Over the years, the .35 Remington has been chambered in a variety of rifles by most firearms manufacturers, and continues in popularity today in the Marlin Model 336 lever-action and Henry Side Gate Lever Action. It is also a popular cartridge for single-shot hunting pistols like the Thompson/Center Contender and the Remington XP-100. For hunters looking for a medium-power rifle with moderate recoil, for short to medium ranges, the .35 Remington is popular alongside the .30-30 Winchester. It has a small but loyal following in the northeast and areas of the southern United States.
The cartridge uses a medium to heavy bullet and has moderate recoil based on a moderate pressure level of 33,500 CUP as set by SAAMI. The normal factory load consists of a 200 grain round-nosed bullet with a muzzle velocity of 2080 feet per second. This 200 grain bullet is nearly 18% heavier than the .30-30's 170 grain bullet, and has a 16% larger frontal area. This gives it a substantial increase in power over the .30-30, especially when used on larger game species.
Remington helped promote the advantage in power that the .35 Remington had over the .30-30 through a series of advertising campaigns in the early 1900s. One of their advertisements even publicized the ability of the .35 Remington to penetrate a 5/16″ steel plate, which the .30-30 Winchester could not do.
The .35 Remington is considered a fine round for deer, elk, black bear, and other medium and large game as long as ranges are reasonable. Hornady currently produces a .35 Remington load in their LEVERevolution line that features a rubber-tipped spitzer bullet which is safe to use in lever action or pump guns with tubular magazines.
The 356 Winchester is a centerfire rifle cartridge with a semi-rimmed, bottle-necked neck that was developed for use in lever-action rifles. It was created at the same time as the.307 Winchester, which served as the parent cartridge. Both cartridges were first used in the Model 94 XTR lever-action rifle in 1982. Apart from Winchester, Marlin was the only other manufacturer to use the.356 chambering, producing little over 2000 Model 336 lever action.356 rifles.
At impact velocities exceeding 2200fps, the.358 bore performs at its finest. With any bullet weight, the.356 Winchester performs similarly to the.358 Winchester, giving up just 50–100 ft/s (15–30 m/s). Due to its thicker brass case, the.356 Winchester has somewhat less case capacity than the.358 Winchester. When using factory ammo, the.356 is most effective when hunting in the woods. Beyond 2200fps or 30 yards, the.356 requires more precise shot placement, but the blunt nose bullets still provide enough wounding and free gushing blood trails with back lung hits.
Hand loads for the.356 Winchester are an a different beast. Cases for the.356 are presently only available in small quantities and may readily be made from.307 Winchester brass. Straight.308 Winchester brass can also be used in the.307 and.356 Winchester calibers. When manually loaded with fast-burning powder like Hodgdon's H4198 / ADI 2207, the.356 provides excellent performance. The slightly slower H4895 / ADI 2206H burn rates also perform well in the.356 Winchester and aid to keep pressures down, with heavier rounds proving to be the most successful.
