Thoughts on 35 Remington in a Contender

[Walter Sobchak]

Ya'll,
I'm thinking about getting a Contender Carbine barrel in 35 Remington.I recall that awhile back there was a lot of talk about the 35 Remington giving folks fits in a Contender.Any truth to this?

Thanks.

[Swampman]

I had one, and it shot great.  I never had any problems.

[RonF]

Same for me, but I know some people did have trouble.  I believe it was mostly related to headspace issues with the small shoulder.  I had good luck with both Super 14 and carbine barrels.  I still shoot the Super 14 and it is very accurate as well as very effective on deer.
RonF

[Graybeard]

The .35 Remington in a Contender is at once both one of the best and the worst of barrels. If you get one that shoots every time you pull the trigger you have as fine a barrel as you can get in the Contender but sadly from my own personal experience your chances of that happening are not good.

I've owned four of them and of the four only one shot every time the trigger was pulled without fail. The others failed to do so anywhere from 25% to 75% of the time. It didn't matter if the ammo was new factory or reloads those barrels just were not reliable. I laid aside perhaps 200 rounds from those barrels that failed to fire in them in spite of repeated tries. Any I tried in my Marlin worked fine even after failure in the TC. Then I found a SS 14" barrel that fired EVERY TIME without fail. I tried many of those I'd stuck back with dimpled primers and all fired.

Like a fool I sent it off to a fellow who is the self proclaimed TC expert of the world and had him turn it into his version of the .358 JDJ which of course he called after his own name which of course is banned at this site. He proceeded to ruin the barrel completely in the process of rechambering it and I then had to wait months on him to get a replacement for it and chamber it to his round. It worked fair and I gave a report on it but it never did shoot with that much accuracy in spite of his claims and I eventually sold it to one of his few fans and took the loss on it.

Were I to ever again find one that shoots each time you pull the trigger I'd keep and cherish it for the treasure it is and not allow any modification of it by anyone as you really don't need more than it offers. Of course the simple thing to do is to just get a .357 Herrett barrel as all of them fire 100% of the time and deliver 95% of the ballistics of the .35 Remington with no real hassles other than the minor one of forming and shortening cases.

[Swampman]

IMO the .357 Maximum and the .357/44 Bain & Davis are both excellent, and will do anything the .357 Herrett or .35 Remington will do.  I had a 10" .357/44 B&D and it was one of the most accurate TC barrels I ever owned.  It started life as a .357 Magnum barrel and I had it rechambered by the Bain & Davis company.

[Lone Star]

My 1980-vintage .35 Remington Super 14 has been 100% reliable for nearly 30 years.  Ditto my long-gone Savage 170.  The shoulder is plenty large if the case fits the chamber.  IME most of the guys I knew with missfiring .35s were able to fix it by properly fireforming the brass to the specific chamber.  These included both Marlin and Contender owners.    I do not know why GB can't get his barrels to work. 

My T/C barrel has always shot very well.  I really like the 150-grain CoreLokt loaded with 158-grain charges for over 2300 fps in my barrel.  This bullet gets a bad rap but it works very well on deer and lesser game.  It is hard to beat the 200 CoreLokt either.




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[Graybeard]

I do not know why GB can't get his barrels to work.

I didn't say I "couldn't get them to work" I said they did not work as issued.

If a barrel fails over 50% of the time with factory ammo it is defective. When I got my first one I didn't even reload at the time and was trying to use factory ammo. Yes I know the work around fixes but that's beside the point. If a barrel fails with factory ammo and with normally prepared reloads it is defective. That you can expand the case out larger than it should be and then carefully size it back to make it work is immaterial the barrel is still defective. I've NEVER had a misfire in any of the several Marlin .35 Remington rifles of mine. Even ammo that the TCs wouldn't fire the Marlin rifles did.

[Lone Star]

Sorry GB, I assumed that when you said that the barrels were not reliable with handloads I thought that meant you couldn't get them to work reliably.   

Marlin sites also have many stories about faulty .35s, IMO the problems are a too-common missmatch between chamber and ammo specs.  Fixable - but then for non-reloaders, why bother.




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[Graybeard]

No I'm well aware that reloading techniques can be applied to fix the .35 Remington misfire problem but so far of the several Marlin rifles I own and have owned in the chambering I've never yet experienced a misfire. With TCs on the other hand it seems most common. Taking into account that one SS Contender barrel that never misfired even with ammo that had previously misfired in other TC barrels and the fact none of my Marlins have ever misfired I don't think it's an ammo problem so much so as a firearm or barrel problem. Yeah you can alter the ammo to make it work better but shouldn't have to.

Back when I had the first Contender barrel in .35 Remington I didn't load for the round and used only factory ammo. With the rest I think I had begun to reload for it but still shot some factory ammo as well and got the misfires with both. At that time I did not have the proper equipment to fix the problem. I do now but have no barrels that give problems so it's kinda moot for me today.

I do love the .35 Remington round but it could be a bit better if the case was a bit larger in diameter so the shoulder was more pronounced. Still it's an excellent old round and gives all the perfomance needed for deer, black bear and hogs.

[TNyoteboy]

When I first got my 35 barrel for my Contender, I tried some 15 year old factory Remingtons I had left over from a Marlin I had and I did have a couple of misfires. I attributed it to the age of the rounds. I think I had 2 out of a dozen that didn't fire and they both had primer indentions. I've since gone through another box of factory Remingtons and haven't experienced any misfires? Maybe the last box had a little diffrent shoulder on them, who knows.

[tipiguy]

I have a 21" factory, a 12" (that was cut from a 14"), and a TC custom 17".  I love the round and have never had a misfire in any of them.  The 17" makes a great little carbine for still hunting.  I use the 180 grain Speers and would not trade this round for any other round.

Tipiguy