by Paco

Marlin has always been known for trying any sort of chambering in their leveractions. And over the years they have chambered very interesting calibers such as the 30 carbine...256 Winchester....of course they started the 444 ...all of the old calibers from 25-20 up thru the 45-90s and such....and of course they were the first to chamber the 45-70 in 1881...five years before Winchester. But the modern chambering with an old caliber, that caught on and stayed for more then 40 years in their line was the marriage between Marlin’s levergun and Remington’s cartridge....the 35 Remington. My 1960 GUN DIGEST #14 states that the Marlin 336 in 35 Remington carbine lists for $80.75 cents.....Marlins have gone up around 100 + bucks a decade since then. But so has everything else.

Why was this circa 1908 cartridge in a levergun so popular....? Mayhaps it was because it was so effective! And with modern powders and bullets today it is even more effective. Remember Marlin along with Winchester are the premier levergun makers in the World. And the leverguns have always out sold the bolt action rifles by a large margin. When you put an effective round in one, it’s to be expected that it would sell well.....BUT....Winchester has chambered at least four 35 to 38 calibers since the 1930s in their leverguns and they all have gone by the wayside. What is so special about the 35 Remington....? How can rounds like the 348...356...and 375BB that are so good die...well it’s worse than that going back to the 1873 Winchester action in 127 years Winchester has lost 28 thirty-five or near thirty-five calibers to none interest! Yet the 35 Remington held on for over 40 years....in the Marlin.

First this a bastard case...it’s not from the ‘06 dimensions, even though it looks like it, but from the 9mm56 Mannlicher case. Rimless and shorter and made to function in the Remington ‘08 auto loading rifle...John Browning first developed this rifle the Auto 08 and round for Fabrique National d’Armes de Guerre in 1905. But the round was taken on by the public’s attention early in the century and chambered in a lot of guns....Standard Arms of Delaware chambered a slide pump in it in 1909, then Remington’s mod 8, then the mod 81, also Remington’s mod 14 (slide action) and it’s reworked 141, also the 760 pump. Winchester chambered it in the mod 70 bolt action rifle, Rem in their mod 600 bolt action, also their mod 30...Mossberg put it in the 472 and Savage in the 170 pump...T/C Contender in their single shot and of course Marlin in the 336 since the early 1950s...from about 1905 thru the mid 1990s this round has been chambered in some action and available to the public. It’s called popularity.

One of the real sleeper rounds in the T/C Contender is the 35 Remington. I have had a number of these barrels for my T/Cs over the years....they are excellent ...both 10 inch and 14 inch...I had one 14 inch bull barrel extended to 16 plus inches, with a two inch muzzle brake and it is the nicest short carriage rifle I have. But you can’t beat the Marlin leveraction 336 in this caliber it is very fine...

I have even rebarreled a number of these 35 Rem/Marlin 336s to other rimless rounds. You have to keep the pressures down around 40,000 psi so I always made the cases improved with the shoulders pushed back so the commercial rounds wouldn’t chamber. Like the 250-3000 and the 22-250....two of the best semi-wild cats I’ve put on the 336. Having the rimless bolt makes for some interesting calibers on a levergun. The worst was the 308 and ½ ...it didn’t do any better then the 30-30. But the original 35 Rem. chambering is hard to beat....if you have never had one...start looking at the used gun racks...

I purchased a 35 Rem/Marlin in 1970 because we had moved into the wilderness of the southeast. And I wanted to be able to use the components from my 357 magnum handguns in a rifle. The only 357 magnum (handgun chambered) rifles in those days were the reworked 1892 Winchesters converted from 32-20. They were few and far between and expensive when you did find one. But with the 35 Marlin/Rem I found so much more than I thought I would....I had used 35 Remingtons as a kid but it was with commercial ammo or someone else’s handloads and never realized the potentials of the caliber until the 1970s and that Marlin.

One of the first loads I found that was very surprising was 39 grains of 3031 under a Lyman 190 grain round nose bullet...I used this bullet in the 357 mags and heavy loaded 38 specials. That load gave over 2200 fps from a 20 inch barrel. But today I find 41 grains of H335 will push it well over 2350 fps....the same load will push the famous Keith 173 grain cast bullet over 2400 fps. These are big deer and black bear slayers supreme. I have taken a number of hogs with them also. And using 150 grain 357 soft nose bullets I have hit near 2600 fps with 45 to 47 grains of the same powder H335.

Remember these are my guns...and my pressures...you have to work up from well below...slowly....

When my first daughter was growing I felt she needed a good rifle. I took a Marlin 35 Rem and cut the stock back to 10 inches and the barrels back to the legal limit. With a nice soft butt pad and cast loads she learned not only to shoot but to hunt. Using a 150 grain bullet and 20 grains of 2400 came close to breaking 2000 fps...but it was and is a soft load in recoil....and she was able to deer hunt with it in the early years. She worked up to the 220 grain cast bullets over 18 grains of 2400 giving near 1650 fps...and took her first pig with that load.

When she had grown and had her little sister coming up behind her I suggested I buy her a new rifle of her choice and we pass the Marlin to the younger one. She looked at me like my lights were broken...and simply stated I should buy her sister the new one...she was restocking the Marlin and keeping it. And she did.

From 4 grains of Bullseye under a 170 grain cast bullet at 1178 fps or 7 ½ grains of WW231 and 1400 fps... to a 220 grain cast bullet at near 2200 fps this little shooter can do it all.

Marlins will scope nicely...I don’t like scopes on leverguns but there are times when they are necessary. I was in a tree stand a few years ago, and had the Marlin scoped...it was very early in the morning not yet light, and I had intended to pull the scope when the light was full. But the scope in bad light helps greatly. When I saw a tawny and tan color something slipping thru the trees about 20 yards out and I put the scope on him. I paced him as he slipped along....waiting for him to slow or come into a clearing....finally he turned towards me but quartering...the 180 grain Remington scalloped point at 2100+ fps hit him directly into the chest. He was the largest feral dog I ever shot in Az. He topped 70 lbs...he had a good deal of dried blood and lice all over him..his teeth said he was about four years old. And he had a 22 RF bullet under the skin in his right hip....this boy definitely had been trouble to the locals.

The Remington bullet even at that close range and high velocity performed well. It had gone in his chest, high, ripped downward thru the large blood vessels around the heart and exited with a three inch hole just passed his bottom ribs. He spun and yelleped at the shot, went down and gyrated for about 4 or 5 minutes and never got up....wearing rubber gloves I checked him over. He was a nasty customer in his time...lots of fighting scars especially on the face and ears. I never did find out where all the blood had come from...but the farmer’s land I was hunting on thought he might have been a sheep killer they were trying to catch.

Lyman makes a 280/290 grain GC roundnose mold in 358. It’s for the 35 Whelen and such but for a heavy bullet at moderate velocity in the 35 Remington it is tops. It has to be loaded well into the case but with slow pistol powder that’s alright. For example 15 grains of Unique gives near 1500 fps....357 magnum handgun velocity with a much heavier bullet...it flies very well and the penetration is excellent. The old number was 3589...one of the first 358 caliber bullets Ideal came out with....now it’s 358009....but it is still a fine bullet. The best of the 358 heavy weights. I push it from my 35 Whelen at 2600 fps for almost 4400 ft.lbs of muzzle energy! Even at 1500 it is generating almost 1500 lbs of punch...near what some 30-30 loads give.

With 36 grains of 3031 I am getting near 2100 fps and 2800 plus ft.lbs from the 20 inch Marlin barrel. This does recoil a mite...but it hits hard and goes deep. I hit a 250 lb plus hog behind the ribs angling towards the right shoulder at 120 yards with this load....the bullet stopped in the wrecked off shoulder, and everything in between that and the entrance, was pulped.....this cast bullet in anything 35 caliber is a freight train, very hard to stop.

I like it cast soft and gas checked over 5 grains of Bullseye or WW231 for around 900 fps...at ranges out to 100 yards it sure will kill small game. Got varmints coming into the back yard?...One of these over 2 to 2 ½ grains of Bullseye is very quiet but deadly out to 50 yards...11 grains of Unique will give it 1200 fps and it’s the best handgun load out of the rifle you can find. Great for training the kids yet has power.

The 190 grain to 200 to 220 grain cast bullets work well out of the 35 Remington/Marlin. And they are so versatile....if you don’t cast, Cast Performance offers a 187 grain LBT bullet with a hunting flat nose that I find very effective. Playing with it and Unique one day I was surprised to find 12 grains under this bullet gave 1660 fps and tore very large wound channels deep into wet phone books. It would certainly do the same to deer and such.

Remington used to offer a 150 grain spire pointed jacketed bullet. I have not been able to find them lately on the market....and that’s a shame. It was developed for Remington’s 350 magnum chambered in the old 600/660 series bolt actions. The short belted 350 was a twin to the 35 Whelen in powder capacity. But the 600 series had a very short barrel...18 inches...and the Whelen with 22 inches or more gives better ballistics....I can drive this bullet from my Whelen at well over 3200 fps. In the Marlin I would clip the soft nose so it was flat tipped...and load it over Rel#7 and H335 powders. With 47 grains of H335 I got the best accuracy and 2444 fps. It made a longer range shooter out of the 35 Marlin...set for 3 inch high at 100 yards it was down around 16 inches at 300 yards. For the little Marlin that is quite good.

Az has a goodly number of antelope but they are a long range proposition most of the time. A good scope and this bullet and load could be used...of course there are much better calibers even in leverguns for antelope. But in a pinch this would do it.

Like all levergun calibers versatility in this one, is spelled i-m-a-g-i-n-a-t-i-o-n. Using bullets and powders not normally used...trying combinations not normally even thought of...gives us that versatility. Good peep sights like Ashely’s Ghost Rings and/or a scope when needed gives us accuracy and range not ordinarily associated with leveraction rifles. Of course the world still thinks of leverguns as brush guns...how limiting, how stupid, it’s almost rude.....