350 Legend Thoughts

Shot placement... x3...
I’ve double lung hit 110lb white tails with a .45/70 that run 200-300yds.
I’ve also dropped them DRT with 35gr bullets from a .22Hornet.

The .350Legend is an answer to getting .35Remington performance from an AR15, with a straight taper (non-bottle neck) cartridge to get around restrictions in certain mid-western states.

Bullet construction also plays a role, but the .350 is certainly “enough” gun for any deer.
Perhaps a diagram of deer anatomy would be more helpful.

No matter what gun you use you have to make a good shot. I put this one down in a dead run with a perfect double lung/heart shot from about 30 yds away. With the Winchester 180gr SP. It only ran about another 20yds.

https://postimg.cc/fJh6QJyG

Different deers react differently, you can drop them with a 10” AR in 223 or they can run 300 yards after been shot by a 300 WM. It’s part of the game and the other part in shot placement.

3 yards or 300 yards, at the end of the day it’s food on the table.

This one fell to a .223 w/60gr Hornady Spt at (160yds. —- wrong! Checked my notes, 188yds). It ran 50yds and stopped. Second shot also double lung hit. Deer ran another 35yds and hit tree/shrub line. I let my fiest trail it to keep her in practice. I shot it from kitchen window on Christmas Day 2017.

Added for clarity; you’re looking at two EXIT wounds. Lungs and heart were mush...

I would have no concerns about taking deer with a 350 legend and good bullets. I’ve seen lots and lots of them pull off similar death defying miracles after being shot with 270’s and 30-06’s. Twice in my hunting group we have shot them through a lung with a compound bow, not recovered the deer, and then later shot it during rifle season with one shriveled up lung and a perfect broad head shaped scar in and out. Deer are very resilient animals for their size.

I had one last year that still has me shaking my head. It didn't get away, but shouldn't have move an inch. Shot from 15yds or so under my stand which is about 20' in the air. 300wm completely emptied the chest cavity, half the ribs, and completely destroyed the shoulder which was hanging on by skin. All of this was laying in splatter pile where she was hit, but she still ran 75yds down to the bottom of a ravine before dropping.

Hugger-4641 said:

I had one last year that still has me shaking my head. It didn't get away, but shouldn't have move an inch. Shot from 15yds or so under my stand which is about 20' in the air. 300wm completely emptied the chest cavity, half the ribs, and completely destroyed the shoulder which was hanging on by skin. All of this was laying in splatter pile where she was hit, but she still ran 75yds down to the bottom of a ravine before dropping.

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Adrenaline is a heckuva thing.

Hugger-4641 said:

I had one last year that still has me shaking my head. It didn't get away, but shouldn't have move an inch. Shot from 15yds or so under my stand which is about 20' in the air. 300wm completely emptied the chest cavity, half the ribs, and completely destroyed the shoulder which was hanging on by skin. All of this was laying in splatter pile where she was hit, but she still ran 75yds down to the bottom of a ravine before dropping.

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It seams they have about 20 seconds worth of oxygen in their brain and they just go as far as they can till the oxygen runs out and then they pass out.

I'll take a 350 over my 220 Savage any day if and when my commie state comes out of the dark ages and legalizes straight wall rifle cartridges. That aside, some things defy reason. Two years ago I double lung/heart shot a 250 pound buck at 18 yards with a 20 ga SST and it hopped once, trotted fifty yards to a thicket, then ran up a hill a hundred yards off. Dead on the ground when we got there. Bled out internally despite a through and through hit. No evident expansion. I've quit blaming the slug, gun, range, shot and concentrated totally on placement and even then made no definitive conclusions.. I've dropped deer in their tracks with foster slugs, 30-30 170s, two 357 handguns, and a few sabot slugs. I have had a couple run a hundred or more yards with a three quarter inch hole through the heart. I have quit judging performance and just concentrate on making the best shot I can.

I shot a large whitetail buck last fall at 200 big steps. I used a 200 gr Lee flat point bullet, the bullet was powdercoated and gas checked.

Velocity was speculated to be 1900 fps out of an 18 inch Midway barrel on an ar-15. The hit was a hi shoulder shot and completely took the buck off his feet.

We will try again this fall and see how it goes. I like the round for Iowa deer.

I wouldn't use a 350 Legend unless my legal options were limited. Of the cartridges designed for those states I suppose it is one of the better ones. But I have better options I'm gonna use them.

Like others have said, some animals just don't want to die. Even with perfect shot placement, with potent rifle cartridges, most animals will still live 10-20 seconds. Longer with less than perfect placement. It's hard to predict what each individual animal will do in those last few seconds. Some lie down and die. Others run till they drop, and they can cover a lot of ground in 10-20 seconds.

I don't think faster impact velocity necessarily kills quicker. But game hit with modern high velocity rounds do seem more likely to be the ones who lie down and die during those last few seconds rather than run. But there is no rule carved in stone. I put a 165 gr Ballistic Tip from a 30-06 through both lungs of the biggest buck I've killed. Left a 2" exit hole on the off side and he still ran over 100 yards. He showed no signs of being hit until the last few yards where he slowed, staggered and finally fell.

havent shot much with the 350 yet, but just bassed on velocity from my AR I WANT a bolt gun for pig hunting.....I expect it to kill just fine.
Ive shot 40lb goats with .300s and had them run off, shot a sheep in my .375 and lost it. You want stuff to stay put beak both front legs or shatter its pelvis. Ive never had to track anything after turning either end into chunky jello.

I don’t have one but I do have a 357 maximum and it is on a whole different level than 357 magnum from a rifle that also works on deer. I already had larger bore AR’s before it came along so the 350 was too late to peak my interest.

I did think about the concept though, before it came along. Even managed to neck up some .223 cases but I already had a 458 socom by then, so that was as far as I got.



As far as animals go, I have seen deer literally hit with a truck, knocked PF the road and get up then run off but I have also seen lots of 1500 lb +/- bovine dropped in their tracks with a 22 short. Matters a lot where you hit them.

PapaG said:

I'll take a 350 over my 220 Savage any day if and when my commie state comes out of the dark ages and legalizes straight wall rifle cartridges. That aside, some things defy reason. Two years ago I double lung/heart shot a 250 pound buck at 18 yards with a 20 ga SST and it hopped once, trotted fifty yards to a thicket, then ran up a hill a hundred yards off. Dead on the ground when we got there. Bled out internally despite a through and through hit. No evident expansion. I've quit blaming the slug, gun, range, shot and concentrated totally on placement and even then made no definitive conclusions.. I've dropped deer in their tracks with foster slugs, 30-30 170s, two 357 handguns, and a few sabot slugs. I have had a couple fun a hundred or more yards with a three quarter inch hole through the heart. I have quit judging performance and just concentrate on making the best shot I can.

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Yep there seams to be no rhyme or reason to when they bang flop and when they go baja'ing across the countryside with no heart. I don't care anymore if they go 10 yards or 150, all I want is a big enough entrance and exit wound for them to bleed all over while they do it so that I can find them without hiking in 5 foot tall slough grass for 3 hours. Medium and big bores excel at that metric.

I'm happy with my .350 Legend, I dropped this one in his tracks with one shot.

Axis II said:

it was a 1 lung hit and she ran 200-300yards

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Did he have an excuse for why he only clipped one lung at 40 yards? That’s not the bullets fault.

This is likely why she was able to run so far. If you’re going to lung shoot a deer you need to get both. A deer won’t go far if it can’t breathe

Maybe more time at the range before the season starts?

Axis II said:

The entrance hole appeared like the bullet didnt expand

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Not trying to be a smart butt but the bullet doesn’t expand until after entry.

Axis II said:

The entrance hole appeared like the bullet didnt expand...

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That's how it's supposed to be. Rarely does a bullet expand before contact.

Axis II said:

And perhaps not being a smart ass would help also. The entrance hole appeared like the bullet didnt expand and there was no exit. The round didnt appear to have enough KE to do any significant damage to the lung.

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The bullet won't expand until it's inside the deer. And my first deer was a small yearling I shot with a 1oz 12ga slug, that bullet didn't exit either but it left a soupy mess from her shoulder all the way back to her butt. She rolled down a ridge and flopped there for a good minute before she stopped moving.

Axis II said:

And perhaps not being a smart ass would help also. The entrance hole appeared like the bullet didnt expand and there was no exit. The round didnt appear to have enough KE to do any significant damage to the lung.

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Wasn’t trying to be smart.
My point was: that the first shot hit the left front leg, shattering it. Proceeded to shred the forward left lung, obliterated the top half of the heart, and exited behind the right leg where all the blood is. The second shot exit is above and behind the second. Blew up what remained of lungs passing just below the spine at a rearward angle. Second shot was totally unnecessary, but as my son-in-law who was standing beside me asked why the second shot; it was an “insurance” shot.

Neither bullet was recovered. However, I did recover this one on Nov. 28,2008 from a doe I shot from my front porch at 44yds (later lased).

Bullet performance was exemplary.
Point was, only thing that would have resulted in a bang-flop was a CNS hit. However given distance and buck was moving, working a scrape made such a low probability choice.

On Opening day of October 2017, I shot 3 does at 17 to 37yds from my stand with a .218Bee with a 40gr HP. All three were “bang-flopped” with CNS hit. Again, no bullets recovered.
Again; shot placement, shot placement, shot placement.....


Added; I didn’t mention that this bullet was from same box of 500 as the other buck. Secondly, this bullet penetrated about 24” and was recovered against the hide. Bullet impacted behind the rib cage, transited both lungs, heart, and a rib before reaching skin.
The .223 (parent case for .350Legend) has a reputation only below the .243 for harvesting deer in E. Alabama and W. Georgia. The .350L can only be better.

Axis II said:

And perhaps not being a smart ass would help also. The entrance hole appeared like the bullet didnt expand and there was no exit. The round didnt appear to have enough KE to do any significant damage to the lung.

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If it didn't exit, then it expanded SOMEWHERE. At only 40 yds that energy is doing SOMETHING, the only way you don't get an exit from that class of chambering is if the energy completely dissipated before reaching the far side, only one way that happens......

I don't really have anything against the round, should be good for deer and such. Just the way Winchester went about things ticked me some.

I missed the single lung hit.....thats the issue right there...
Clipping one lung usually means quartered to, and the shot was aimed at the shoulder, Or shot at a downward angle and a bit to the side. .
Id bet the bullet went straight thru the nasty bits and lodged somewhere in near the hip if level, or under the belly skin if shot from above.
That's not a particularly incapacitating wound unless you manage to turn on the middle bits into jello.