356 Winchester vs. 35 Remington

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TexasEd

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I would like to know if there is any real-world differnce between these calibers. I would also like to know if you hunt deer in the Northeast (Vt. NH Me.) and some shots could be over a 100 yards, but are more likely under a 100 yards which caliber gives the best for this application. As a curve ball, I see that the 200 gr. Hornady Rev. 35 Rem. ammo seems to close the distance on the 356. Has anyone used the 35 Rem. Hornady ammo and if so how was it?
 
I can tell you first-hand that .35 Remington 200gr. Core-Lokt works very well on big deer and black bear in the Northeast.
 
I have pondered these two also. The big thing that I come across is I want a Marlin and finding one in 356 is a bit of pocket change.
 
The 356 Win, on paper, seems to have significantly more energy...the problem is..where do you find the ammo???

A Fisherman sometimes I shoot trap with, had to stop an angry coastal grizzly with a Marlin in 35 Remington...two shots ans the beast was down for good.
 
For those that cast their own 180 or 200 grain 357 mag it's a good match (for me)
 
I use the .35 rem for deer. Never had a problem that is my brush gun for quick shots since its only iron sights no scope. Hits harder that the 30-30 which is also a great deer gun.
 
A 35 Rem launches a 200 grain bullet at 2080 fps.
A 356 Win launches a 200 grain bullet at 2460.

That's nearly a 400 fps difference, which is a lot. The Hornady LeveRevolution ammo splits the difference at 2225.

However, you can buy 35 Rem ammo at any decent gunshop, but 356 ammo is hard to find. Winchester still catalogs it, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's on the seasonal list, which means that Winchester loads a batch of it whenever they get a chance rather than continuous production. Also rifles in 356 are collector's items and hard to find.
 
The main difference aside from the slightly different case dimensions is the operating pressure. The 35 Remington has a SAAMI limit of 35,000 CUP while the 356 Winchester has a SAAMI limit of 52,000 CUP. A friend of mine bought a 356 winchester new back in the early 80s. Its a game killing machine but ammo is very hard to come by these days so he dosen't use it much anymore.
 
Comparing muzzle velocities with 200 grain bullets , the .356 Winchester (@ 2460 fps) is closer to the .358 Winchester (@2490) than it is the .35 Remington (@ 2020). I'm partial to the .35 caliber and I especially like the .358 Winchester and the .35 Whelen for the kind of big game hunting I do: woods and big timber in Michigan and Pennsylania for whitetails.
 
However with regular commercial loads, the 35 Rem has basically no ballistic advantage over the 30-30 (muzzle velocity is in the 2050-2080 range vs. 2200 for the 30-30 170 gr., both from 24" pipes) and it is actually a worse performer downrange.
Hodgdon mention a max load for 2110 fps with the 200 gr. 35 Rem out of a 24" barrel.
The 200 gr. 35 cal. bullet has less SD than a 170 gr. 30 cal. pill.

Yes there are some hot rod 35 Rem out there (for example the Buffalo Bore Heavy 35 Rem 220 gr. offering) but there are super hot 30-30 loads too (for example: Grizzly Cartridge 170 gr. partition at 2400 fps)
 
I think you'll find many who disagree with that. Everyone who I know who has hunted with both 30-30 and 35Rem will tell you that the 35 is significantly better even though they look the same on paper. The 35 just cuts a bigger hole !!
 
I think you'll find many who disagree with that. Everyone who I know who has hunted with both 30-30 and 35Rem will tell you that the 35 is significantly better even though they look the same on paper. The 35 just cuts a bigger hole !!
It's the difference between looking at ballistics charts and hunting.
 
I think you'll find many who disagree with that. Everyone who I know who has hunted with both 30-30 and 35Rem will tell you that the 35 is significantly better even though they look the same on paper. The 35 just cuts a bigger hole !!

I'm pretty sure that 0.05" of hole diameter makes a lot of difference...you definitely can see it on a 150 lb animal for sure...to me it sounds like the idiotic nonsense debate of 40 vs. 45....

It's the difference between looking at ballistics charts and hunting.

No, it's the difference between empirical thinking coupled with hunting legends, sprinkled with a little bit of ignorance and rationality and technical approach.

How many hunters have tested the 2 rounds in a controlled environment shooting the same animal from the same distance at the same angle with the same bullet style to verify the difference in effectiveness?? Guess what....not a single one...

Any pubication you read, any knowledgeable person you talk to will tell you that the 30 WCF and 35 Remington belong to the same class, there is no animal that one can take down better or more effectively than the other...period.
 
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It's the difference between looking at ballistics charts and hunting.

No, it's the difference between empirical thinking coupled with hunting legengs, sprinkled with a little bit of ignorance and rationality and technical approach.

How many hunters have tested the 2 rounds in a controlled environment shooting the same animal from the same distance at the same angle with the same bullet style to verify the difference in effectiveness?? Guess what....not a single one...

Any pubication you read, any knowledgeable person you talk to will tell you that the 30 WCF and 35 Remington belong to the same class, there is no animal that one can take down better or more effectively than the other...period.

I agree that it would be very difficult to conduct true controlled experiments on something like caliber effectiveness. Too hard to get a test subject that would react to being shot consistently, too many variables.

But that lack of hard data cuts BOTH ways. You don't get to claim it bolsters YOUR argument just because you want to.

I'll agree that the 30-30 and the 35 Remington are in the same class. The extra bullet frontal area & weight doesn't magically transform the 35 Rem into a dangerous game round. Just makes it a bit more effective against deer.

The formula for calculating frontal area, area=(.5D)^2*pi, means that area changes according to the radius squared times 3.14. This means that tiny changes in diameter result in large changes in area. Thus the "mere .05 inch" difference in diameter results in a 35% increase in bullet frontal area, a far more significant difference.

If you had to stop a charging bear right now, would you rather have a 308 or a 358 Win? An easy choice in my book.
 
But that lack of hard data cuts BOTH ways. You don't get to claim it bolsters YOUR argument just because you want to.

Actually you can test penetration and expansion ratio in a controlled environment with a test medium (not usually a live animal) and smaller bullets of high SD have always showed excellent results, despite what the "bigger is better" people think...my recent post in the hunting section about the test conducted by the US Forest Service (I posted the link to the document) about effective calibers on bear defense shows, for example, that the 30-06 ranked surprisingly high vs. bigger magnum calibers...it is a very interesting read

http://thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=485872

Yes the frontal area increase significantly more than the mere diameter (caliber) increase...but in the grand scheme of things (a deer, a pig or a black bear) the difference between a 30 and a 35 caliber is basically almost irrelevant at best....now if you talk about the difference between a 24 cal. bullet and a 45 cal. bullet we start to get somewhere.....

If you had to stop a charging bear right now, would you rather have a 308 or a 358 Win? An easy choice in my book.

I would probably choose the 358 Win because its significant higher energy (some loading can exceed 3000 ft/lb) and the higher SD for the bullets over 200 gr. (you can load a 358 Win up to 250 gr.) compared to the usual 308 loads.....not necessarily because of its bigger caliber.

However it's interesting that you mentioned these 2 cartridges because in that study I mentioned before (link: http://www.fs.fed.us/pnw/pubs/gtr152.pdf) if you go to page 7, you'll see that the 308 and the 358 ranked very close (#14 for the 358 Winchester and #18 for the 308 Winchester) on the overall list (33 total ratings of different cartridges some of them in different loads)

On a charging bear situation, the bullet style used, the rifle employed (manoeuvrability) and the shooter (shot placement) would account for all the difference in effectiveness between the 308 and the 358, not the caliber itself for sure....in a charge scenario, contrary to regular hunting, I would say overall penetration (to get to the CNS) is even more important than any small difference in the wound channel (bigger frontal area = more drag).
 
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Energy transfer will be faster with the larger slug because it has more surface area (both to drag through the wound channel and at impact). The 200 gr round should have a little more kinetic energy due to its weight, but the extra velocity of the 170gr pill might make up for it. I see it like this.. even though the .35 has a lower SD, it is like getting slapped with a book vs. getting punched with the book on end (its a really thick book). There is a little bit of a difference in the way it feels.. but either will do the job.
 
I would probably choose the 358 Win because its significant higher energy (some loading can exceed 3000 ft/lb) and the higher SD for the bullets over 200 gr. (you can load a 358 Win up to 250 gr.) compared to the usual 308 loads.....not necessarily because of its bigger caliber.

However it's interesting that you mentioned these 2 cartridges because in that study I mentioned before (link: http://www.fs.fed.us/pnw/pubs/gtr152.pdf) if you go to page 7, you'll see that the 308 and the 358 ranked very close (#14 for the 358 Winchester and #18 for the 308 Winchester) on the overall list (33 total ratings of different cartridges some of them in different loads)

The higher energy of the 358 that you mention as an advantage didn't come from the energy fairy. :D It came from the higher bullet weights possible with the 358, which is a direct function of caliber.

So in your study the 358 scored higher. Close but higher. Exactly my point.

On a charging bear situation, the bullet style used, the rifle employed (manoeuvrability) and the shooter (shot placement) would account for all the difference in effectiveness between the 308 and the 358, not the caliber itself for sure....in a charge scenario, contrary to regular hunting, I would say overall penetration (to get to the CNS) is even more important than any small difference in the wound channel (bigger frontal area = more drag).

The rifle or the shooter would NOT account for any difference in effectiveness between the 308 and the 358 because they are external factors unrelated to the two cartridges. All else being equal the 358 comes out on top. Which you already admitted in the start of the same post.

I do agree that sectional density is important and that if you are going to go to a larger caliber you will have to go to heavier bullets to maintain it. This will lead to sacrifices in increased recoil and decreased trajectory. But if these sacrifices are tolerable or irrelevant to your hunting style you will be rewarded with better terminal performance.
 
How about this... TIME OUT... If wanted to know about the 30-30 vs the 35 I WOULD HAVE ASKED. I get the whole thing with the 30-30 vs 35. It dosn't matter to me, there both good in their own right and they have a following...and thats cool. I am asking about if there is any major differnce between the 356 Win and the 35 Rem...ON GAME, not on a ballistic chart. I that say because I will be shooting more times than not under a hundred yards. Thanks and shoot safe.
 
How about this... TIME OUT... If wanted to know about the 30-30 vs the 35 I WOULD HAVE ASKED. I get the whole thing with the 30-30 vs 35. It dosn't matter to me, there both good in their own right and they have a following...and thats cool. I am asking about if there is any major differnce between the 356 Win and the 35 Rem...ON GAME, not on a ballistic chart. I that say because I will be shooting more times than not under a hundred yards. Thanks and shoot safe.

Fair enough. Since the 356 and the 35 Rem will be shooting the same bullets, the 400 fps extra velocity the 356 brings to the party will make a difference on game. That's roughly the difference between a 30-30 and a 308, and yes, there is a difference on game between the two. If your range is short and your game is in the deer / pig class I wouldn't bother with the expense of finding and feeding a 356. However if you are going after elk, I'd recommend getting either a 356 or better yet, a Browning BLR in 358 Win.
 
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The higher energy of the 358 that you mention as an advantage didn't come from the energy fairy. It came from the higher bullet weights possible with the 358, which is a direct function of caliber.

Energy is a fuinction of weight and/or velocity..increase one of them and the energy will go up accordingly (much more with increase in velocity)

he 358 has higher energy compared to the 308 because of its higher weight and, in some loadings, higher velocity

The rifle or the shooter would NOT account for any difference in effectiveness between the 308 and the 358 because they are external factors unrelated to the two cartridges.

In a bear charge it will make the difference if you will be alive or not...much more than the caliber itself

All else being equal the 358 comes out on top

All else being equal, the 358 has more energy compared to the 308 and higher SD with heavier pills (like the 250 gr.), so yes it comes out slightly ahead and rightly so.
 
To the OP


I totally agree with Natman on that, the 400 extra fps, with the same bullet between the 356 Win and the 35 Rem, will give you considerably more energy (about 700 ft/lb more) which will allow you to take longer range shots or to take bigger animals (assuming proper bullet construction)

The problem is finding ammo in 356......35 Rem is everywhere, including Wal Mart (pre ammo crisis)
 
I totally agree with Natman on that, the 400 extra fps, with the same bullet between the 356 Win and the 35 Rem, will give you considerably more energy (about 700 ft/lb more) which will allow you to take longer range shots or to take bigger animals (assuming proper bullet construction)

Good point, but..................didn't he just say a couple of posts ago that he was limiting himself to under 100 yards.
 
Yes the frontal area increase significantly more than the mere diameter (caliber) increase...but in the grand scheme of things (a deer, a pig or a black bear) the difference between a 30 and a 35 caliber is basically almost irrelevant at best....

.35-cal has 35% more frontal area than .30-cal. To me that is pretty relevant. People look at how small the numbers are and minimize them based on their absolute value, but even that little 0.05" is a 16% increase.
 
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