Have any of you ever seen this rechamber? The fellow said to use 30-40 Krag brass and neck it up. I looked at some dimensions and there is some difference at the rim, web area.
The 30-40 is .001 or .02 mm smaller in this area do you fore see a problem if loads are kept moderate?
The gentleman is gracious enough to let me take a look at it before a 100% commitment. Do you think the cornmeal fireform approach would make the brass expand enough to measure, as I have NO .35 bullets. Mike B anyone??

jsh,
I have done these conversions for close to 20 years, and they work great. Go for it.

The factory .35 Rem chambers are usually small enough that they do not bulge cases much at all, so the very slight difference in web diameter between Krag cases and .35 Rem is much less than the differences you normally see in factory chambers, as well as many so called custom chambers.

The filler method of fire forming normally does not generate enough pressure to get full expansion at the web. Simply fire a factory .35 Rem. in the chamber and use a cleaning rod to poke the fired case out..... assuming you feel the need to determine web diameter before committing to the barrel.

Ref. the difference you see. If you are looking at case drawings, may I suggest you look into the real world and forget the drawings completely. There are too many dimensions in drawings that do not match reality at all. You will probably find more difference in web diameter of .35 Rem cases than the difference you presume exists between Krag and .35 Rem cases.

Some cold winter day this winter, just sit around and measure case webs of all brands of ammo for a given cartridge. You will be amazed at what you find.

Chopping the Krag cases back to .35 Rem. length is tedious and not unlike chopping off .30/30 cases making .357 Herretts.

Since the Krag case is somewhat larger in diameter in the forward section, no fireforming is required. Just make sure you understand how to adjust a size die to get the correct location of the shoulder.

If the owner is supplying the dies with it, the expander ball should be well tapered for expanding case necks to .35. If not, either get one of the tapered expanders or taper and polish the existing one.

.35 Rem. Rimmed is still a .35 Rem., so you use standard .35 Rem. data.

If this was a conversion to a pre-existing .35 Rem. barrel, then you can install a spring loaded .35 Rem. extractor (if it is not already in the barrel) and still shoot .35 Rem. ammo. See, you CAN have it both ways.... rimmed or rimless. If the rim thing bothers you, then shoot rimless. Question is whether .35 Rem. fits into your battery requirements.

Of course, .358 Bellm eliminates the case chopping task and uses stronger brass to boot, and the barrel can always be rechambered to this round or .358 JDJ later on if you want.

With these options before you, if the price is right, fear not, and charge ahead if you want a .35 cal. barrel. This assumes that the barrel is in good condition otherwise of course.

Mike

Thanks Mike.
This barrel is coming out of your part of the country, did you mark any of these rechambers you did so that a person would know you did the work?
I didn't think there would be a problem with the web, but it never hurt's to ask.
As far as having or needing a 358, well I don't HAVE one so I guess that makes me NEED one?
Question, can a person shoot the 357 mag bullets in the 35's? Or would this be more of a barrel to barrel as to what each would prefer?
Jeff

jsh,

Yes you can shoot the pistol bullets as most of the TC barrels have somewhat smaller groove diameters anyway, at least in the 35. All 35 barrels I have, run under .357" groove diameter. As far as accuracy with them, that's a barrel to barrel situation but the accuracy is usually quite good from all my 35's.

Chances are if it passed through Mike's hands (paws?), it's stamped "Bellm" on the barrel lug.