.35 Remington Brass

nimrod375 · #1 11-01-2009, 01:39 PM

G'day,

just wondering if any of the major ammo companies stateside are making .35 remington unprimed brass?

I've always wanted a .35 or a .356 and just the other day a new Marlin 336 in .35 came up for sale at a good price so I bought it. You never see them out here in Australia, in fact I've never actually seen one for sale before so I wasn't about to let it get away.

Ringing around all the gunshops it seems loaded ammo, if I can get any will run about $60 for a box of twenty. That will be Federal or Remington ammo, the only two types available (apparantly) and I have been told unprimed brass is unavailable.

Seems the .35 has a pretty good following over there in the eastern states, so I'd be surprised if someone somewhere wasn't offering component brass for sale. I don't think there'd be too much of a problem trying to import brass.

Any help would be much appreciated, I reckon it'll be a magic rifle for pig hunting, but I've got to find some fodder for it first!

MikeG · #2 11-01-2009, 02:20 PM

Ouch, that hurts. I've never had problems finding ammo on the shelves right here in Texas, but I suppose if it is less popular the price goes up?

Brass production may be seasonal. I don't know which of the major retailers here will export, if any - but might keep an eye on the Midway web site.

Good luck....

William Iorg · #3 11-01-2009, 03:11 PM

And Midsouth shooters Supply, new unprimed 35 Remington brass is readily available.
My primary experience with the 35 Remington is with the Thompson Contender barrel.
In my experience new 35 Remington brass measures .452” at the base with the books generally listing .4592” as the base measurement.
Most new 308 and 358 Winchester cases measure .465” at the base with the books listing it as .4709”.
While I have not measured a chamber cast from Marlin chambered for 35 Remington I have measured several others and found all of them to have generous dimensions at the base. I would form a 35 Remington from 308 Winchester brass and see how it chambers. I would then fire form it using corn meal or some other filler and measure the base dimension again. I would imagine 308 brass would work without the need to inside ream to thin the necks or anneal to save the case mouth from cracks. 30-06 brass would require both steps.

nimrod375 · #4 11-01-2009, 09:29 PM

Thanks for that, that's interesting about the .308 cases. I would imagine the Marlin chamber would be pretty sloppy, they usually are. But is the .308 the same rim size as the .35, because if not I think the extractor could be a problem.

Wrench Man · #5 11-01-2009, 10:16 PM

A Federal shell fired from my Marlin 336A measures .454" at the base, my loading manual shows a dimension of .457" so? it does show the 308 at .470" base dia, I don't know how you'd squeeze a 308 case down .025"! and then you'd have to turn the rim down in a lathe to get it in the bolt face too! the 308 uses the .473" rim and the 35 Remington uses .460" rim.
35 Remington brass isn't a problem to obtain, I just purchased two new bags of "Winchester" 50 count brass about a month ago for $21 each US.

broom_jm · #6 11-02-2009, 01:47 AM

Internal dimensions and brass thickness of the 308 case would make it...less than desirable to form 35 Remington from. Old, weak actions are not the only reason pressures are kept down in the 35, it's because factory brass is relatively thin, compared to most cartridges made today.

William Iorg · #7 11-02-2009, 10:49 AM

If the 308 Winchester will not work the 303 British will, although it may require a bit of rim reduction. The Marlin 336 will generally accept both rimless and rimmed cartridges without alteration. I still believe it is worth a try to form one 308 as a look see. We are looking at .013” difference which is .0065” on a side – less than two sheets of notebook paper. A compound press should be able to handle this with a good lubricant.

Case capacity is not a problem you adjust your loads to match the water capacity of the case you are using.

nimrod375 · #8 11-03-2009, 09:50 PM

Wrenchman, does Winchester only do .35 Rem in limited runs every couple of years or are they usually avaliable all the time? What other types of brass are people over there using?

William, I'm a bit confused about using the rimmed .303 case to make .35 Rem if the .308 won't work. Are you saying to turn down a .303 rim until it matches the rim diameter of the .35, then size and fireform?

Wrench Man · #9 11-04-2009, 06:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nimrod375

Wrenchman, does Winchester only do .35 Rem in limited runs every couple of years or are they usually avaliable all the time? What other types of brass are people over there using?

According to Midway USA it is a "seasonal run", they haven't shown it in stock for quite some time now?, but it is available from other sources.
Remington brass is available too.

MikeG · #10 11-04-2009, 06:38 PM

I'll vote for Remington over Winchester and Federal for the .35. No real reason other than the Rem brass I have has more case capacity than the Federal or Winchester.

nimrod375 · #11 11-05-2009, 12:16 AM

Thanks very much guys, I think I'll look into trying to get some sent over, especially with the aus$ at about 94 US cents at the moment. At $60 for a box of twenty shells over here it would be bloody dear for me to get my hundred cases!!

William Iorg · #12 11-05-2009, 07:25 AM

My thoughts on this were:

Wildcatters and those who reload foreign or obsolete cartridges often swedge down the base of cartridges. Reloading presses such as the RCBS Rocker, the old Pacific C press and the new Lee cast iron press have adequate leverage for this task when mounted to a sturdy bench.

I believe the 308 Winchester case can be made to work but I have not tried it myself.

Many silhouette shooters who use the Thompson Contender and the 35 Remington cartridge have switched to the 35 Remington Rimmed case. This is the 303 British cases sized and trimmed to 35 Remington using a form/trim die and the regular reloading dies.
My thoughts on this for your application are:
The Marlin 336 rifles seem to handle both rimless and rimmed cartridge well with the same extractor and no further gunsmithing.

I have shot formed 308 Marlin Express cartridges in my 308MX rifle. I have formed the 308 Marlin Express cartridge from 30-06, 308 Winchester and 270 Winchester cases. My rifle feeds the cases well and has no difficulty with headspace or extraction. I do have some minor problems with the extractor holding the rimless cartridges long enough to reliably eject the empty case every time. I am running about 70% reliability in this regard.

Beartooth Forum member Seattleloader has two Marlin 336 rifles barreled for the 307 Winchester cartridges and he uses 308 Winchester cartridges as his primary source of brass.

I don’t have a case in front of me at the moment but the 35 Remington has a nominal rim thickness of .0500”
The 303 British has a nominal rim thickness of .0640”.
The nominal difference of .014” may well allow a formed 303 British case to work through your rifle without alteration of the rim.
If the rim proves to be to too thick it will be necessary to remove material from the front side of the rim and not the headstamp side.

The diameter of the 35 Remington rim is a nominal .4600”.
The nominal diameter of the 303 British is .5400”.
The .050” diameter difference may well require turning down the rim slightly.
The Marlin 336 extractor is very tolerant of different rim diameters. With the rim diameters of the 30-30 through 444 Marlin at .5140”, and the 45-70 at .6080” we have some flexibility in terms of extraction.

I don’t have a 35 Remington Marlin to play with or I would try it out for you. I thought I had a 35 Remington Rimmed and hoped to post a picture for you but I don’t seem to have one handy. If you have brass availability problems I believe both of these thoughts are viable without significant alteration of your rifle or heavy investment in tooling. For a handloader these are just tasks.

MikeG · #13 11-06-2009, 06:13 PM

I tried sizing down a .30-06 to .35 Rem tonight, and it worked, barely.

The .30-06 brass is marked K A 7 3 (each character 1/4 the way around the rim from the next). I am pretty sure this is some Korean surplus that I got at a gunshow. Anyway, I had a few spare cases and decided to use them.

The rim did measure about 0.473," more or less, but the head immediately in front of it was down to 0.465" or so. I am mentioning this because although the rim fit the Marlin boltface, there was interference where the case head was not sized down. The bolt would close, but barely. About the last 1/16" or so of the head was not touched by the sizer die. Right where the die stopped marking the case is where it was making contact with the rifle chamber.

In a different gun, or with a different die, or different lot of brass, the results could have totally changed. It was "barely" going into and out of the chamber and I think 0.001" either way would have had an entirely different result.

A random R-P case also measured 0.465" ahead of the extractor groove, but it had a much smaller rim, also right at 0.465." I think we assume tolerances are closer than they perhaps are with factory ammo and mass-produced cases.....

The case needs to be cut off just behind the shoulder to come out to the right length. My tubing cutter did not handle this well. Mostly the taper in the case seems to be the culprit. Expanding it out straight, or nearly so, might help. Since everything ahead of the shoulder gets cut off, working the case mouth that much shouldn't matter. In a .308, I'm not sure how to do it best. I ended up cutting it off with a hacksaw and it wasn't pretty!

Not having any "premium" case lube, I went with what was handy, Dillon case lube. It works just fine for "normal" case sizing but something better is needed. To keep from sticking the case in the die, I was turning the die in a bit at a time, starting with a full turn then dropping to fractions of that as the die got closer to the shellholder. Not a fast efficient way to do it and something like Imperial Sizing Die Wax would for sure be the way to go if you had to make more than 2 or 3 of these.

I would assume the case has less capacity than commercial .35 Rem, but the case mouth is so ragged I don't think a valid comparison can be made.

Anyway, in conclusion, I suppose this could work as an expedient. But, I would carefully check the dimensions of everything before making more than 1 or 2 cases! A push-through sizer to get that last little bit of the case head would be a necessity, in my opinion.

nimrod375 · #14 11-07-2009, 06:44 PM

Interesting information there, thanks. Mike, did you use a special forming die or go straight to a standard .35 rem sizer?

Just checked out both Midway USA and Able Ammo, neither of them list .35 brass. Also might not be able to import any as I read something about not being able to import any ammunition 'component'.

MikeG · #15 11-08-2009, 06:59 AM

I just ran it into the regular sizer. I suppose using the seating die first might work better? Anyway, as it was just out of curiosity, didn't try to refine the process too much.

No idea what the export laws here are. I don't think anyone here does, either. Sorry!