Barnes Bullets in 35 Remington?

[george]

Hi all... first let me say I luuurve Graybeards... the site not the man, lol! It lets me tap a knowledge base far beyond mine.

I've got my application in for a Marlin 336 in 35 Remington (we gotta get permits to buy anything down here, they take a couple of months to process) and I'm getting setup with some reloads while I wait... just wondering if anyone's done any reloading with the Barnes Triple-X 225gr flat base? Or the 180gr/200gr X-Bullet (original) flat base?

Yep I know, the shape leaves me with just one loaded + 1 in the tube, but if I can't do it with 2 shots I shouldn't be firing anyway.

[Graybeard]

Why for Heaven's sake would you wanna use either of them? The old round nose 200 grain bullets are and likely always will be the single best choice for a bullet in the .35 Rem. There just isn't enough case capacity to take advantage of heavier bullets with over the counter cannister powders now available. Tim Sundles at Buffalo Bore is getting 2200 fps from the Speer 220s but he's not using cannister grade powder. You can't safely push them that fast.

The round cannot push a bullet fast enough to make it much more than a 150 yard round. Inside of 250 yards RN bullets are at no real disadvantage to spitzer bullets. So why go to the outrageous expense of buying Barnes bullets that will almost assuredly not be as accurate and likely will not even perform as well?

[george]

Why did I think of using Barnes - they've been great in my 308 and 257, as has the pmc-starfire in 30-30. This led me towards the copper-barnes for the 35 based on performance, not velocity or distance. 150 yards is a longish shot for me, most are under 100 yards anyway.

You have an excellent point on the sub-150 accuracy, and the expense... likely I'll wait for the rifle then try several factory loads first.

[Lone Star]

Another point is the low expansion of the Barnes at .35 Remington velocities.  Yes, they list opening at 1600-1800 fps, but firing loads at that level into expansion media shows only minimal opening, barely over bullet diameter. The long Barnes bullets reduce the already limited powder space, reducing velocity even more.  For high velocity cartridges I love the X-bulletts, but I have to agree with GB here, the right jacketed bullets will doubtless give superior terminal performance in the .35 Remington.  Try them if you want, but don't be surprised if jacketed bullets kill better in this case.  Barnes didn't bother to even test loads in this cartridge in their manuals - there must be a reason for that.

[Lloyd Smale]

10s of thousands of animals have bit the dust using just round nosed remington corelocks. Ive taken deer bear and wild boar with the .35 using them and using just a hard cast round flat. Put a barnes bullet in one and you might as well use one of those wiz bag short mag yuppie guns. the .35 is old school and should be left that way.