35 Caliber Cartridges Popularity?

I have wondered that myself. My only thought is the fickleness of public opinion. Perhaps the .35 Remington is perceived as not having enough range and the .358 Win and .35 Whelen kick too much.
In Europe, the 9.3mm (.366") is a dearly loved bore diameter for many rifles from deer rifles to large dangerous game rifles. I like .35 caliber rifles.

I purchased a second 30-06 barrel for my ugly but beloved T/C Dimension to have it rebored and chambered in 35 Brown-Whelen, but then I bought a Mossberg Patriot in 375 Ruger. And I recently came into Mauserbuchsen (1871 Mauser pattern) rifle in 9.5x47R, so I guess I have become more a .38 caliber fan, but with much the same thinking. The 375 Ruger loaded with 250 grs cast at 375 Winchester levels is pretty handy.

Other 35 cal obsolete and wildcat:

35 Winchester
35 Krag
35 Territorial (303 British necked up)

And don't forget the magna:

358 Norma Magnum
350 Remington Magnum

And the close, but no cigar:

.348 Winchester

Like most “why isn’t this cartridge more popular” topics, the answer is usually because:

1. other cartridges get the job done with equal or better efficiency.
2. the cartridge in question wasn’t marketed well
3. some combination of 1. and 2.

Having said that, I love my .358 win and will be adding a .35 Whelen sometime in the near future.

I have 308 and .30-06 hunting rifles already, so I find myself asking myself, “hey self, why are you doing this”. To which I reply to myself, “because I can and I want to”.

It’s usually somewhere during or after that conversation that I find my wife and kids staring at me with worried looks on their face

Most 35 cal rifles suffer from the fact they are necked up versions of smaller caliber parent cartridges - smaller caliber parents which can typically manage nearly the same bullet weight at nearly the same performance. Performance which is typically lackluster with the heavyweight bullets we choose to use in 35cal cartridges. Slow, low sectional density, low ballistic coefficient... they’re short range, woods hunters cartridges... and in an era where hunting has been in decline for multiple generations, well...

Equally, the 33cal has largely surpassed the 35 as the mid-bore of choice. No faster, no heavier, but with slightly less compromise on SD and BC, the 33’s have American consumer favor.

I do enjoy a Whelen, but if I were building another today, I’d simply build another .30-06 AI, or 338-06.

^^^ This is a good summation.

I think that the 35 Rem got popular back when leverguns and woods/scrub hunting ruled the day, and back when using 357cal pistol bullets for plinking fodder was really 'a thing'. That popularity with the 35 cal never really carried forward once those predicates were lost / diminished, which is why the 350 Mag and 358 Win and 35 Whelen never really moved past niche status. The popularity of the 35s has dropped to the point where acquiring brass becomes a bit of a chore - you have to constantly troll for the 'seasonal runs'.

I like me some 358 Winchester (and have loaded 500 rounds in the last month, to see me through my summer range sessions), but I like it specifically because it shoots a reasonably large caliber bullet at modest velocities (250gr @ ~2250fps / 200gr @ 2450fps). For hunting on foot in the NoTexas scrub, that's a pretty decent solution that doesn't blow up as much shoulder meat as the smaller/faster chamberings and that can handle anything found around here on four legs. But it doesn't work as effectively as other choices across more open terrain, and moving up to a 350 Mag doesn't buy much better. There really isn't a modern beltless magnum 35cal offering (e.g. no such thing as a 35 PRC).


That's also true for the 25 cals; I'd love a 25 PRC to replace my 257 Weatherby, but alas.....

I was going to call it a niche caliber, but really its kind of a caliber without a niche. You have small bore high velocity chamberings in 338 and below, and you have the large bore rifles of 375 and up, and the 358 sits right in the no mans land in the middle. Bigger than it needs to be to kill medium size game, but yet on the small side for dangerous or thick skinned game. That being said I have a 358 yeti and love it. I shoot a 180 grain speer hot core at 2500 fps from a 16" barrel and it is an absolutely superb short range hunting rifle.

I built my Whelen because of the history & nostalgia behind it. That and I thought it would make a great moose/ bear / deer rifle for New Hampshire. It loves tossing 250 grain slugs @2500+fps. The thought of using 38 cal handgun bullets for plinking was entertained but has yet to materialize. It does kick but but not really more than my 06 , and I have not put a lifesaver recoil pad on it yet! But I'm old school I guess and the ballistics of some other cartridges do look impressive on paper. Plus , some people like to show up at camp, or the range , with the same thing everyone else is using.

To address the OP...

I think it's because the .30's will do fine for most things w/ considerably less trouble.

Unless you need it.

And if so, is it optimum or even adequate?


For a long time I flirted w/ the .338-06 for the SD and BC, and then w/ the .35 Whelen for the expansion and wound tracts.

On my way up to the .375, I stumbled on the 9.3x62mm.

Good SD/BC 286 gr. bullets at 2360 fps, gives me an honest point-N-shoot 250 yd. rifle that delivers a ton-feet of energy when it gets there.

...for ~ 36 lb-ft of recoil.

By all accounts, for a medium bore, that is more than enough - and punches well above its weight.




GR

I got interested in .35 caliber rifles because I wanted to use my extensive supply of 158-180gr .358 bullets for .357Mag/.38Spl in a rifle. In the last 4 years I owned a .35Rem Marlin lever, and a .358 Win Ruger American.

Both are gone, because in 4 years of reloading I was unable to get either rifle to equal the accuracy of my .357 revolvers. . . which is outrageously annoying. Hot, reduced, heavy, light, jacketed, lead, nothing worked.

It just weren't meant to be.

Nature Boy said:

2. the cartridge in question wasn’t marketed well

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Mr. Nature Boy makes a valid point about the marketing, or lack thereof, of some .35 caliber cartridges that deserved better recognition than they got. A good example being the all-but-forgotten .358 Norma Magnum. Which was introduced back when standard length belted magnums (7mm Rem Mag,.300 Win Mag, et al) were enjoying popularity with the hunting public. The Norma Mag has impressive ballistics plus the reputation at a top-tier ammo manufacturer, so I had a pretty nice one built which I figured would be just the ticket for elk, moose and big bears. Somewhat thereafter some of my business friends in Sweden invited me to join them for a moose hunt. Naturally, I figured my new custom .358 Norma would be perfect for the hunt plus being a kindly international gesture. As it turned out the .358 performed as expected on the two moose I bagged, but was a diplomatic failure because my Swedish hosts had scarcely even heard of the .358 Norma even though it being a product of their own country.

.348 Winchester

Closer to "35" than . 357

I was told that the official Alabama beanfield gun was the 25-06 and the official Alabama brush gun was the 35 Remington. Dunno if that's true, but that was the story from my friends in B-ham and Huntsville.

I purchased my Marlin .35 remington when I turned 18. I have been using it for 45 years now and taken many deer with it. Yes it is limited with anything out at over 100 yards but here in N. E. Pa we very rarely get anything over 100 yards. It sure is a deer stopper! I only shoot the 200 gr. corelocs because of accuracy. The only thing I have noticed is the shortage of factory ammo and the cost of ammo going up.

The 35's kill stuff, but a comparable 30 caliber does everything better until you get to bullets in the 270-300 gr weight class. And almost no one shoots bullets that heavy in a 35 caliber rifle. The 35's have had their chances. People buy them, figure out pretty quickly that the only thing they hit harder is their shoulder, and sell them.

The heaviest commonly fired bullet fired in 358 is 200 gr, in 35 Whelen 225. You can shoot those same bullet weights in both 308 and 30-06 about 100 fps slower at the muzzle. But within 200 yards the 30 caliber versions are moving faster, shooting flatter, and hitting harder. Plus the 30 caliber bullets will penetrate deeper at all ranges.

Finn Aagard, a noted African PH and gun writer did a lot of work testing different cartridges on truly big game. He concluded that a 200-220 gr bullet fired from either a 30-06, or a 300 WM out performed everything tested short of 375 H&H. That included 35 Whelen, 338 WM, 45-70, and several others. Several others have replicated those tests and came to the same conclusion.

Of course we live in a world where people are now killing elk at near 1/2 mile with 243's. Most people are now deciding even a 30-06 is way more gun than they need.

the official Alabama beanfield gun was the 25-06 and the official Alabama brush gun was the 35 Remington.

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The 35 Rem used to be pretty popular here in Ga 40-50 years ago. But it's been a while since I've seen anyone use one.

I can say that the .35 Rem survived because it wasn’t a rimless copy of a Winchester factory round that Remington made for their pump or auto rifle, as the .25 Rem, .30 Rem and .32 Rem all died out.

I have both Winchester 94 30-30’s and a Marlin 336 .35 Rem, and the 336 is much more accurate for me than the 94’s are. It’s a great round for deer/black bear within its performance wheelhouse. Try to stretch it beyond reasonable ranges or load it up to try and make it what it’s not (a.358 Win or .35 Whln) and you’ll have issues.

Stay safe.

I love my 35 caliber rifle.

But it's a Ruger PCC in 9mm

I have a .35 Remington,dont hunt with it just plink.It hits bowling pins hard,and being a lever gun I can shoot them quick.

Been wanting a 360 WBY...

when will they make one of those!?

Greg

The recoil of a 35 is brutal compared to a 30 of the same capacity.
30 cal shoots flatter.

ExAgoradzo said:

Been wanting a 360 WBY...

when will they make one of those!?

Greg

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.358 STA.....