I was just a little kid when I read about the new .350 Remington Magnum in a old 1960's Gun Digest my Dad had kept. Believe it or not kids, we didn't have the internet and smart phones back in the late 60's and early 70's and my family didn't have the disposable income do subscribe to a bunch of gun magazines either. Not that there were a lot of them around anyway. You didn't walk into Quik Trip and see twenty different gun magazines. (No, there was no QT either!)
So, Dad had bought about four Gun Digests over the course of a decade and kept them. I read them over and over again. And once I had practically memorized the articles, I then carefully examined that section at the back. Remember the "ABC" section in the back? "American Bulleted Cartridges." It would start out talking about what was new in factory ammo. There was a Weatherby section. A Rifle section. A Handgun section. And a Shotgun section. Under the Rifle section it listed all the current cartridges and what they saw as the "pros and cons." Since I was about 10 when I started reading this stuff, it was a good place to start.
To get back to the OP's question, the was an article in one of the GD's about the new .350 Remington Magnum and how this cartridge was going to be able to hunt anything in North America. Pictures of the new rifles that were introduced at the same time. I liked what I saw. As time went by, I would always compare .350 RM in ballistics charts to other rounds. In the back of GD and in other media. It became a "standard" in my mind. (The other slightly unusual cartridge I developed a fixated on from my youth was the .264 Winchester Magnum.)
Skip forward to 1985. I was 23 years old and getting ready to enter the US Army. I never had bought a .350 RM since Remington had discontinued them all years ago, long before I had the money to buy such a thing. And then Remington surprised me. They produced a Remington 700 Classic every year in a different chambering. And in 1985... it was the .350 Remington Magnum. I was working as a manager at Wendy's and getting ready to go into the Army. Driving an old car that could have used lots of repairs. Had no business spending money on a new rifle. A rifle that I wouldn't even have a real job for in the near future. But I wasn't going to let this opportunity get away again!! I ordered one. And I ordered a 4x Zeiss scope with QD rings. (I still remember that scope was $199 back then. Made in W. Germany. Can I go back and order some more???)
I only got to shoot that rifle one time before I left for Basic Training. Once I was at my duty station with the 25th ID on Schofield Barracks, I used to shoot it at Hickam AFB where they had a 100 yard rifle range. I had my Lee Turret Press all setup right there in my quarters on Schofield. Just like the Speer reloading manual said, I discovered that you could use .357 Magnum pistol bullets as practice and varmint rounds. They could be driven very fast with 4064 powder and they sure didn't kick as hard as the 225 grain bullets. When I finally got home to Oklahoma, I found out the Sierra 158 JHC pistol bullet driven that fast is practically a grenade on something like a coyote.
Time marches on and I have lots of other rifles now. The 350 hasn't been on a deer hunt in a while. But it was the only one I used for about ten years. With the Sierra 225 grain bullet over a max charge of 4064, it was amazingly effective from every angle. I bought some Partition bullets and developed a load just in case somebody ever invited me to go elk hunting but.... it hasn't ever happened yet. I'm standing by though! The rifle and cartridge had the potential to hunt just about anything you care to go after.
Gregg
