Hello, I recently purchased a Marlin 336er in .356win in next to excellent condition other than a few handling marks on the forearm. My question is this.....it appears to have standard rifling yet the barrel says ****micro-groove****. Has anybody ever seen or heard of this.......I have shot about 20 rounds of the old winchester (white boxes) with excellent accuracy. 1 inch, 3 shot group at 100 yds. The rifle doesn't appear to have been shot much if at all.......there was no primer mark on the boltface to be found. One thing I do notice on the brass of the fired rounds is several show the primers slightly raised or backed out. Not all of them but some.....No other symptoms with the brass whatsoever........do you think this is a problem....?

Hello, I recently purchased a Marlin 336er in .356win in next to excellent condition other than a few handling marks on the forearm. My question is this.....it appears to have standard rifling yet the barrel says ****micro-groove****. Has anybody ever seen or heard of this.......I have shot about 20 rounds of the old winchester (white boxes) with excellent accuracy. 1 inch, 3 shot group at 100 yds. The rifle doesn't appear to have been shot much if at all.......there was no primer mark on the boltface to be found. One thing I do notice on the brass of the fired rounds is several show the primers slightly raised or backed out. Not all of them but some.....No other symptoms with the brass whatsoever........do you think this is a problem....?

My 336 EER also has regular rifling but has microgroove stamped on the barrel. Someone answered this question about a year ago but I forgot the reason. probably just using up parts that couldn;t be thrown out.
spurgon

Count your blessings... and don't complain!

How does the 356 Win compare to the 358 Win.

The 358 Winchester is a 308 necked up to a 35 caliber as is the 356 Winchester. The 356 Winchester is a semi-rim shell and has thicker walls than a 358 Winchester because it is fired in a leveraction rifle. Also, the 356 is rated at slightly less pressure than a 358 Winchester because it is fired in a lever action rifle. The 358 shoots about 250 ft/sec faster than a 356, but inside of 300 yards, deer, black bear, nor elk will be able to tell any difference.

I owned a 356 Winchester and presently own a BLR 358 Winchester. Because of stock design, the 358 BLR is more pleasant to shoot than a 356 Winchester.

However, I do not see a need for a 356 or 358. Instead, get a 35 Marlin and use +P ammo. With +P ammo you can get within 150 per second of a 356. As I said, I own a 358, but I always pick up the 35 Marlin to take hunting. The 35 is a really good hunting rifle if hand loaded.

My shooting experience with the my 336ER has reflected what Taylor has indicated above. There isn't much difference in a handloaded 35 Remington and the 356 Win. The 356 Win is not a 358 Win.

If anyone is interested...

Marlin recently cleaned out their vault with a number of NIB rifles being sold to Gander Mountain. Among those were a couple of 336ERs that GM now has up for sale. Read this topic on MarlinOwners...

336ER .356 (http://www.marlinowners.com/board/viewtopic.php?p=150890)

Ranch Dog is correct, a 356 Winchester is not a 358 Winchester. A 358 operates at higher pressures than a 356, so DO NOT use 358 reloading recipes to reload 356 ammo. However, you can use 358 reloading dies to load 356 ammo, just substitute a 30-30 shell holder for the 358 shell holder.

The good thing about the Beartooth board is that it is populated by shooters and reloaders. I like a ll lever action cartridges and the rifles that shoot them.
Watching the .308 in a Marlin 336 thread on Leverguns has me laughing. If a few of tho posters would use the search function instead of posting on emotion there would be a far mor interesting and informative discussion taking place.

We need to keep in mind the .356 and the .358 Winchester cartridges operate at the same pressure level. The difference between them is the COAL The .356 with its shorter COAL cannot equalt the .358 velocity wise. Chamber both carridges in the TC Encore and there would be no difference.
I like the idea of the .35 Remington +P loading and have followed .35Remington and his load experments since the Marlin Talk days. It apperas to me the biggest difference between the .35 Remington and the .356 Winchester - other than about 150 fps with the 200 grain bullet - is the .356 will achieve the 2200 fps velocity goal at a little lower prssure due to its greater case capacity.

The .375 thread brings forward the idea of loading the .35 Remington and .38-55 to +P levels which is not dangerous when approached by a knowladgeable handloader using a modern firearm. For the non handloader the .356 and the .375 are a better answer to the "more power" question.

The spec for the 356 Win. not only calls for the shorter cartridge overall length but also for thicker brass. The case lengths are actually the same but the case wall thickness accounts for .8-grains (H20) less capacity with the 356 Win.

Both cartridges operate at 52.0K CUPs.

William Iorg is a very knowledgable person about lever action rifles. He is friendly and a good person to ask questions if you have a problem. So when he said the 356 and 358 were both rated for the same pressure, I knew I had made a mistake. Both rifles are rated for 52,000 cup.

However, do not use 358 reloading recipes for the 356 and here is an example why not: Speer's reloading manual shows the maximum load for their 180 grain bullet to be 48 grains of H335 powder for the 356. Their maximum load for the 180 grain bullet is 52 grains of H335 for the 358 Winchester, a full 4 grains more than the 356's maximum.

Here is an interesting side note, 358 brass is expensive and sometimes hard to find, or you can use 308 brass, just expand the neck to 35 caliber. Once fired 308 is fairly cheap and much easier to find. 356 brass is harder to find and there are a couple ways forming other rifle brass into 356, but I do not recommend them. 356 brass has a thicker wall due to higher pressure than your normal lever action cartridge.

Slim,

Didn't your water weight data confirm what Ranch Dog and Taylor are saying? That there indeed IS more room in the 358? This is always generally accepted and written also. But when I study the drawings in the Speer manual of the 356 and 358 Wins, my eyes play tricks on me. The 356 indeed has thicker walls before the taper starts, but it looks like it makes up for this at the other end....the area around the flashole is more recessed toward the rim than the 358? It always seems like they should be the same volume or the 356 should hold more because of this? Always wondered if the drawings are not quite to scale, or if this is just a misperception on my part.

Taylor,
I got in a hurry and probably didn’t word my post the way I intended to. You are correct about not interchanging .356 and .358 load data. Fortunately there is not enough case capacity to use most – if not all .358 Winchester maxim load data in the .356 case at a COAL of 2.55”. With any appropriate powder in the .356 I run out of case capacity prior to reaching a maximum load level.

Chris, it has been awhile since we discussed case capacities for the .356. I am shooting from the hip, as I don’t have what I sent you in front of me. The notes I do have show us trimming all of the cases to the same length of 2.015” and the .356 W-W Super held 54.2 grains of water, the R-P formed .444 case held 55.0 grains of water and the Winchester W-W Super .358 case held 56.2 grains of water. As I remember this all of the cases were full length sized for the water measurements. The load notes I have here say we loaded the 220 grain Speer bullet seated to .2550” in each case ahead of 39.0 grains of Hodgdon 4198. The .356 case got 2296 fps and the formed .444 case got 2281 fps and the .358 case got 2289 fps. I don’t think I tried a maximum load in the three cases to see what the difference might be.
We did cut a .356 and .358 case and they looked pretty close to one another thickness wise. I don’t think we ever cut one of the formed .444 cases.

I recently had a discussion along similar lines with a friend who is a commercial reloader. My friend reminded me the firearms manufacturers do not build rifles for me – the gun crank. The manufacturers build rifles for the guy who shoots factory ammo. For this guy the .375 Winchester is a significant boost over the .38-55, the .307 over the .30-30, the .356 over the .35 Remington and the .450 Marlin over the .45-70. Handloading not only changes everything it increases the fun and satisfaction.
I just want to say again how much I enjoy reading discussions like this. I find them informative and I learn something from each post.

William,
If a person was going to rechamber a 30-30, do you think it would be better to rechamber to a 307 or a 30-30 Ackley Improved, and which do you think is easier for a do-it-yourselfer?

I have being toying with the idea or either rechambering to 307 or sending the 30-30 off and having it bored and chambered to 375. Because of the cost, I am have began leaning toward rechambering to 307. I am favoring 307 over 30-30 AI because a 307 will do better with heavier bullets.

Also, can 30-30 brass be fireformed to 307?

I'm sorry. I somethings stray and looks like I am changing the subject of this thread. I will post my last question as a new thread.

Thanks Slim. You have a better memory than mine! :D I'm on a new computer that doesn't have those old files on it, so appreciate the recap.

Dbergero64,

Congrats on a fine rifle in a great caliber. Those primer's backing out cannot be good. Ideas fellas? Are the primers flattening out even with the case or are they coming back out of the primer pocket beyond the face of the rim?

Sorry Chris for not replying sooner, I have been pre-occupied with another most recent purchase.(s) Well, the primers are slightly raised above the base of the cartridge. And, its not on all of them. This is a box of Winchester (old) orange and white box of ammo. Everything else appears to look alright with the brass. the boltface of this gun is smooth and even. Is it possible the factory primers are too soft or not seated all the way. I guess I need to try a newer box of ammo and see if it still happens. The rifle is in excellent condition and didn't even appear to have been fired looking at the bolt and looking in the rifling for copper. I really hope it is not a headspace problem.
Do you think Marlin would make good on it if this is the case with the rifle being out of production in .356 ? I heard there were only like 2400 ever produced........I like the way it shoulders vs my winnie big bore.

Dbergero