350 Legend Low power lead loads

[brewer12345]

I am fooling with cast bullet loads in 350 Legend in an effort to come up with an accurate, short range, heavy bullet thumper with minimal blast and recoil. This is in my RAR bolt gun, which has become my dedicated beaver and muskrat hunting gun. In low light conditions on a small (headshot) and generally moving target, 50 yards is about as far as I go. I was using factory Win FMJ, but I found it to be overly destructive on muskrats and far noisier than necessary. My guess is that 180 grains of lead arriving at 1000 FPS or more will fully penetrate a beaver skull at my intended ranges. I figured I would document my process here for any who want to play with downloaded cast in this cartridge for which there is precious little data available.

I ordered the Accurate 36-180L mold, a plain based, 180 grain design that looks a lot like the shape of factory jacketed fodder. Cast the bullets out of fairly soft alloy (~10 BHN), tumble lubed them with Ben's Liquid Lube, and sized to .357. I found that I had to seat the bullet pretty far down to get them to feed nicely and I think I need to do a little more. My test loads were 2.13" OAL. I also cut off a case at the bullet base and used it to figure out a 100% load for Trail Boss, which was about 7.5 grains. I tested Trail boss at 6.5, 7.0 and 7.3 grains, and Unique at 7, 8, 9, and 10 grains. I also shot a 5 round group of factory FMJ to compare.

The Trail Boss seemed to have too many fliers in all three loads, which is a shame. All the Unique loads shot at least OK, but 7 grains was the winner with about a .75" group at 25 yards. The FMJ was similar. I'd guess that the rifle actually shoots better than that, but I have a basic 4X scope on it, eyes were a little tired, and I had a less than idea rest. Since I consistently hit moving muskrats in the field at up to 40 yards with the factory FMJ, I am going to call matching or exceeding those groups to be sufficient for my purposes. All of my cast loads had way, way less blast, recoil and noise than the FMJ. The cast brass was minimally beat up and almost looked unfired. No leading and the bore looked very clean. Minimal barrel heating given the small powder charges.

Second round testing will be slightly shorter seated bullets to promote easier feeding and I will load both 357 and 356 sized bullets over 6.5, 7.0 and 7.5 grains of Unique. The groups got bigger as my charges went up today, so I am guessing that 7,5 grains will not be a winner, but who knows.

 

[Random 8]

Do you have any Red Dot or Bullseye? Those might be worth a try also (at significantly lower charges than the unique). Red Dot performs very well for me in a couple of different .30 caliber rifle reduced loads.

 

[brewer12345]

I have bullseye and hp38, but I use unique in a similar load for 3006 and find it to be accurate, flexible and forgiving. If somewhere around 7 grains of unique does the job,it works for me.

 

[brewer12345]

Took another crack at this one. I wanted better feeding, so I dropped OAL to 2.10". Test loads were 6.5, 7.0 and 7.5 grains of unique with 5 rounds each of .356 and .357 sized bullets, all tested at 25 yards. The rifle consistently shot the fatter bullets better. All three of the 357 loads were very good, with 7.0 grains the best at less than half an inch group. I shot 4 factory FMJ to compare and the 7.0 Unique load was as good as or better than the FMJs I used to hammer swimming muskrats and beavers all winter. No leading and the bore was clean and shiny. I think I have my winner load. I will need to load some up and try them at 50 yards to understand drop between 25 and 50 yards in this load, but it should put the hurt on the critters and has way less blast, recoil and noise than a full house load. At some point I need to chronograph it as well.

 

[LoonWulf]

Very cool! I've been trying to get my hands on a 350 bolt gun for a while when I did I was going to have to come up with a load like this, So it'll be nice to have a starting point when I do find the gun.

 

[P Flados]

I find Quickload pretty good at estimating velocities. I ran the table option to give a range of results.

Note that Quickload info is for reference only and is not the same as load data based on test results.

Cartridge          : .350 Legend
Bullet             : .357, 180, 0.805" long
Useable Case Capaci: 26.107 grain H2O = 1.695 cm³
Cartridge O.A.L. L6: 2.100 inch = 53.34 mm
Barrel Length      : 16.4 inch = 416.1 mm
Powder             : Alliant UNIQUE

Step    Fill. Charge   Vel.  Energy   Pmax   Pmuz  Prop.Burnt B_Time
 %       %    Grains   fps   ft.lbs    psi    psi      %        ms
-71.4   13     2.00    505     102    2302    460     85.1    4.304
-64.3   16     2.50    614     151    3241    601     92.5    3.492
-57.1   19     3.00    712     202    4324    734     97.0    3.002
-50.0   23     3.50    799     255    5557    852     99.4    2.661
-42.9   26     4.00    878     308    6940    951    100.0    2.457
-35.7   29     4.50    950     361    8471   1043    100.0    2.237
-28.6   32     5.00   1017     413   10146   1135    100.0    2.060
-21.4   35     5.50   1079     465   11965   1227    100.0    1.912
-14.3   39     6.00   1137     517   13924   1319    100.0    1.782
-07.1   42     6.50   1192     568   16024   1410    100.0    1.672
+00.0   45     7.00   1245     620   18264   1501    100.0    1.578
+07.1   48     7.50   1296     671   20642   1591    100.0    1.495
+14.3   52     8.00   1345     723   23161   1681    100.0    1.423

 

[Bfh_auto]

I'll second the idea on faster powder for slow loads.
Unique in 30-06 is like using bullseye in 350 legend.
For low power loads I'd run a 125 rnfp and bullseye, 700x, titewad or similar.

 

[brewer12345]

I find Quickload pretty good at estimating velocities. I ran the table option to give a range of results.

Note that Quickload info is for reference only and is not the same as load data based on test results.

Cartridge          : .350 Legend
Bullet             : .357, 180, 0.805" long
Useable Case Capaci: 26.107 grain H2O = 1.695 cm³
Cartridge O.A.L. L6: 2.100 inch = 53.34 mm
Barrel Length      : 16.4 inch = 416.1 mm
Powder             : Alliant UNIQUE

Step    Fill. Charge   Vel.  Energy   Pmax   Pmuz  Prop.Burnt B_Time
 %       %    Grains   fps   ft.lbs    psi    psi      %        ms
-71.4   13     2.00    505     102    2302    460     85.1    4.304
-64.3   16     2.50    614     151    3241    601     92.5    3.492
-57.1   19     3.00    712     202    4324    734     97.0    3.002
-50.0   23     3.50    799     255    5557    852     99.4    2.661
-42.9   26     4.00    878     308    6940    951    100.0    2.457
-35.7   29     4.50    950     361    8471   1043    100.0    2.237
-28.6   32     5.00   1017     413   10146   1135    100.0    2.060
-21.4   35     5.50   1079     465   11965   1227    100.0    1.912
-14.3   39     6.00   1137     517   13924   1319    100.0    1.782
-07.1   42     6.50   1192     568   16024   1410    100.0    1.672
+00.0   45     7.00   1245     620   18264   1501    100.0    1.578
+07.1   48     7.50   1296     671   20642   1591    100.0    1.495
+14.3   52     8.00   1345     723   23161   1681    100.0    1.423

Thanks very much. Looks like I am not subsonic with this load. Ah well. Not sure I wanted to go through all the hassle of a suppressor anyway. Looks like enough energy and mass to plow through a beaver skull at any rate.

 

[brewer12345]

I'll second the idea on faster powder for slow loads.
Unique in 30-06 is like using bullseye in 350 legend.
For low power loads I'd run a 125 rnfp and bullseye, 700x, titewad or similar.

I tried Trail Boss, which is very, very fast. No dice on accuracy unfortunately. I might eventually try a heavier bullet and see if I can get a good subsonic load. I have plain base and checked versions of the RCBS 200 grain 35 Rem mold, which would probably work. In any case, the 7.0 grain Unique load does what I want it to with the exception of being supersonic.

 

[Ranger99]

JMHO- you could probably sell your
legend rifle for a tidy sum, and pick up
a primo 22 Hornet something for next
to nothing.
That'd probably more suited to your
hunting than struggling trying to download
something intended as a hot rod

 

[brewer12345]

JMHO- you could probably sell your
legend rifle for a tidy sum, and pick up
a primo 22 Hornet something for next
to nothing.
That'd probably more suited to your
hunting than struggling trying to download
something intended as a hot rod

I enjoy the challenge. In any case, I also appreciate the utility of a light, handy rifle I can also use for deer.

 

[Bfh_auto]

I tried Trail Boss, which is very, very fast. No dice on accuracy unfortunately. I might eventually try a heavier bullet and see if I can get a good subsonic load. I have plain base and checked versions of the RCBS 200 grain 35 Rem mold, which would probably work. In any case, the 7.0 grain Unique load does what I want it to with the exception of being supersonic.

I'm not a huge trail boss fan.
I did similar to what you are doing with a 357 carbine.
I found the blast from universal to be far more than 700x for the same velocity.
I do understand sticking to what is working.
Lead bullets will definitely help you get to your goal.

 

[brewer12345]

I'm not a huge trail boss fan.
I did similar to what you are doing with a 357 carbine.
I found the blast from universal to be far more than 700x for the same velocity.
I do understand sticking to what is working.
Lead bullets will definitely help you get to your goal.

Yeah. If I try a heavier bullet, I may work with bullseye or hp38 to see if I can stay subsonic.