Ever since Indiana introduced the idea of lengthening their PCR regulations to allow for the use of the 460S&W, meaning 1.800" case length, I have been looking at the 35 Remington as an easy round to modify and hunt with. A lot of folks have tested this idea and found that by simply shortening the neck ~.120", making it Indiana-legal, they could seat bullets at the normal length and shoot. The accuracy and performance have not suffered from this process, so you don't lose anything with the shorter brass.
A good gunsmithing buddy of mine is offering an improvement on this idea, specifically for single-shot, break-action firearms. What he is doing is giving folks one of two options that follow the same basic idea of shortening 35 Remington brass, but stepping up the performance and making it a better round by giving it a rim.
Depending on what you want to do, he can take a donor barrel for your H&R or other single-shot action, chambered in 357 Remington, 357 MAX, or even custom build you one using a 35 caliber blank. The chamber is bored out to either a full-length 35 Remington or short-chambered to a 1.8" version of the same round, but with the shoulder pushed back slightly, making it impossible to accidentally insert a full-length, factory 35 Remington case into the short chamber. That would be dangerous with a short chamber.
Either way you decide to go, he then cuts a rim counterbore into the back of the chamber that will allow you to use 303 British or 30/40 Krag brass. The advantage here is both of those types of brass are much stronger than 35 Remington brass, allowing you to go to a "+P+" type of loading. The rim gives positive headspacing and assures easy extraction, even with gloved hands on cold November mornings. That's not always the case with rimless designs, like the 35 Remington. At the same time, the 303 and 30/40 cases still operate within a pressure threshold that is perfectly safe and suitable for the H&R SB2 frame. (If using a 357 Rem Mag barrel, make certain your frame is an SB2, not an SB1, as this conversion will be too powerful for the weaker SB1 frame.)
What you wind up with is a barrel that will still shoot 35 Remington brass, trimmed to the Indiana-legal limit of 1.800" for deer hunting. However, if you size and trim 303 or 30/40 brass, you can load those rounds a bit warmer, giving you greater velocity and range. The advantage is you don't need custom reloading dies; you just sent the gunsmith a set of 35 Remington dies when you send in the barrel and he'll trim those to the right size, as well. If you decide the whole project was not worth the time and effort, you can sell the gun as a normal 35 Remington (if you had it short-chambered, it can easily be made full-length). The fact that the barrel was cut counterbore for the rim of the 303 or 30/40 does not preclude you from firing factory 35 Remington ammo in the gun and will not impact performance in any way.
If any of you would be interested in a 303/35 Remington - 1.8", send me a private message and I'll put you in touch with the guy doing this particular conversion. He has assured me that he will give a 3-day turnaround for these jobs, so that you have your gun back in time to work up some loads and use them for deer hunting this fall.
Jason
