Obsolete Mid-Bores (this might be unhealthy)

by AaronB, Monday, November 25, 2024, 19:03 (339 days ago)

Having been sold on the virtues of .30-30, .30-30 Ackley Improved, .32 Winchester Special, and .35 Remington, I thought I would explore a little deeper into the world of mid-bore cartridges. A friend had sent me an article about the .360 Buckhammer, and the thrust of the article was that it might lead to a revival of the .35 Remington.

"Revival?" says I, "...I didn't even know it had coded."

Consideration of these cartridges led to a brief read on the .350 Legend (truly the answer to a question nobody asked), which I subsequently compared to what .357 Maximum in a levergun must be capable of... now there's something I wouldn't say no to.

But lever .35s, well, there's more than one way to skin that cat. One could get a Savage 99 in .358 Winchester, for example... or there's that vintage wildcat, the .35/.30-30 Winchester. So I went to googling on the .35/30-30 (which is no more than a .30-30 or .32 Winchester Special necked up to take a .358 caliber bullet). Any bullet suitable for .35 Remington can be loaded in .35/.30-30, and the wildcat caliber is well-regarded as a cast-bullet gun, more so than the short-necked, short-throated Remington round.

So then I go back to Google looking for more info on the .35/.30-30 Winchester, and because I can be lazy I typed in ".35 Winchester" thinking that would pull up the .30-30 wildcat.

Oh my. Of COURSE .35 Winchester is its own thing, and was an original chambering in the '95 Winchester. Of course it has 3/10ths more case length than the .30-30 case. Of course it's a beautiful cast-bullet cartridge in its own right.

I give up! I'm about to go find a Remington Rolling Block in .35 Krag and have done with it.

-AaronB (nursing an unhealthy obsession)