.350 Legend

mehavey said:
???
- Ruger's Ranch and American rifles are bolt action.
`Don't even take my eye off the scope as I cycle the bolt, dump a cartridge into receiver opening, and close it.
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I didn't mean to confuse you, I was talking about the new Illinois regs that I was discussing on another forum.

Yes the Ruger American rifles are bolt action. Illinois regs state that you can hunt without the mag in the rifle, modify the magazine to hold "Zero Rounds", or a single shot sled of some sort. My experience with the Ruger Ranch is limited to a sample of one, a .300 BLK.

I've attempted to load by dumping a cartridge in the ejection port from the bench. Sometimes my cartridge feeds and sometimes it doesn't. I have the older rotary mag design Ranch rifle, that may be the issue. The ejection port is pretty narrow and trying to do a rapid follow up shot with gloves on during deer season might prove difficult.

An older design bolt action will give the hunter better access to feed the cartridge by hand directly into the chamber. So that was my main reasons for suggesting other rifles over the Ruger Ranch or Savage Axis. My experience with my rifle is such I wouldn't trust it to feed 100% of the time if the magazine isn’t being used.
 
No, The reason I ask was for a friend that has a bad shoulder and my grand kids use. Most of us in the family use Ruger American .450 BM's but the recoil can be a bit much. Being a long time .357 Max user we wanted a repeater to keep around for others to use, No way will I loan my Max's! So far I haven't been impressed with a lot of the .350 Legend rifles that show up at the club, they either don't feed or are not very accurate. High end .350's are hard to find so that kinda leaves us with the Ruger which I have 0 experience with in .350 legend.
 
If it doesn't have to be an AR, the Win XPR (bolt action) does deliver (and isn't all hat expensive)...

(FWIW, CMMG's AR upper does quite well for me as well)
 
IMO, it was developed for shotgun states. Compared to a 30-30, 7-08, etc….it is a terrible round.

Compare it to a 12ga or 20ga slug…..way cheaper, effective to 200 yds, more accurate, less recoil, less blast, shorter & lighter guns….yea, way better.

Compare it to 458 BM, 44mag rifle, 444 Marlin, …I’d still rather have the 350 leg against my shoulder or my kids shoulder…
 
I have a buddy hunting in OK with an AR-15 in the Legend. Here is what he has to say:
I'm liking it a lot
Short range 200 250 tops but it hits with authority
Only killed 2 does with 170 grain TSX
They are only going 2170 I think but all pass through
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I have owned a 357 Max TC for about 30 yrs. I was pretty excited about the 350 until I saw the awkward bullet dia. Probably still a pretty useful cartridge.
 
Nathan said:
Compare it to a 12ga or 20ga slug…..way cheaper, effective to 200 yds, more accurate, less recoil, less blast, shorter & lighter guns….yea, way better.
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:eek:

I pay about $1 a round for slugs. With my M2 slug barrel, 5 rounds into 5" at 300 yards and still plenty of power for a Deer. The Win SXP 20g, 200 yard groups of 6". Both have a ton of power, about the same cost. Yes, more recoil, they weigh 6.2 and 7.2 pounds as configured.

For the average hunter, the less recoil is probably the biggest factor. Folks in shotgun/straightwall states are not shooting Deer past 100 in the vast majority of cases.
 
Bought a 450 when they came out. I would have been more interested if the Legend came in .357. To use .355 made no sense and velocities of 2000-2200......
 
For the average hunter, the less recoil is probably the biggest factor.
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Not having a shotgun fitted with a special slug (rifled?) barrel might also be a reason. Though on the plus side, being able to buy slugs 5 at a time, might be a decisive factor over having to buy a box of 20 "rifle" cartridges at one time.

Your accuracy from the barrel you mention is astounding, Certainly much better than I can do with my old full choke 30" Model 12 with slugs... or my old SxS....
 
@Taylorce1: For a state with zero round magazine requirements, Henry now chambers their single shot rifle in .350 legend. For the younger hunter, a single shot, break open rifle, with an external hammer might be a good option. The problem is that I've seen almost no henry single shots in stock anyplace since the COVID hysteria started.
 
GeauxTide said:
Bought a 450 when they came out. I would have been more interested if the Legend came in .357. To use .355 made no sense and velocities of 2000-2200......
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.355 made a lot of sense to Hornady and Winchester. They had a nich market in the bullets for reloading and even for about a year on factory fodder.
 
@hammie, I recommend the CVA Scout or other break action single shot. However, the OP on that forum wanted a bolt action rifle. He wanted a rifle that he could use places where the zero round mag wasn't required as a repeater.
 
MarkCO said:
I pay about $1 a round for slugs. With my M2 slug barrel, 5 rounds into 5" at 300 yards and still plenty of power for a Deer. The Win SXP 20g, 200 yard groups of 6". Both have a ton of power, about the same cost. Yes, more recoil, they weigh 6.2 and 7.2 pounds as configured.

For the average hunter, the less recoil is probably the biggest factor. Folks in shotgun/straightwall states are not shooting Deer past 100 in the vast majority of cases.
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That’s impressive. Where I live, sabot slugs are $11-$20(pre-covid) per 5…. IME, a good group is 3-4” at 100 yards from my Mossberg 930.

350 Legend ammo was $20 for 20 new;Groups were 3/4” at 100 yards and I can hit steel to 300 yards from my Winchester XPR. Reloads were closer to $15 per box
 
Nathan said:
That’s impressive. Where I live, sabot slugs are $11-$20(pre-covid) per 5…. IME, a good group is 3-4” at 100 yards from my Mossberg 930.

350 Legend ammo was $20 for 20 new;Groups were 3/4” at 100 yards and I can hit steel to 300 yards from my Winchester XPR. Reloads were closer to $15 per box
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It took a good deal of time and experimentation to get there...something not required with a decent .350Legend.

I want to like the .350Legend, mixed reviews from some I tend to trust, put me on pause. I don't live in a shotgun state, even though I shot my first bull Elk with a 12g 3" slug at 80 yards with one. More of a T&E interest to be able to discuss, compare and contrast intelligently. If I had to go shotgun/straight wall state Deer hunting today, I'd slap a dot on one of my slug guns (if legal) and carry on.

At some point, I'll probably get a .350L barrel for the Encore and shoot it suppressed for high timber Mule Deer.
 
44 AMP said:
Your accuracy from the barrel you mention is astounding, Certainly much better than I can do with my old full choke 30" Model 12 with slugs... or my old SxS....
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Took a good bit of time and effort to get there. At the time, I was sponsored by Benelli, so I got a slug barrel for free. Then I got several hundred rounds of slugs from manufacturers. I was searching for the best combo I could come up with for use in the American Marksman competition finals (there is a Shooting Gallery TV show on it). At the end of the day, I felt that the fit of the shotgun was too large of a factor impeding success of the finalists. So I did not use it, but I gained a significant appreciation of the capability of slug guns and have since, hunted Deer and Hogs with slug guns to flesh out the experiments.

Once thing I certainly learned, combined with shooting shotguns in 3Gun. Vent ribs are terrible detractors to slug accuracy, as are longer barrels. Clean top slug barrels in the 18 to 21 inch range are optimum.
 
@mehavey in post #33:
Wait, wait, wait. Can you use a cast bullet re-sizer to re-size jacketed bullets? I'm not disputing what you said, but if it's possible, that would solve a couple of problems for me. So... I just buy a .356 resizing die with the correct top punch and just do it as you normally would? Will Lyman top punches fit in my RCBS cast bullet re-sizer? I might have more top punch choices with Lyman.
 
@buckey: I didn't know. That why I was asking. I'm sure mehavey will return, and help and clarify. (And we're starting to drift a little. Maybe we can wrap this sub-topic up before we get scolded too badly.)
 
I've done the .358 hot core sizing down to .356 as meheavy describes--I personally found it impossible to go from .358 straight to .356 and had to also get a .357 for intermediate size. Then I started thinking about sizing down a bonded jacketed bullet that far and ultimately firing it through what is really a .355 bore and decided it wasn't for me. Meheavy has done very well with it --more power to him.
 
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