.350 Legend - .358 cast bullets yay or nay?

[EricBu]

I’m considering getting into .350 Legend, but have one reservation.

One of the things attractive to me about .350 Legend as a reloader is the prospect of being able to cook up loads using the same cast bullets as what I might load in .357 Magnum or .38 Special. However, it sounds like .350 Legend was designed with some slightly ambiguous groove diameter specs, and I can’t quite tell for sure if it should be thought of as a .355/9mm or .357 groove diameter.

My intent would be to use .358 cast bullets. In theory, this seems like it should work fine for the same reasons that it works fine to run a 9mm/.357 Magnum convertible Blackhawk. The nominal bore diameter is basically the same. However, with the shape of the .350 Legend case mouth, I wonder if I would encounter chambering issues, even if the gun would otherwise digest .358 just fine.

Can anyone speak more to this now that this cartridge has been around a little longer and the reloading community has had some time to tinker?

I think this is the absolute wrong direction. You need to go with 458 Socom so you can share cast bullets with your 45-70.

 

[GeoDudeFlorida]

I think this is the absolute wrong direction. You need to go with 458 Socom so you can share cast bullets with your 45-70.

But, what about .45-70 Auto Rimless??? Isn’t that the New Hotness?

 

[EricBu]

But, what about .45-70 Auto Rimless??? Isn’t that the New Hotness?

Because auto rimless needs an AR10. 458 Soc gets you same ballistics in a AR15, and you can use GI mags.

 

[mcb]

You can argue the specs** all you want but it comes down to your particular rifle and its internal dimensions. Slug the barrel, cast the chamber and that data will tell you what bullet diameter will work best. The nice thing is if you have lots of .358 diameter lead bullets, it is very easy to resize them down 2 or 3 thousands with a sizing die if your particular rifle likes a smaller diameter bullets. For that matter you could size down most jacketed bullet that much with not much more effort.

**Remember SAAMI tolerances on most of those dimension are much larger compare to what the manufactures are likely using.