Using benchmark from the issue:

benchmark                    old ns/op     new ns/op     delta
BenchmarkRangeStringCast     2162          1152          -46.72%

benchmark                    old allocs     new allocs     delta
BenchmarkRangeStringCast     1              0              -100.00%

Fixes #2204

Change-Id: I92c5edd2adca4a7b6fba00713a581bf49dc59afe
Reviewed-on: https://go-review.googlesource.com/3790Reviewed-by: Keith Randall <khr@golang.org>