Getting cheaper bullets for 35s

I just ordered a TiN coated bullet sizing die from CH4D to take 9.3mm bullets and reduce them to 358 or 359.

While in Europe the 9.3mm is a popular round and in Africa it is a fine round and considered a poor man's safari rifle, in the States the 9.3mm is not that popular despite a small resurgance.

The good thing is that you can find very cheap 9.3mm bullets. Even if you have to pull them from old European ammo, they can be reduced easily and stuffed in a .35.

I had to put a cheater bar on my Lee press to get enough force to get the jacketed bullets through the 358 die. One guy was using a hydraulic press that he rigged up to hold the dies.

I ordered the bullet sizing dies in smaller incriments of .004 to gradually resize the bullet, than trying to go from .366 to .358 in one shot.

I have to hand it to the Lee press though even with a 4' cheater bar the press handled it with no issues.

Steve

Whoa! That's really pushing the threshold.
That's a testiment right there to the quality of Lee products, I'm even surprized that the dies are holding up to that kind of abuse.

Is your .35 a single shot or lever action? I was actually wondering about the flat nose, round nose, or pointed bullets for your .35 cal. when loaded into a lever action. If it's a single shot or bolt gun then it's not an issue.

your right about that Mo. Dave at CHD, he loves to talk. While in a conversation with him about the swage dies, I had asked him about the life of them. He had told me while he has been in business, he has only had one die to come back broke. He said the customer finally admitted to using a 5' bar placed over his handle. He continued to tell me that the customer had also broke a part on his press. The press was the a Champion and he broke the toggle. The champion press is 2 1/2 times stronger than the RCBS RockChucker (as stated by him)

Pure amazing

One of the guys here in my duck club that is also a 35 fan is using a floor mounted 6 ton hydraulic press he got from Harbor Freight.

He drilled and tapped a piece of 4" flat bar stock to hold the Lee and CH4D sizing dies and used the hydraulic ram to press the bullets through lubed with a smidgen of Imperial Sizing Wax. He is using the die upside down and puts a bucket on the floor to catch the bullets as they fall out of the die body.

I have not broke my press yet despite the abuse and using a 4' cheater bar on the lever to resize pulled military 7.62x39 ball to .309 for my FN-FAL, G3, etc.

My old Lee cast O press is more than 20 years old I bet. It has served me well the last 20 years I have had it. I got it at a swap meet in Boise many years ago with a bunch of other Lee stuff.

Dave at CH4D is a great guy and he is really understanding of some of my more cockamamie ideas. He is chatty though so do not call if you are stingy with your cell minutes!!

I can heartily recommend the CH4D TiN coating service. I have had several of my Lee and CH4D sizing dies TiN coated by them and it is great. Reduces the amount of lube and force needed a lot.

Mo, I do not have a lever action 35, yet. I have three single shot 35s and one bolt action .35.

I have a T/C Contender 12.5" .35 Rem that is in the shop to get throat lengthend and a rim cut on it so I can use 303 Brit or 30-40 Krag brass or reduce 375 Win brass.

My second T/C barrel is a 358 JDJ in a 15" SS Encore barrel that has been recut from a .35 Rem by SSK. It has a JP howitzer-style muzzle break put on by EA Brown.

http://www.eabco.com/cssmb.html

My third T/C is a 14" Contender barrel in 358 Bellm cut from an old .35 Herrett barrel. That barrel is off to EA Brown to get a JP howitzer style muzzle break like on the 358 JDJ.

My bolt action .35 is a .35 Whelen AI on an old mil surp Mexican Mauser 98 action. It has a 24" fluted medium weight Shilen barrel and has been blue printed and trued by Shilen. I had Freudberg here in Seattle glass and pillar bed the action and put it in a nice Boyd's stock. I know synthetics are the rage but I like the look and heft of wood.
Steve

the howitzer mb looks awesome, does it work as well as advertised? the 358JDJ seems to have a recoil issue from what i've read, but I dunno. and how about the velocities? does the JDJ spit em out at the same speeds that the 9.3's were designed to be used? with plinking ammo it wouldn't really be an issue but it would be something to consider and test should you be thinking about hunting with them

just a few randomly tangential thoughts/questions
Cheers!

The .358 JDJ is a recoil monster, but then so is the 14" .444 Marlin barrel and 15" .375 JDJ barrels. I recently shattered a NCStar scope on the .444 Marlin barrel. I also shattered another scope on the .308 JDJ which needs a howitzer muzzle break.

That JP howitzer break is one of the best things for the screwball behind the gun. But I have been thrown off more indoor ranges with them because the side blast will rearrange your fillings!!!

Reduces recoil to almost nothing in my .444 Marlin and .375 JDJ and makes shooting a real pleasure not a torture Torquemada would be proud of. Just warn those on the side because the heat and blast is something else.

My 14" T/C Contender .45 Win Mag is a real pleasure to shoot and stoked with 325gr bullets over a stiff charge of 2400 designed for the .454, kicks like a .38 Special.

Shooting my Sako-made SSK .500 Weatherby (.460 Weatherby necked up to shoot .50 BMG bullets about 80% of a .50 BMG) with its similar break will set the grass afire if I am lying prone but it kicks like a .243 Winchester. SSK still offers the rifle conversion now, but they call it something else, now that it has become so popular as a "poor man's .50."

My chrono got sacrificed in the economic meltdown of '04, but from I can determine the .358 JDJ spits the resized 9.3s pretty close. For plinking it does not matter to much, but I have not used the resized 9.3s for anything but plinking so far.

Not sure I would hunt with the resized 9.3 bullets because I am not sure what would happen to like a Partition or a Trophy Bonded if you smashed it smaller and then shot it into some critter.

Might chage the terminal effects but my goal was cheap plinking bullets and bullets for pest and nuisance eradication. Might be neat to shoot some in ballistic gel to see how they behave, but I do not own a 9.3 for comparison.

Our coyotes around here are not much for hide quality but we have a few coydogs (coyote-feral dog mix) that need to be shot. Got to go to the east side of this state with its much colder weather or my folk's place in Idaho for good coyote pelts.

I would think that it could cause core separation issues that you wouldn't want in a hunting round Why this happens is drawing a bullet down the lead will remain the smaller size but the copper or bronze jacket will want to spring back and they will about .0005 - .002 inch not a great deal but enough to cause a loose core. this should have little effect except in very long range shooting but may be a big problem on game.

3006, that is what I thinking too. I have noticed that I have to take the 9.3 bullets down to .357 because of the "spring back" feature.

One problem I have noticed with the higher-end ammo like Partitions and Trophy Bonded is the "spring back" has not been consistant from bullet to bullet.

Some of the bullets mike-out at .35966 and some out .36032 and just about everywhere in between. This is after getting crammed through three dies, the last being a Lee .357.

Since the bullets have been so inaccurate in size after resizing I group them in lots by size to .001 to reload.

I would not want to shoot a large critter that I wanted to eat or drop cleanly with one of these resized 9.3s but for nuisance control they might be OK.

Like I said I would like to shoot some into ballistic gelatin to see what the terminal effects are. Does the core seperate? Does it wobble due to loose core? Does it keyhole due to loose core bouncing around?

I have noticed that the cheaper manufactured and mil-surp resized 9.3s seem to be more forgiving and mike out more consistant with less gross variation between bullets.

Since California-fever struck our ranges and lead is now verboten! I cannot shoot my favorite and cheap cast wheel weight allow boolits.

Getting cheap plinking ammo for larger than .30 cal can be an exhausting task.