350 legend Winchester

Gtscotty said:

I really don't think you'll have a problem with Ohio stating that it isn't a qualifying cartridge using .357" bullets, it's specified right on the SAAMI drawing, closer to the .357 Mag with jacketed bullets than it is to the 9mm, although they all share the same bore and groove diameter.

Screen shots of the SAAMI drawings:

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Probably not but I would still be interested to see how this plays out. I am curious to see what its official caliber designation will be. I have little doubt that Winchester is holding much tighter tolerances than the SAAMI spec calls for. I am not likely to buy a 350 Legend at this point. I have a 450 Bushmaster and 44 Mag for hunting back in Ohio if I am so moved and I have 300 BO for quiet fun. Though the 350 Legend does appear to have the potential to do both fairly well.

mcb said:

I am not likely to buy a 350 Legend at this point. I have a 450 Bushmaster and 44 Mag for hunting back in Ohio if I am so moved and I have 300 BO for quiet fun. Though the 350 Legend does appear to have the potential to do both fairly well.

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That's my problem with it too I already have a Blackout and a Bushmaster, they have all the wants and needs covered.
But I agree that the 350 Legend has good potential.

mcb said:

Are you saying 350 Legend shooting a 180gr 35 caliber bullet at ~2100 fps (over 1700 ft-lbs of muzzle energy) is margin for whitetail deer?

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It's at the very minimum of SDs acceptable for small deer. So "marginal" would be a good way to describe it. You certainly wouldn't be wise to choose it over 180gr .30-30 if that was an option. There's a reason the standard .35 Remington load is 200gr.

Llama Bob said:

It's at the very minimum of SDs acceptable for small deer. So "marginal" would be a good way to describe it. You certainly wouldn't be wise to choose it over 180gr .30-30 if that was an option. There's a reason the standard .35 Remington load is 200gr.

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Are you looking to shoot through them end to end?

Llama Bob said:

It's at the very minimum of SDs acceptable for small deer. So "marginal" would be a good way to describe it. You certainly wouldn't be wise to choose it over 180gr .30-30 if that was an option. There's a reason the standard .35 Remington load is 200gr.

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Tongue firmly planted in cheek for this next part so hold on...

I see you are suffering the same problem in your area of operation that I am... up-armored Cervidaes, they're bitch to deal with. I had happily spent years hunting whitetail deer with a 410 slug gun with no issues from the deer herd. Then a few years ago I took two does in a single morning with my S&W 610 10mm Auto revolver. Since that incident is has been a tit for tat arms race between me and the deer. The first year they tried face-hardened steel armor and I had to turned to 338 Lapua Mag with tungsten cored AP rounds. The next year they went ceramic composite and I answered with 50 BMG SLAP rounds. This past year they upgraded their composite armor with a passive armor appliqué package and I had to go to 20x102mm APDS to get reliable penetration. Next year I was planning on going to 30x173mm DU but I might have to skip to something better. I finally turned one of the raccoons as a double agent to my side. That raccoon frequents the same deer feeder that deer herd's maintenance manager frequents. From that masked bandit I learned the damn deer are sourcing a reactive armor upgrade package. To get ahead of the curve I am looking to skip the 30mm and jump to tandem warhead TOW missiles. Was already considering some thing self-propelled since the recoil of the 20mm was really hard on the pintle mounts on my deer stands I wasn't sure they would take the 30mm at all. The TOW would eliminate the recoil issue and the tandem warheads will deal with this new active armor upgrade by the deer. Its really starting to take the fun out of deer hunting...

More seriously your definition and my definition of margin is very different. I hunted Ohio white tail deer with a 410 slug gun for many years. It was the only way I could hunt them with a lever-gun at the time. I knew it was marginal but was happy to take the challenge of very close range shots and only high percentage broad side shots to ensure I got the penetration I needed. I took two nice bucks with my 410 slug gun, one a bit under and the other a bit over 200 lbs live weight. 350 Legend has way more of everything (energy, momentum, mass, etc) compared to my lowly 410 slug. I struggle to see how 350 Legend is marginal for white tail deer at ranges less than 200 yards.

Not sure I follow the section density and its use for deeming a bullet acceptability or not for deer. A good bullet's sectional density dramatically decreases by expanding when it hits the target and its expansion is usually related to impact velocity and what it impact (bone vs soft tissue etc). Seems rather unconnected without a lot more knowledge of how the bullet will expand in the target.

mcb said:

Not sure I follow the section density and its use for deeming a bullet acceptability or not for deer. A good bullet's sectional density dramatically decreases by expanding when it hits the target and its expansion is usually related to impact velocity and what it impact (bone vs soft tissue etc). Seems rather unconnected without a lot more knowledge of how the bullet will expand in the target.

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Agree especially with today's controlled expansion technology.

mcb said:

Not sure I follow the section density and its use for deeming a bullet acceptability or not for deer. A good bullet's sectional density dramatically decreases by expanding when it hits the target and its expansion is usually related to impact velocity and what it impact (bone vs soft tissue etc). Seems rather unconnected without a lot more knowledge of how the bullet will expand in the target.

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My thoughts exactly.

A few more thoughts to add.

Sectional density doesn’t scale very well. A bullet .500” bullet with a .200 sectional density is going to penetrate way more than a .250” diameter bullet with the same .200 sectional density. So you have to give weight to the diameter and weight of the projectile too.

A 357 bullet is large enough diameter that expansion isn’t even necessary. A wide flat point hard cast would be fine.

Millions of deer have been killed with 80 grain .36 caliber round balls. How is a 180 grain jacketed bullet barely adequate?

someguy2800 said:

Are you looking to shoot through them end to end?

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Nope, but I'd like to reliably reach the vitals. The problem with a round with a varmint-type SD and especially a cup and core type bullet is that doesn't always happen. Generally a SD of 0.2 is considered the bare minimum acceptable for small deer. These light .350 loads have less sectional density than a 90gr .243, a 100gr .257, a 120 gr .264, a 120gr .277 etc. on up and can expect worse terminal performance than any of them.

As I said, there's a very good reason the standard 35 Remington load is 200gr, not 180.

someguy2800 said:

A 357 bullet is large enough diameter that expansion isn’t even necessary. A wide flat point hard cast would be fine.

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I would agree that at 180gr, a solid would be better, but it is largely beside the point as all hunting rounds released to date have been low-SD expanding type bullets. The FMJ Winchester found somewhere (I suspect they're paranoid about feeding) seems unsuitable with a very small meplat.

Llama Bob said:

Nope, but I'd like to reliably reach the vitals. The problem with a round with a varmint-type SD and especially a cup and core type bullet is that doesn't always happen. Generally a SD of 0.2 is considered the bare minimum acceptable for small deer. These light .350 loads have less sectional density than a 90gr .243, a 100gr .257, a 120 gr .264, a 120gr .277 etc. on up and can expect worse terminal performance than any of them.

As I said, there's a very good reason the standard 35 Remington load is 200gr, not 180.

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Nothing wrong with the SD of any of those bullets within moderate range. In fact, when the .243 and 6 mm Rem came out, some riflemen found that with the heavier 100-105 gr. bullets that the .243 was a lackluster killer, and got a bit of a reputation as a wounder. Astute shooters figured at longer range in particular the early bullets were too tough to expand properly, and subsequently got much better results moving to 85 and 87 gr. bullets.

I favour heavy for caliber bullets myself, and have read that some guys find the 180 gr. .358 bullets to be not great penetrators. Having heard this, I have to wonder what the expectations were with a gun that in it's original ballistic profile is almost identical in energy and momentum to the 30-30 with a 170.

The 158 gr. .357 is considered to be the standard out of a pistol or rifle. It might be argued that a 170, 180, or even a 200 could perform better, but there is a plethora of dead deer, black bear, and an occasional elk, I'm sure that would evidence that the 158 worked just fine, even out of a revolver.

There was a guy that had to shoot a grizzly not very far from here, in defense of his life, with a .45 ACP. Usually not a cartridge renowned for it's stopping power and penetration on bigger, tough animals. I believe he hit it, with 13 or 14 bullets, and only one didn't exit. Mind you he wasn't trying for end to end shots either...

And I would consider cup and core to be superior to any monolithic bullet, other than lead alloy, at moderate velocity. If they make them, they don't sell in great numbers for the medium bores, as they aren't able to expand at pistol velocity, and at .35 Rem velocity, it would likely be at it's lower limits.

Where does this .2 section density requirement come from? If its like all the other "minimums" I have seen for deer hunting no one knows were the requirement comes from and there is no documented research to back it up. (the 1000 ft-lbs minimum is a prime example). What makes a .2 SD significant?

I have hunted a lot of deer with a modest variety of cartridges (12 ga, 410 bore, 44 Mag, 10mm Auto, 357 Mag, 450 Bushmaster, 270 Win, 300 BO Super Sonic, and 58 cal muzzle loader) and only two have a sectional density over .2, 270 Winchester and 58 Caliber Muzzle loader. Of all the deer killed by far the most lethal weapon I have shot a white tail deer with has been 12 gauge slugs. Growing up on Ohio we were a slug only state until 2014 and I started my deer hunting with 3 inch Remington Sluggers. A 1oz foster slug has a sectional density of only .124 and I would argue that there are few cartridges with more effective terminal ballistics on a deer than a well placed 12ga foster slug. I quit using 12 gauge slugs not because they were ineffective but because a quartering shot frequently resulted in a lot of meat lost due to the damage they did to shoulders. I don't buy sectional density as metric to judge a bullet's appropriateness, not without a lot of other data.

And to try to come back on topic I think the 350 Legend is going to be a good medium caliber, short to medium range deer gun if you want to use an AR plateform. Medium bore bullet weights without sacrificing magazine capacity. Straight wall for the states with silly laws. The other big appeal is if you have a 9mm/357 suppressor you will likely also have a fairly effective sub-sonic gun too. ~265gr at 1050fps is going to be a bit better performer than 200-220gr from the old 300 Blackout. It's a shame the brass is not easily made from 223/556 the way 300BO is but assuming brass become available at reasonable prices its going to be a nice reloader's cartridge. 450 Bushmaster was similar. There was not much bullet variety from the manufactures until recently but if you were a reloader there where tons of bullets to try. There are lots of 35 caliber bullets out there to try (especially if you have sizing dies to start sizing .358 rifle bullets down to what ever 350 Legend is) and if the cartridge takes off there will be dedicated bullets too.