate for 250gr and more depending on bullet design. I have used up to 280gr bullets in both 35 Rem and 35 Whelen Remington rifles with the 1:16 factory twist with good results. A faster twist is needed for 300gr stuff, but that's not normally used in 35 Remington anyway.

There sure is a lot of bad information being shared in this thread.

Please note that I clearly stated that I had heard that the ROT on the 760s in 35 REM was too slow for bullets heavier than 200 grains, not that I knew that it was from personal experience.

I've had a couple of 1-16" ROT Marlin 336s rechambered from 35 REM to 356 WIN and they handled the 220 grain Speer FP bullet just fine.

My intention was to alert the OP to a possible problem that I'd heard about, so that he could investigate further, that's all. Just trying to help a fellow out, but as they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Typical Fire fashion 'I don't have any FIRSTHAND experience, but I can't help but to interject BS into the conversation'

Thanks to most of you.