A Question

[Quadguy]

I am a Garand guy and know little of these weapons.
Was the Johnson ever chambered for .35 Remington ? I hunted with a friend
over 30 years ago who owned one in that caliber as he borrowed some .35 cal rounds from me. The thing was a accident waiting to happen. He dropped it and it went off. If he hit the butstock too hard with or without the safety on , it went off. He replaced it with a Remington 742.

Information

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[BarryinIN]

It wasn't chambered in .35 Rem originally, but I wouldn't be overly surprised if it wasn't done by someone somewhere. With a barrel locking collar and guide collar, a barrel blank for about anything could be made into a Johnson barrel.

A company called Winfield Arms in L.A. Calif bought a bunch of Johnsons back from the Dutch gov't in the late 50's. They left some alone, but "sporterized" some to various degrees. In addition to the military chamberings of .30-06 (US and the Netherlands) and 7mm (Chile), their ads also listed barrels in .270 Winchester. I think they sold barrels seperately too.
I have heard of .35 Whelen barrels for Johnsons too, but have no idea who made them.

So it is entirely possible that a barrel could be made up for just about any cartridge with a head size close to .30-06. Most might even work.
Whether it is a good idea or not is debatable.

[Jim K]

The .35 Whelen is a possibility (as with all .30-06 rifles), but I don't think a .35 Remington has enough power to operate the Johnson, or that the smaller base round would feed and extract well. Could the rifle have been some other semi-auto in .35 Remington, perhaps a Remington Model 8 or 81?

Jim