Winchester Introducing a Rimless 357 Max

Hopefully Winchester hasn’t hurt themselves by keeping it secret and having only their XPR being chambered in it at launch. It sounds like a nice alternative for deer to the big straight wall thumpers like the Bushmaster and 45/70 used in states like Iowa where I live.

I just checked their site the 30-30 delivers more energy than the 350 legend even though they lied and claimed the opposite is true lol gotta love marketing hell just lie knowbody will look it up

horsemen61 said:

I just checked their site the 30-30 delivers more energy than the 350 legend even though they lied and claimed the opposite is true lol gotta love marketing hell just lie knowbody will look it up

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ya from what i see i am not impressed. they said it would be close to 35 rem power?.

bluetopper said:

I have a 357 Maximum in a 13" Contender pistol barrel and a Marlin lever action 35 Rem. I don't know what their definition of "close" is but no way will the 350 Legend will have the power of the 35 Rem.

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ya i know that, what fps are u getting with your load, i have a reamer and would like to do one of these midland single shots if they come out with a 357.

bluetopper said:

I think maybe I have fps wrote down somewhere, I'll have to check. Henry has came out with a nice break over single shot rifle in 357 Mag for about 4 bills. This would be great to make a Max out of.

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thanks. the midland should be under 200

I think this is a great cartridge. Not without some hurtles but still very interesting, especially in an AR. With the ribs removed from the front of the magazine you get full proper double stack 30 round AR magazines with it. You should be able to use your 9mm suppressors with it, at least with sub sonic ammo and depending on the suppressor maybe even super sonic ammo. Like 300 BO it will be compatible with nearly all AR parts. It just needs a new barrel and in this case a magazine. The rest of the standard AR parts should work with this cartridge just fine. It will be legal for deer hunting in more states being straight walled.

Not sure I am going to sell my 450 Bushmaster to fund one but if I get some spending money rolling up hill I might try it. Seems like it could be a pretty flexible cartridge.

It might be a fine round but why lie about it?
Fact is it don’t beat the 30-30 which is still a great deer round why lie and say it does

I might be tempted, already load for 357 mag for deer hunting with a Henry, so I’ll already have projectiles on hand, but think if I’m going to step up in cartridges might as well step all the way up to the big bores. I’ll have to see how it pans out and what the consensus ends up being.

I was cleaning up yesterday and ran across a large bag of old .351 Winchester Ammo . I dug out a box of .357 Max ammo and yes they are pretty close except for case head, didn't mike them. But it looks like what we got in 100 years is 400 FPS more velocity from the .350 Legend with the 180 grain bullet ! The box for the .351 ammo reads 1700 FPS with 180 grain FMC ammo from the early 50s !
BTW the .350 Remington easily does 2100 FPS with 200 grain bullets and operates at 35000 psi from the factory. I shoot 180s close to 2500fps in handloads in my 18" barreled 600 Carbine which are probably 50,000 psi !

Gordon said:

I was cleaning up yesterday and ran across a large bag of old .351 Winchester Ammo . I dug out a box of .357 Max ammo and yes they are pretty close except for case head, didn't mike them. But it looks like what we got in 100 years is 400 FPS more velocity from the .350 Legend with the 180 grain bullet ! The box for the .351 ammo reads 1700 FPS with 180 grain FMC ammo from the early 50s !
BTW the .350 Remington easily does 2100 FPS with 200 grain bullets and operates at 35000 psi from the factory. I shoot 180s close to 2500fps in handloads in my 18" barreled 600 Carbine which are probably 50,000 psi !

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I think you mean 35 Remington? 350 Remington Magnum is a beast it will push a 200gr bullet to 3000 fps.

I am not so much concern with velocity as I am with the fact that is shares a case head and OAL with 223/556 thus making it one more interesting straight wall cartridge to easily chamber an AR in.

I like it. I'll need to see velocity figures, of course, but I can see where this might beat a 30-30 at 200 yards.

Ballistic coefficients matter.

I like it, but I think that base is already covered for me in a no AR country without straight wall hunting regulation. To someone who doesn't have many rifles yet or doesn't mind getting more and overlapping a little on what is already in the safe (like many here!), I can see the appeal.

Do you think the military would see a use for such ammo? I am thinking especially about urban operation theaters here.

Update I heard from Winchester the barrel lengths aren’t the same
30-30= 24 inch tube
350 legend = 20 inch tube

That’s why The 30-30 looks better or so they claim I apologize for calling them a liar I was going off what I saw not the whole truth

No doubt it's for straight wall "pistol cartridge rifle" deer hunting regs.
Should thump less than a .450 BM

Indiana has no straight wall case mandate for their PCR, just a max case of 1.8", min of 1.16 and .35 cal or larger.
There was the .358 folks were using based of the WSSM cases. This even when the old PCR spec was max of 1.625".
D Tech makes uppers in it., or used to....

lemme check

http://www.dtechuppers.com/ar-15-wssm-upper-receivers.html

A straight wall cartridge with less recoil than 450BM or 45-70 Govt. It will sell in Iowa and many other states with similar deer hunting laws. If you include legality as a factor, it's performance is far superior to the 30/30, 35 Rem, 358 Yeti etc. in many states.

I run a ,.35 rem, since IN has no straight wall case rule.
Trimmed a bit, it meets the PCR spec.
So...........I have no interest in another mid range .35 cal cartridge.
If going to other states, that's an excuse to buy a .450 BM

Looks like 35 Remington ballistics. Which ain't a bad thing

IronHand

I've only taken three deer with .35 rem.
All under 75 yards.
Like it just fine.
Figure it good to 150 or so. Just haven't had the opp to test it at that (yet).

Looks good to me. If I can cut a .223 case down and resize it in one step to 357 I would like to try it. What type of powder would one use? Would 2400 work? Obviously it will out perform a 357 mag because of case capacity.

I came very close to buying a 300 BLK because I had brass, bullets and powder but this looks a lot more interesting if one wanted to fool around with a new cartridge.

Looks like this may be something I could dive into.

CoalTrain49 said:

Looks good to me. If I can cut a .223 case down and resize it in one step to 357 I would like to try it. What type of powder would one use? Would 2400 work? Obviously it will out perform a 357 mag because of case capacity.

I came very close to buying a 300 BLK because I had brass, bullets and powder but this looks a lot more interesting if one wanted to fool around with a new cartridge.

Looks like this may be something I could dive into.

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This is a tiny bit bigger case but from my experience with 357 max 2400 will be a little bit too fast burning and will give high pressure and slower velocities. 4227 will be good but will be down on velocity compared to ball powders. H110 will work superb. Accurate 1680 will work okay. 300mp might be good. I think Lil Gun will deliver top velocity for this cartridge or Maybe CFE BLK. There are relatively few powders that really work well in a straight case of this size. Anything slower than that like 4198 or RL7 will be too slow. Expect to push a 180 XTP or similar bullet to 2100-2200 FPS from a 16" barrel.

CoalTrain49 said:

Looks good to me. If I can cut a .223 case down and resize it in one step to 357 I would like to try it. What type of powder would one use? Would 2400 work? Obviously it will out perform a 357 mag because of case capacity.

I came very close to buying a 300 BLK because I had brass, bullets and powder but this looks a lot more interesting if one wanted to fool around with a new cartridge.

Looks like this may be something I could dive into.

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I'm hoping we can just reform .223 brass. If that's the case I'll be looking for an upper.

Texas10mm said:

I'm hoping we can just reform .223 brass. If that's the case I'll be looking for an upper.

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Its not going to be that simple. 223 brass is tapered, so the base diameter is the same as 357 mag, and presumably this 350 legend, but the shoulder diameter is .020" smaller than the neck diameter, so 223 brass would have to be fire formed. It will not be as simple as just trimming a used 223 case and running it through a die like 300 blackout.

I did find this picture of a guy who made some tooling to take the taper out of 223 cases.



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