Today I want to talk about a line of cartridges that most people don't know actually began
with John Browning. We're going to take a brief look at the cartridges developed for Browning's
autoloading rifle, the great Model 8. These include the 35, 32, 30, and 25 Remington. Love them,
hate them, or don't know they exist, they had just as much of an impact as Browning's autoloading rifle although both have largely been ignored by history. And remember: if you think I'm wrong, fight me in the comments; if you can prove I'm wrong, shoot me an email, I'd love to hear from you.

It is worth noting that Browning's autoloading rifle was not the first, nor the most powerful. However, it was, arguably, the first commercially viable design. While every other inventor was attempting variations of modifying bolt action service rifles to function automatically, the 
biggest obstacle was often the cartridge being used. By its nature, the market for these designs
was entirely military. Browning, on the other hand, came at the problem from a sportsman's perspective. It was a luxury he could afford thanks to his independence from the manufacturers that produced his designs. It was also a product of his method of working on automatics. More often than not, Browning would create a working design, and then optimize a cartridge for it. What Browning created was, relative to its time, a light and compact autoloading carbine. While this is generally reduced to a footnote in automatic rifle history due to the long-recoil action, it had a tremendous influence on future automatic rifle and cartridge design. It illustrates something of a dichotomy seen in many of Browning's designs. It's difficult to argue that the concept was "ahead of its time", but it was the direction of the future and set a baseline for further development. And while it was grounded in the material and technology of its era, it was robust enough to adapt to emerging advances which made it viable for half a century while many other designs saw production closer to only a single decade, if they made it to production at all. 

To be clear, the records for early Browning automatic cartridges are nearly nonexistent. We only have documentation to confirm that Browning was directly involved in creating the 35 and 30 Remington cartridges. While it is unlikely he was not also involved in decisions designing the 32 and 25 cartridges, it would appear the bulk of that work was done by William Thomas, the head of the Union Metallic Cartridge Company's Ballistic Laboratory. Thomas is, in fact, the unsung hero behind many of America's most well known cartridges between 1870 and 1920. 

Much of what we don't know about Browning's automatic cartridge development can be attributed to his working habits (absent of notes or drawings), Winchester's notorious secrecy around products in development, and that most records for commercial products are discarded, especially when a company changes ownership. There do not appear to be any surviving records detailing which cartridge, or even caliber, was originally used in Browning's rifle. However, there is documentation around this time that Browning often created his own cartridges by modifying existing cases and working up his own loads before sending the prototypes to Winchester's ammunition department for production samples to be made. There is some circumstantial evidence to indicate that Browning may have contributed to, borrowed from, or was influenced by, a Winchester program modifying 45-70 cases to create a medium-caliber smokeless powder cartridge to work in the Model 1886. That decade-long sister program to Winchester's small-bore project, developing their own 30-40 Krag cartridge, would result in the 33 WCF, which was released in 1902. There is enough coincidence to speculate that Browning's autoloading rifle was originally conceived to replace the Model 1886 as a sporting rifle in the same way the 1886 replaced the outdated Model 1876. In that line of thought using similarly sized cartridges makes a lot of sense, however, this is pure speculation. The truth is we'll likely never know the full set of circumstances that brought the rifle into being.

Browning's work on his autoloading rifle began around 1898 while in association with Winchester, with working prototypes submitted for patent in 1900. Development continued with Winchester until the infamous split in 1902, although Winchester never purchased any of the prototype designs, and the majority of work appears to have been done at Browning's private workshop in Ogden. The earliest surviving record of cartridge development comes from a 1903 Winchester drawing for a proposed 35 caliber. It seems, that despite personal animosities, continued relations with the Browning Brothers was just good business, at least so long as Browning and Bennett didn't have to speak to one another. The proposed cartridge is not exactly the same as what would later be commercially produced, but does provide some insight into it's early development. 

The Winchester/Browning cartridge uses the 30 US Army, Winchester's version of 30-40 Krag, as it's parent case. It is modified to be rimless, with a rim diameter of .490", cut for an extractor groove and shortened to the same length as the 33 WCF, 2.110". Placement of the shoulder was taken from 33 WCF specifications, resulting in a nearly 30 degree shoulder angle. The bullet is borrowed from the 35 WCF, with a 235gr .358" round nosed, jacketed soft point. Overall cartridge length is also that of the 33 WCF, at 2.795". 

During 1902 and 1903 rifle development continued in Ogden as well as in Belgium with FN. By 1904 rifle development had moved again to Remington, with UMC taking over cartridge production. By September 1904 UMC was producing samples using 200gr bullets. Initial cartridge dimensions were the same as the Winchester/Browning prototype, using UMC's version of the 30-40 Krag, called 30 Gov't, as the parent case. Changes were made quickly, with a new shoulder angle of approx. 23 degrees and slightly shorter case length of 2.04" (to match the length of UMC's 30-30 cartridges), as well as reducing the rim diameter to that of the cartridge base at .460". 

The Remington Autoloading Rifle and 35 Remington cartridge were released under a special catalog in 1906.  Advertised velocity for the 200gr round nose, jacketed soft point bullet was 2000fps, loaded with Laflin & Rand Lightning powder. FN would not release the rifle until 1911, titled the Browning Automatic Rifle, .35 Cal, later named the Model 1900. The cartridge was known in Europe as 9mm Browning Automatic, also firing a 200gr bullet just over 2000fps. This would be the only cartridge chambered in the FN produced rifle. 

Ballistically, Browning's 35 Automatic cartridge was just under that of the military standard 30-40 Krag.  This would have been a notable feat in 1900, by but the time the rifle was released in 1906 the Army had already developed a more powerful cartridge, to compete with the 7mm Mauser, and was in the midst of adopting the spitzer bullet. As many militaries of the time were painfully aware, turn of the century powder and bullet technology was advancing faster than manufacturers could bring designs to production. While this would be one factor generally excluding it from military attention, it proved to be an excellent cartridge for medium and large game within 250yds. By 1913, velocity of the 35 Remington had increased to 2210fps. Varying bullet shapes and weights were commonly available, but the 200gr round nosed jacketed soft point has remained the standard. Flat point bullets would not be popular until the 1950s, when it was chambered in Marlin's 336. In fact, the Marlin lever-action, now made by Ruger, is one of the only rifles currently produced in 35 Remington, and is likely the largest contributor to the cartridge's continued use over the last 50 years. While it is an excellent cartridge for the lower pressure designs it was made for, outside the lever-action, the 35 Rem has largely been overshadowed by the higher pressure 358 Win, which uses the more readily available 308 Win as its parent case.

The next cartridge released in the Autoloading Rifle was the 30-30 Remington. It began with UMC in 1904 as the 30-30 Smokeless headless, simply being a rimless version of UMC's 30-30 Marlin. It is unclear why development was delayed, but the cartridge would not begin production until mid 1906, known internally as 30-30 Autoloading Headless, before being sold as 30-30 Remington in 1907. Due to confusion from the nomenclature, the name was changed to 30 Remington around 1910. Bullet weights varied from 110gr to 180gr, but the factory standard was the 170gr round nose, available fully jacketed or soft point, at a velocity of 2020fps. Despite the immense popularity of 30-30 Marlin/Winchester, the 30 Rem was never particularly popular and accounted for only a small number of the Remington rifles which chambered it. Thanks to Remington's various pump action rifles, however, the cartridge held on into the 1990s before being discontinued. Apart from benefiting from advanced bullet construction, no significant developments were made during the life of the cartridge. Ammunition can still be intermittently found through small-batch manufacturers like Buffalo Arms and Reed's.

The 32 Remington Special was also released in 1907, though it had a much shorter development. Production began in 1906 under the title 32 Autoloading Headless. Just as it's Winchester counterpart used the same case as the 30 WCF, the 32 Remington Special shared a parent case with the 30-30 Remington. The Special nomenclature, being redundant and confused with the Winchester cartridge, was dropped during 1910, and known simply as the 32 Remington. Initially released with a round nose 165gr bullet, the standard load was increased to 170gr in 1912, with a velocity of 2220fps. It's marginal popularity was slightly less than the 30 Remington, even among their pump action rifles. The cartridge appears to have been discontinued during the 1940s, not even outliving the autoloading rifle itself. Current availability of loaded ammunition is almost nonexistent, though it may occasionally be offered by the same specialty shops producing 30 Remington. 

The last cartridge introduced in the Model 8 rifle was the 25-35 Remington. This cartridge began development in 1906 as the 25-35 Autoloading Headless, again simply being a rimless version of it's Winchester counterpart as produced by UMC. The 25-35 Winchester, however, had a heavily tapered case and low shoulder which was found unsuitable during development. The case was changed in 1907 to use the same shoulder location as the 30 and 32 cartridges, simplifying production as well as improving feeding and increasing case capacity. Like the 30 and 32, the name was shortened to 25 Remington in 1910. The standard factory load was a 117gr bullet, using a slightly harder jacket alloy, with a velocity of 2300fps. It was advertised as the most accurate cartridge available in the Autoloading Rifle, producing a 3.5" 10-shot group at 100yds. The 25 Remington would never be a popular cartridge, it accounted for less than 3 percent of Model 8 production and was only chambered in a handful of other rifles, generally only because it was an easy option to offer due to its nearly identical case dimensions to the 30 and 32 Rem. It is unclear when the cartridge was discontinued, likely during the 1940s. Officially the cartridge was dropped as a chamber option from catalogs during the late 1930s, when Remington stopped production of the Model 8 and introduced the Model 81. However, 25 Remington was available upon request throughout Model 81 production. Ammunition availability, like the 30 and 32, is limited to boutique producers, though at the time of writing, it can be found. 

So, to conclude, while the Browning autoloading rifle and it's cartridges are today considered only a marginal success or an evolutionary dead end, they nonetheless had a great influence on later automatics and cartridges. The rifle set the standard, proving the concept and commercial viability of an automatic carbine, and the cartridges set the baseline for what would come to be known as the short action. That concept would not mature until manufacturing, metallurgy, and powder technology caught up to one another in the 1920s. And Browning's autoloading rifle, the Remington Model 81 Woodsmaster, was there to see it, providing a platform for the immensely popular 300 Savage. It is a testament to Browning's foresight and inventive genius that the Remington Autoloading Rifle remained in production for 50 years, until ideology and material technology caught up to produce the modern short action semi-automatic rifle.