Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles Cast bullet loads in the .350 Rem Mag

Has anyone here played around with shooting cast bullets in their .350 Rem Mag? I've got some good .35 caliber cast bullet molds for hunting designs and I'm wondering it they would be good options for lower recoil loads. Specifically, a Ranch Dog 359-190RFGC. 190 gr. cast bullet with a check that has been a great hunting bullet from my .357 Max. I use it at about 1900 fps in the Max and wouldn't push it much harder in the RM. Ideas of where to start?

I can’t help you with any loads, only give you a big 👍 for having one of the .35’s. In my opinion, if you are a hand-loader, the .35’s give you some great opportunities for great, very effective light loads......both with cast and jacketed handgun bullets! You may go to the Cast Boolit (yes boolit) forum......lots of good stuff there! Good Luck with your quest!

Al Miller wrote an article on 350 Rem Mag and cast bullets quite a while ago.
I think that Lyman reloading manuals would have cast bullets loads for the 350 & the 35 Whelen.
I’ll look as I have some cast bullets loaded up for my 350 RM too.
As memtb wrote cast boolits has a lot of cast bullet loonies.

I was loading these before I started putting all my loads on a computer, so I have to go on memory. I suspect I used Ken Waters’ loads.
Here’s some from the Lyman manual for 35 Whelen and 195 grain bullets:
Unique 13 to 19.2 grains (1546 to 1894 FPS)
2400 22.5 to 29 grains (1815 to 2255 FPS)
their accuracy load was SR-4759 27 grains @1935 FPS
and they loaded that powder to 34.7 grains @2337 FPS

Ken Waters had an article on the 350 RM 9/1981
He was shooting a Ruger 77 in his article.

With 195 grain Lyman 358315 (one of my molds too)
Unique 17 grains @1,801 FPS
IMR-4227 22 grains @ 1,673 FPS
IMR-4198 26 grains @ 1,695 FPS.

I believe I used the unique load that Ken Waters wrote about.

I also have a Lyman mold 35897 (226 grains)
He used 32 grains of IMR-3031 for 1,562 FPS and called it the best cast-bullet load. I probably used that load too.

I don’t believe I did much work for accuracy regarding the cast bullets, that is I just shot Ken Waters loads. My grouping with those cast bullets were not outstanding - some where around 2 MOA. They shot well enough for under 100 yards.

I also have loaded up a few 125 grain 357 bullets for fire forming in my 35 Whelen. One of those loads blew up a cotton tail this last summer. They shot close enough to hit that cotton tail at about 50 yards.

Love those 35’s.

I probably used some of Al Miller’s’ loads too.

[quote=memtb]

Cast Boolits is a fantastic site. I’m Selmerfan over there and asking the same questions. I’ve really come to love the .357 Max, but the opportunity for the .350 Rem Mag came up and I couldn’t pass. I know I can throttle it back as needed - just seeing if anyone has already done so before I go reinventing the wheel.

This is helpful. I’m surprised at the dearth of cast boolit load info in my Lyman manual AND cast bullet handbook for both the .350 Rem and .35 Whelen. I appreciate the 2400 and 4227 info, as they are what I suspect will be my best bets for moderate loads. Unique is also a contender. I’ve got plenty of each of those. Lyman data favors Unique and 4759, but I don’t have 4759. I also suspect Blue Dot would be a good candidate.

Update - I finally got to shoot this beautiful XP-100 a few weeks ago for the first time. I didn't use cast boolit loads, as I wanted to make sure I had at least a single load that I'd be comfortable shooting at deer if I don't get enough range time to do more load work up, as well as try some loads that I knew would be at the beefier end of the recoil range. I used the Speer 180 spitzer jacketed bullet and the following loads of RL15
56 gr.
58 gr.
62 gr. (just so I could feel what max loads felt like for this weight of bullet in the gun)

Surprisingly, recoil wasn't that ridiculous. Probably because of the center grip stock design that is very well balanced, if slightly muzzle heavy. I found it interesting that as I laid target over target, keeping the 1" center dot in the same spot, that the group of 15 shots was less than 2" at 100 yards. The 62 gr. was obviously the stoutest recoil, but less felt recoil than heavy .454 Casull loads with 300 gr. bullets out of my Encore. 58 gr. was the best balance of the three between precision and recoil. I hope to do more load work up this fall, especially with cast bullets, but for now I know that I have a load that I can hunt with in January and will have complete confidence in going where I send it.

Didn't know Speer made a spitzer in this weight. All I've ever seen/used in the FP.

I stand corrected. You're right. It's technically a FP, but compared to my WFN or LFN cast bullets it looks like a spitzer.