Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Custom Rifles & Wildcats Why no love for 35s

I have had a variety of .35 caliber rifles, from the little .357 magnum M92 Lever and .357 maximum TC Contender single, to .356 Win. M94, and some .35 Whelens, M700, Ruger #1. Liked them all, but only kept one in my present collection, a very nice Sako AV Classic with custom 24" 1-12" twist barrel. Never selling that one.
But the most interesting and unusual rifle was one that came to Canada after a hard life in Africa. A small ring Mauser sporter in 9x57MM. the cartridge duplicates .358 Win ballistics and mine shot the Hornady 250 gr. RN well with its .357" bore. It was an obviously experienced rifle and I probably should have left it as is - but I refinished it. It had a few nicks in the barrel apparently from being involved in a knife vs rifle fight - and a couple of fang marks and claw marks in the stock that looked to me the right size for leopard. Wish I knew the stories!

Very nice bear!

What Whelen? All I see is steak! Rifle looks well balanced.

Hookeye, that's a cool looking TC! Probably between a 357 Max and 358 WCF in performance? Are you running 200s?

I'd love to get one of those in a Contender rifle with a 24" barrel.


Man, what a gorgeous bear and setting! That looks like one of those "Hunts of a Lifetime" things.

Always had a thing for 35s. Over the years I've hunted with various Marlins in 35 rem, a couple of Marlin 356s, a Savage 99 .358 Brush gun, Remington 660 350 mag, Commercial FN 98 35 Whelen,

Currently I have a Savage 170 pump 35 rem

A 9x57 built on a small ring Mexican 98:



and My most recent acquisition: Westernfield Sako L57 re-bored by Jess to .358 win:

Your Sako is a beauty weagle...

Wow! Until I read this thread I had never heard of 35cal rifles. Yank, yank, yank

I have owned no less than six rifles chambered in 357 Maximum, three in 35 Rem, three in 358 Win, and three in 35 Whelen.

Currently I have a H&R Handi rifle that was rechambered by a drill bit (best guess). It shot subsonic loads (220gr LHP at 920fps) extremely well and everything else resembled a pattern. Last month I cleaned the chamber with a PT&G 357 Max rifle reamer and now it shoots everything well enough to sell another 357 Max rifle that was dedicated to jacketed bullets.

My last 35 Rem was a semi-custom Rem Model 7 that JES rebored a donor 223 barrel and assembled. The next 35 Rem is being built as a Win M70 FW by Wayne York.

My current 358 Win is a Win M70 EW that was rebored from 308 by JES. It shoots extremely well with TAC and just about every bullet I load.

My current 35 Whelen is Win M70 rebored by JES. It's a Super Shadow bedded into an EW stock.

Redneck (Lee C.) has been trying to convince me to buy his 358 STA but it's built on a Remington. I'm not sure how my Winnies would accept an outsider into the safe. My M7 had some unexplained "safe dings" lol

I feel as though my bases are covered. I typically assessmy hunting situation and grab the right tool for the job.

But, alas, I am also afflicted with a love for 6.5cal rifles too.

Thanks, Dinny

In order as mentioned above minus the 35 Rem. It's still being built.

Another .358 caliber fan here. I've owned several whelens and Norma mags over the years, as well as a couple of 350 rem mags.

Sadly down to one now. Remington classic 350 Rem mag, had the barrel cut to 20" and sights reinstalled. Wears a Leupold Ultralight 2-7. And likes 225 SGK's over a stiff charge of RL15. Killed a handful of deer and 4 elk with it so far. Everything I shoot hits the ground right now, even lung shots. Closest kill was a 5 point bull at 30 feet in a brush hole.

The 350 gets taken out once in a while, but I grab my JES rebored 338-06 shooting 210 Partitions more often than not.

I'm really tickled at the couple of 9x57 Mausers that have jumped in here to compete for the Looney King award against the 35 Newton.

I'm a 35 fan too. Here is Fall of 2020 with the Savage 99 .358 Win:

And Fall of 2019 with a Mauser 35 Whelen AI:

Pic of the rifle attached.
I also have a great old pre-micro-groove Marlin 336A in 35 Rem with a 24" barrel. I've never hunted it but plan to take it to Montana for a deer B-Tag in a couple years.

Cheers,
Rex

Wow those are some sharp looking rifles

TRexF16,

Nice work with those 35s!

Wow, indeed nice rifles and harvest pics! Good work folks.

I got my first 35 when I was in my early 20's, somewhere around 1991. I bought a Remington BDL 35 Whelen. I always liked oddball cartridges compared to what everyone else was shooting so I bought one. I worked for a wholesale sporting goods company as a salesman on the road. I had read about it in one of the outdoor magazines and figured I'd get one.

I only shot 200gr Remington Core-lokts out of it and it would put 3 in a little .600 cloverleaf at 100 yds. It was very accurate for that large a calvert and I knew I had to hunt with it. I had a 1.5-5 Burris scope with a dot in it and started carrying it over everything else I had in the gun cabinet.

I remember my first kills with it. We were doing a deer drive and deer started coming right towards me in a field about 100yds away. The first one I hit flipped on a frontal cheat shot and the second stopped broadside. I punched her behind the shoulder and down she went. As the hunting group gathered around my deer in the field, my Great Uncle said " I've never seen anything like it and he's hogging all the deer" lol. He was watching from an ajoining field.

I killed probably 20 or so more deer from 15yds to about 225-250yds. I only had one deer run and to this day I don't know how. It broke both shoulders at about 225 yds and literally devasted everything up front.

As the years went on I found an older Marlin 35 and bought a Ruger Hawkeye All-Weather 358. I never got a chance to shoot anything with those and through a divorce, lost all but a few guns. I wish I still had the Whelen.

All that being said and after the divorce I went another route. I built a 338-06 and a Ruger Hawkeye All-Weather 338 Federal. I caught the end of Nosler producing the 180gr. .338 ballistic tips and loaded those in the 338-06. I killed my best 6 pointer to date on my first hunt with it and it was a broadside 50 yd shot. It hit right behind the shoulder and punched a 50 cent piece hole out the other side. The lungs were jelly and it even blew up the too of the heart. The deer went about 30yds and piled up. The devastation inside to the vitals was pretty perfect.

Any of the 35's would have probably given me the same outcome, but the added speed and bullet choices turned me to the .338's. They have a shock value on deer sized game and the 358 at certain speeds pack more. They are both great where I hunt.

The difference I think is this and a lot of people on this board will agree I think. If you aren't reading, reloading, shooting, working in the gun sales field....Your going to be shooting a 243, 270, 308, 30-06, because dad hunted with one, grandad had a 270 that he killed everything with, all my buddies hunt with a 7mm mag..etc. The manufacturers make what sells numbers and makes them the most money. That being said the 30-30 in my lifetime probably still accounts for more game taken in the lower 48 than any other. I personally have never killed with one. My Great Uncle moved the the lumber yards when he was about 18 in Saskatchewan and killed a documented 50+ moose and 25+ Grizzlies using a 30-30 a long time ago.

I still have one 358, one 35 Remington and two 350 RM's.

The 358 and 350 are good for 300 yards, easily (maybe 350). The 35 Remington, is a 336 and has metallic sights. I'd limit that one to two hundred yards. I think that my 600 350 RM is the optimum rifle for the dog tree pine and occasional openings for elk and smaller creatures.

All are very effective cartridges, IMHO.

I like my M77 rebore cut at 20”. I carried it elk hunting some this season but couldn’t connect the dots on the days I had it.



Hunting coons in grizzly country it is nice being able to load 250s for flailing around in the dark/brush and then slip in a 158 cast loaded light with trail boss for dispatch work.

A couple Remingtons in 350 Mag. I have only shot one mule deer with 350 mag model 660. Handload with 150 grain core-loct. Did alot of damage,!!

Have 3 boxes 150 total old Speer 250 Gr FS great bullet in the 35 Whelen. PM me going on classified tomorrow.

https://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbt...50-gr-speer-hot-cor-bullets#Post15643591

MedRiver,

How much difference in POI between the light pistol bullet load and a full house hunting load?

DF

Two 350RM 660 & 600 & 35Rem in the middle.

.35s are great. I have used the Whelen and the .350 rem mag (have a 600 that is now a safe queen until it finds a new, loving home). Still have some Hornady 250 spire points but like the article in Handloader a couple decades ago said, the 225 Sierra boat tail may be ideal. Layne Simpson wrote a nice article on the Model 600, getting over 2500 fps from 250s, as I recall. Both Elmer and Ken Waters came to prefer the BC and SD of .338s and that thinking has diluted the interest in the .35s--but both sizes are great, do very well in the field. Elmer's "needle blowers" say they are "overkill" to which he responded, "what? Do you think it will be overdead?" Live long, medium bores!