I'm leaving to go to Alberta on my bear hunt and my 336 in 35 Remington developed a problem. All of a sudden I'm having light primer strikes and the round doesn't fire. It will fire on the second strike but that's not good enough to hunt with!
I've been hand loading for nearly forty years and I'm beginning to think I've got some hard primers or my main spring has gotten weak.
I've completely disassembled the bolt and cleaned the firing pin, both pieces, and even used Emory cloth to shine up the firing pin and the longitudinal hole through the bolt. I very lightly oiled the pieces of the firing pin, reassembled the bolt.
After this I've not had any light strikes with the ammo that's been loaded for a couple years. But, I only have 3 or 4 of those left. The fresh loads in new Hornady brass gave me light strikes 2 out of 3. I REALLY wanted to kill my first bear with my .35 but I'm nervous about taking her now.
I'm seriously thinking about changing to my .375 Marlin shooting a 220gr Hornady at 2,200fps They shoot under 1-1/2" with boring regularity Or I could take my 1972 born 1895 in 45/70. In the 45/70 I would use either a 405gr Remington soft point handloaded to 1750+fps or a 300gr Nosler Partition loaded to 2,200fps. The Nosler consistently shoot around an inch at a hundred yards but I'll be hunting over bait and shots should be under 50yds. The 400 grainers shoot about 1-1/2" at a hundred yds. So either will work. I would have to load some more 45/70 and mount a scope on it since its set up with a Williams 5D and fiber optic front sight now. I have a Leupold 1-4x with the pig plex reticle in waiting that I could drop on it. The M-375 has a 2-7x Leupold on it already.
So there's my dilemma! What's happening with my 35?
I've been hand loading for nearly forty years and I'm beginning to think I've got some hard primers or my main spring has gotten weak.
I've completely disassembled the bolt and cleaned the firing pin, both pieces, and even used Emory cloth to shine up the firing pin and the longitudinal hole through the bolt. I very lightly oiled the pieces of the firing pin, reassembled the bolt.
After this I've not had any light strikes with the ammo that's been loaded for a couple years. But, I only have 3 or 4 of those left. The fresh loads in new Hornady brass gave me light strikes 2 out of 3. I REALLY wanted to kill my first bear with my .35 but I'm nervous about taking her now.
I'm seriously thinking about changing to my .375 Marlin shooting a 220gr Hornady at 2,200fps They shoot under 1-1/2" with boring regularity Or I could take my 1972 born 1895 in 45/70. In the 45/70 I would use either a 405gr Remington soft point handloaded to 1750+fps or a 300gr Nosler Partition loaded to 2,200fps. The Nosler consistently shoot around an inch at a hundred yards but I'll be hunting over bait and shots should be under 50yds. The 400 grainers shoot about 1-1/2" at a hundred yds. So either will work. I would have to load some more 45/70 and mount a scope on it since its set up with a Williams 5D and fiber optic front sight now. I have a Leupold 1-4x with the pig plex reticle in waiting that I could drop on it. The M-375 has a 2-7x Leupold on it already.
So there's my dilemma! What's happening with my 35?
