The pair of hogs popped out of the South Texas mesquite over 100 yards away and made straight for the deer feeder. I shifted in my seat and got ready for a shot—and for my first hunting experience using the new 350 Legend cartridge from Winchester Ammunition.
The two hogs came up against the back of the fence surrounding the feeder, but they knew their way around. Literally. They slid along the far side of the chest-high fence and angled back into the feeder area proper, the ranch staff here had left the fence gate open the last several days in anticipation of this hunt.
I’d sat in this elevated hunting blind for nearly two hours, sipping water and sweating it out, the temperature in the high 90’s and very little breeze. The private ranch I was the guest of was about four miles from the Mexican border and near the town of Eagle Pass, Texas. The land was rolling and rocky, covered in large swaths of short mesquite and brush interspersed with stony stretches of open.
The land, according to the ranch staff was also home to hundreds if not thousands of hungry hogs.
Time to put a tiny dent in the population.
The two boars were inside the fence now, and one stopped along the far side, nose down to feed. I lined up the crosshairs of my Leupold VX Freedom scope onto his heart-lung area and squeezed off a shot. The 180-grain bullet from the 350 Legend SuperX round dropped the hog almost instantaneously.
But, before he hit the ground, the other pig was already scurrying for the gate.
That second hog, though, slowed his pace and kept glancing towards the feeder as he retreated, his nose up to the air. I knew he was smelling that good corn the feeder had dropped out an hour earlier and was unwilling to let it go.
His mistake.
I worked the bolt on my Winchester XPR rifle and chambered another 350 Legend SuperX round.
The hog trotted into the mesquite behind the fence, then almost immediately turned and got back to the fence. He followed the fence line for many yards, then put his head down to eat some corn that must’ve made it just outside the enclosure.
The wire fence was made of rectangles that looked about six inches long by four inches high. And the hog’s head was framed in one of those rectangles. I hadn’t had much time with the Winchester XP rifle rig, but it pegged 1.25-inch groups at 100 yards a few hours earlier.
I lined up for a headshot, set the reticle below the hog’s ear and squeezed the trigger. Hog #2 flopped onto the dry South Texas dirt as if hit by a sledgehammer.
The hog hunt occurred on April 2019, my first exposure to Winchester’s new ammunition, the 350 Legend cartridge. The hunt was at Winchester’s invitation and included Dusty Gibson of Winchester Ammunition, Shauna Campbell of Winchester Repeating Arms, and social media influencer Nikki Boxler. We took down over a dozen South Texas hogs, nearly all of them with single shots of the 350 Legend in the SuperX load. Ranges were from 50 to 125 yards.
While “new” in the ammunition market often means different packaging and tweaking the round’s name, the 350 Legend actually represents a useful and handy hunting load. One element in the “new” is that the 350 Legend does what the 300 Blackout was supposed to be doing but has generally, in my opinion, failed to do: anchor big game with one shot, especially tougher game like hogs. In fact, it looks to me like the 350 Legend makes the 300 BLK obsolete for hunting.
Plus, the new Winchester round provides another option for deer hunters who live in states which only allow a straight-walled cartridge for deer hunting with centerfire rifles.
According to Gibson, Ammunition Product Manager for Winchester, the 350 Legend got its start when the Winchester marketing and research teams got together and asked themselves what could be done with existing 223 Rem brass to create a new round for hunters and recreational shooters. They were hoping to make a straight-walled cartridge for those states that required straight-wall centerfire for deer hunting. They also wanted a more powerful round than the 300 BLK.
As to why they looked at 223 Rem brass for ideas?
“Our thinking was, if we based this new cartridge on the Rem 223, we’d have a round that could be used in AR-platform rifles as well as bolt actions,” Gibson told me. “So, what we did was to cut off .223 brass at the bottom of the case’s shoulder. That gave us a straight-walled cartridge which, it turned out, had an opening at the mouth essentially of a .357 Magnum bullet.”
Winchester eventually moved away from using the .223 brass and came up with its own, similar brass, added a .35-caliber bullet, and started experimenting with powder loads and primers. When Winchester was done, the result was the 350 Legend Cartridge.
Basic 350 Legend cartridge specs:
- Bullet Diameter: .357 inch
- Shell case Length: 1.71 inches
- Overall Cartridge Length: 2.26 inches
The 350 Legend line was introduced by Winchester at the SHOT Show in January 2019; the cartridge was accepted as an industry standardized cartridge by SAAMI, the Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers’ Institute, in April of this year.
SAAMI accepted the 350 Legend cartridge for industry standardization in April 2019.
Winchester currently offers the 350 Legend in five different loads:
–USA White Box, 145-grain FMJ Flat Nose,
for practice and plinking
–Deer Season XP®,
150-grain Extreme Point, for hunting
–Power Max Bonded®, 160-grain Bonded JHP,
also for hunting
–Super X® PowerPoint, 180-grain Power-Point, hunting.
–Super Suppressed™, 265-grain Open Tip, for use with suppressed rifles.
Winchester claims the 350 Legend is the world’s fastest straight-walled cartridge and has more energy than the 30-30 Win, 300 Blackout and 223 Rem. It also boasts approximately 20-percent less recoil than the .243 Win and has less recoil than the 450 Bushmaster.
Certainly, that last claim is correct. I’ve shot many 450 Bushmasters in bolt actions and AR’s, and the 350 legend Hog Special has much less recoil than its Big Cousin. Less recoil than the .243 Win? Maybe in the lighter loads. Yet, the SuperX loads I used had all the recoil of a .243 Win, if not a little more.
Fastest straight-walled cartridge, and more energy than the 30-30 Win, the 300 BLK, and the 223 Rem?
I suspect these claims are true, though I must note I did not have a chronograph with me on the hunt. So, for now, I must rely on Winchester provided ballistics.
Gibson said Winchester did an “apples-to-apples” comparison examining the 350 Legend Deer Season 150-grain load to the Winchester Deer Season 30-30 Win, also with a 150-grain bullet. For both rounds, Winchester used rifles with 20-inch barrels. The results:
350 Legend Deer Season XP, 150-Grain Extreme Point
Muzzle Velocity: 2,325 FPS
Muzzle Energy: 1,800 ft/lb.
V/S
30-30 Win Deer Season XP, 150-Grain Extreme Point
Muzzle Velocity: 2,205 FPS
Muzzle Energy: 1,619 ft/lb.
Then, Winchester compared the same 350 Legend load to their Winchester 300 BLK with a 150-grain Extreme Point Bullet and their own 223 Rem load firing a 64-grain Extreme Point bullet. In this test, 16-inch barrels were used to replicate using the round in AR-platforms.
350 Legend Deer Season XP, 150-Grain Extreme Point
Muzzle Velocity: 2,225 FPS
Muzzle Energy: 1,649 ft/l
300 BLK Deer Season XP, 150-Grain Extreme Point
Muzzle Velocity: 1,900 FPS
Muzzle Energy: 1,202 ft/lb.
223 Rem Deer Season XP,64-Grain Extreme Point
Muzzle Velocity: 2,655 FPS
Muzzle Energy: 1,002 ft/lb.
Based on those numbers, the 350 Legend does what Winchester claims. Of course, I will be doing my own comparisons in the future once I receive bolt action and AR rifles in the new cartridge.
But the 350 Legend SuperX PowerPoint is definitely a pig killer. In my admittedly short time with the 350 Legend, I found it much more powerful than the 300 BLK rounds I have used in the past. 300 BLK, for hogs especially, has always been a “two-shot-and-hope” round. Yes, even with direct shots into a hog’s heart-lung region.
But my first shot with the 350 Legend SuperX PowerPoint, for example, traveled 100 yards or so, went through both sides of the hog and exited through the very tough shoulder bone on the far side. Other hunters may well have different experiences, but that amount of penetration and damage in not 300 BLK territory to me.
Nikki Boxler took down a good-sized hog Day Two of our hunt at approximately 125 yards using the SuperX load and a single shot. Back at the hunting lodge, one of the guides and myself cut into the hog to retrieve the bullet.
That 180-grain 350 Legend bullet first traveled through the hog’s .5-inch-thick shield (the tough, flexible cartilage material hogs develop over the chest and sides), broke rib bones, smashed through the boar’s lungs, took out rib bones on the far side, and then veered up into the shoulder. In all, I measured over 12-inches of penetration.
The bullet held together very well. It also expanded to double its original diameter and measured at .712-inches.
According to Winchester’s data, the SuperX rounds I used, fired from a 20-inch barrel, have the 180-grain Power-Point bullet leaving the barrel at 2,100 fps and muzzle energy at 1,762 ft-lbs. At 100 yards, the bullet is traveling at 1,762 fps, with 1,240 ft-lbs. of energy; at 200 yards, the bullet has slowed to 1,456 fps and 859 ft-lbs. of energy.
Which is certainly more than enough power to take down a hog or deer at 200 yards.
During a short-range session after my morning hunt on Day Two, I shot a three-shot group of 1.18-inches with the SuperX load. A four-shot group came in at 1.70-inches, with three of the shots pegging in at 1.22-inches. These groups were shot at 100 yards from a sandbagged rest and were more than accurate enough to hit a deer or hog’s vital areas out to 200 yards.
In addition to the Winchester XPR rifle I used on my hog hunt, several gun companies are producing rifles chambered in 350 Legend. This includes CMMG with its new AR the RESOLUTE, Ruger and the AR-556 and Ruger American Ranch Rifles, and Savage which is chambering no less than 14 of its current rifles in the 350 Legend.
Ruger is now chambering its popular AR-556 in the 350 Legend cartridge.
Other ammunition makers apparently think the 350 Legend will find good reception among hunters, too. Federal Premium already offers three loads in the 350 Legend, while Hornady recently debuted a 350 Legend option in their American Whitetail line.
Winchester is on to something good and very useful here. They’ve developed a new cartridge which can be used in those states requiring straight-walled cartridges for deer hunting. It’s a handy round for hunters who’d like more power than the venerable 30-30 Win and considerably more punch than the 300 BLK.
With rifles being offered in AR platforms and bolts with 20-inch and shorter barrels, the 350 Legend looks to be a fine cartridge for a brush gun, too.
My Gramps used his 351 SLR from 1914 to 1960 in N Minn. Why coundn’t writers like you insist on a belted or semi rimmed cartridge. Case mouth head spacing has never worked out. Most M 1911’s only work due to their extractor holding rounds against firing pins. Big argument over 357 Sig. Head spacing on shoulders or case mouths here. 351 cases can be made from 357 S&W Mag. So they have a bit of taper. 351 bullets use Win 348 gas checks. So it’s a .34 cal. Win SLR & WSL’s are 2.0 inch cartridges. Your 350 Lege. is 2&1/4”. 45 acp cart’s shrink with reloadings, &hook ejectors take up the slack, pardon the pun. But rifle pressures look to be a PITA, with reloads over time. A semi rim or belt solves these concerns. Spoiler alert, I have a 44 x 356BB wildcat in a post 64 94 Win Carb. It runs Hornady 265 gr. Flex Tips at 1840 ish, vel. If I do another one it will have a 24” Oct or half Oct. bbl. 20” carb. bbl. kicks like a mule. But this straight case is a tack driver. I solved the 307 BB’s accuracy problems from shoulders blowing forwards.
Gentlemen, give the 350 legend some time and a fair shake to grow in bullet selection ! I like it.. And i was a 30-30 snob.. and 308 snob.. But it comes to a point as you get older, you want performance, bullet selection, low-cost, and Low recoil.. So far 350 Legend delivers.. there is always something bigger and better..my personal experience after 35 years of hunting and long range shooting is straight- walled cartridges are better! easier to load, lower-recoil in most cases and brass for reloading lasts longer. Some of you your opinion may differ, but case in point: 375 Win. what was the point? when the straight-walled 38-55 was fantastic! especially with todays advancements in powders and projectiles I hope the 38-55 comes back with a vengeance.. The old-timers had it right years ago, long before 30-30, 35 Rem, 35 Wheelen and 375 Win came along.. 45-70 did the job long before 444 marlin, 450 marlin and so on…
Dont get me wrong here i think the little 350 legend would make for a great traing rifle for ky grandson getting him used to shooting a centerfire big enough to kill deer cleanly at 100 yards or so without giving him the flinches,,,,excuse my computers writing it seems to have acquired a personalality of.its own!
If you hunt with an AR15 and aren’t using 6.5 Grendel, you’re doing it all wrong!
It’s for states that allow straight walled cartridges only for firearm hunting.
Ballistically, it doesn’t seem the 350Legend is much different than it’s .35-caliber cousin, the .35Rem.
I think the .35-caliber, in general, is ideal for most large game at moderate ranges. Currently, I favor
the .35Whelen in a Rem 750 platform. I was looking into customizing a BAR for the .35Rem, but a short
talk with a gunsmith convinced me otherwise. The new Legend in an AR configuration looks mighty
appealing!
If you are in the market for a rifle designed by hunters FOR hunting, you might want to look at our rifles. The 350 Legend, is an awesome round and we recommend the 180 gr or heavier bullets in semi automatic rifles. The AR platform in 350L is especially suited for hogs, as it is very rapid for subsequent hogs, low recoil due to the design, and suited quite well for suppressor use. Take a look… Brentonusa.com
I have a CVA Scout TD in 350 legend and love it! Shot a 1inch group @ 100yds in the first box of rds ever through the gun. Minimal recoil, reminded me of shooting my old SKS. I will be trying it on whitetail next week I will report back on that. VERY pleasant to shoot round!
I have hunted White
tails and Black Bears for decades .. last 5 or 6 years I hunt feral hogs more and more over the years I used alot of different rifles and cartridges.. Leverguns mostly .. 375 Win , 35 Rem ,45/70 .. Past two decades 30-30 in JM 336’s .. But last year Ruger American in 7.62×39 .. Lightweight package , low recoil , cheap ammo ..15+ Bang -thumps with big hawgs
I can see why straight walled ammo states would chose the 350 L
I don’t own a 300bo but have a 350L upper on order….it seems it would make a nice handy rifle for white tails, hogs, or coyotes in the TN woods where I hunt. I have other rifles that do the same but variety is nice. I like the .35 cal as a game rifle and have used a 357 mag carbine, 35 Remington lever, and 358 bolt for white tails. The 160-180g bullets are more appealing to me….we shall see…
The 350 legend will live fine if it only in the AR platform. Just one more option for the scary black gun guys. Besides who would choose a lever gun when shooting fast from hog to hog.
350 Legend? So what is a 35 Remington? That lever gun has taken every game animal in the lower 48 as a woods gun and it is still taking them.
I predict the 350 Legend will become DOA in 2 years because you have .35 Rem, 30-30, 300 Blackout reloaded for pennies on the dollar.
300 blackout can use the 125gr Speer FP 30-30 bullet and works! With Leverevolution, a 30-30 or .35 Rem does the same thing too!
How much is a 30-30? Less than $400 and $13 for 20 rounds at any hardware store – 2350-2400fps in a 150gr bullet?
35 Legend will be 350 Turkey in 2 years.
I’m sure this doesn’t make sense to you, but you can’t hunt deer, with any of the rounds you mentioned , in states like Ohio, Michigan and several others. It seems like a dumb law. You can however use a 350 Legend.
Dont you wish you could educate the folks who make these rules !ok,ok before you tell me about the range limits and safety factors ,,,i already know but why not a 450 marlin or 375 winchester 45/70 444 marlin all of these cartridges hit hard way better than the 350 legend but still have a short range most likely shorter than the 350 legend !!we need to send our leaders to ballitics classes!!
I always laugh when a supposed “retired LEO” refers to people as “civies” (a good round for civies to play with). When they themselves are civies. Not military, civilian law enforcement. Now, had this person said “citizen”, instead of “civilian”, I could have taken his/her words more seriously. However, as it is on the face, this comment does not come from retired, or any other type LEO, but a troll trying to sound informed and important, swing and a miss. So close…
My 300 BO is for nuisance bears. The 350 legend looks better. I use 125g supersonic in the 300 so would use 180 for the legend. Have both pistol and carbine uppers. 300 Bo in a pistol is ridiculous loud. Legend can’t be much worse.
You should check the brake you’re using if you think the 300 is loud…just a sugestion but it makes a HUGE difference.
My 10.5″ is a pussycat with 150 supersonics with a standard A2 flash supressor.
Wow there are sooo many grumpy old experts commenting here lol , the 350 Legend was designed to meet legislation for hunting in Michigan etc , specifically a straight walled cartride with a case length of no more than 1.7 inches . It fills this bill admirably and with relatively cheap ammo of very low recoil . It can also shoot heavier sub sonic loads for use with a suppressor , uses AR style mags and has a pretty good trajectory especially with the 150 grain zeroed at 160 yards which is then 2 inches low at 190 yards with ear a 1000 ft lbs of energy . Makes it a great pig and deer rifle in wooded terrain and brushy gullies etc .
This is a re-heated .357 AR Maximum. AKA .357 Moleman.
Yes, a pistol cartridge, but a hot one, originally developed for knocking over metallic silhouettes at extended ranges. This rimless version has been a successful wildcat round for a few years now, and the fact that there is now a SAAMI version of it, together with factory rifles and commercial ammo, seems oddly familiar… kinda like the 300 Whisper… and 7mm-08, and .25-06, and so on.
350 Legend seems to be similar to 351 Win. S.L.
6.5 Grendel for my hog hunts. Enough said. No desire to even consider another round that cost $30 + dolla a box.
I started hunting over 44 years ago with a Marlin 35 Rem. Still have that rifle although others have joined it. I have always loved that cartridge and thought it a good round for a mini 14 or AR Platform. When I use to reload, I had a fun time with .358 (357 Magnum 158 grain pistol bullets) reloaded as a crow round. Of course the standard 200 grain round nose as loaded by Remington and others always did the job in the woods. I wonder what it would take to bring that into these platforms above, even as a custom job? Nostalgia is a wonderful thing and more fun many times than adding a new commercial round that may or may not make it. Although I do wish the 350 legend success al the same.
Reminds me of .357 Maximum without the rim.
The new bullet ~~ sounds great ~~ What about the old Timers with OUR tried and proved Rounds, Any thing NEW for US Oldies ? Such as 30 ~ 06 ~~ IT would not be a straight wall ~~ My best load is with a 165 Hornady BT ~~That new bullet ought be made for other caliber RIGHT? It would not be for straight hulls.
This made absolutely no sense.
Muzzle velocity is impressive, but we need a BC to determine trajectory. I have a feeling the 350 legend is basically a pistol projectile with a lot of powder behind it, which is great for its application. Comparing to the 300blk is a little different, as the 300blk actually uses higher BC rifle projectiles. In the supersonic realm does the 300 blk out perform the 350 legend by the time it makes it down range a couple hundred yards?
Hate to say it… I see the 350 legend being an answer to a question nobody asked. Its going to be a market flop dead cartridge in 5 years.
Look it up there is no loading data for pistol bullets for the Legend. It is only loaded with rifle bullets as it flies to fast for pistol bullets to work and they will not hold together in game at that speed.
Having owned an ’07 Winchester in .351 I gotta tell you that this is a blast from the past. In an already crowded field, all I can say is, “Good luck.” The AR-15 is chambered in everything from .204 Ruger to the SOCOMs along with a host of obscure wildcats. Getting any market place traction is going to be tough.
Keep my 300 Blackout. 110 Barnes if it got any better would not know what to do. Shot deer in the head, never move.
Someone else posted it too.
Looks like a .351 Winchester Self Loading.
Seems as if we keep reinventing the wheel.
Have seen the Ruger in both models, yet the Co. That devloped the round doesnt even have the XPR 350 out and available to the public yet. Why?
I’ll be buying a 350 upper and/or rifle eventually. I’m an Ohioan, and ditched the shotgun as soon as I could, for a 444 Marlin. It’s too much rifle for the kids, so they shoot a 44 mag. Deer nuisance permit shooting is done with a 6.8 SPC, or a .308.
What the 350 legend does for me: gives me a crop-damage, and deer legal cartridge the kids can shoot, and is a cartridge that won’t break the bank to reload and practice shooting with.
I like the velocity and reach over the 44 mag as well.
I could realistically retire the 6.8 SPC with this (for my purposes).
I see there’s 1 subsonic load for the .350 legend. Unless there are more, and the 350 legend can work in a short barrel (who knows at this point?), I don’t see it replacing the blackout. This said, it should take a bite from the blackout crowd who want “deer capable”, and are only mildly interested in SBR/suppressed shooting.
I think ultimately, it becomes the 6.8 Spc/6.5 Grendel of the midwest.
do they eat these hogs? how do they taste like pork or any good at all?
Take a Look at the stats on the 350 Remington Magnum! Thats a real 350′
I’ll keep my 110 to 125 grain .300 AAC Blackout. I doubt the .350 Legend will get popular. It will end up likely going the way of most new rifle cartridges which is forgotten and expensive to shoot.
.300 Blackout gives people the option to merely switch barrels from a 5.56 x 45 and fire a .30 caliber rifle round from an AR-15.
I wish the self-appointed experts, and obvious smartest guys in the room would shut their stupid pie-holes. You use these forums to do nothing but spew negativity and tear apart the writers and their subject. You love the anonymity of these postings to say stuff you would never say in person. You are cowards.
Thanks for the review, I’ve been waiting for a feasible, commercial 35 cal round for the ar 15 platform. I look forward to xperimenting on Florida-based hogs with this round in the future. The prospect of suppressed capabilities and handloads is exciting for this caliber.
Spoken well. I have the 350 legend and also found a 358 legend barrel both are ARs. Getting around 2000fts with 200 gr. in the 358. Love it.
While i’m Always interested in a new load, my 300 blk has put down many hogs with one shot. And if I want longer range from my AR’s the 6.8 spc is an excellent choice. Not sure about the 350 being the end-all caliber though, my (straight-walled) 460 XVR has devastated hogs and deer alike. Good article though.
The Energy Output of the 350 Ledged is NOT more then the 30-30, it is actually less. This article tried to cherry pick loads, but look it up and you will see that the article is not accurate. Best case, they are about the same with a slight edge to the 30-30.
The standard muzzle energy for a 150gr 30-30 load is 1903 ft/lbs. The 350 Legend 150gr Deer Season XP mentioned above has 1800 ft/lbs… The muzzle energy for my choice off the shelf load, the 160gr FTX has 2046 ft/lbs at the muzzle, and still carries 1025 ft/lbs. at the 300 yard mark. So not really accurate to say a 350-ledgend carries more energy than a 30-30
John, FYI, the advertised specs for 30-30 ammo are from a 24-inch barrel, while listed specs for the 350 Legend are for a 20-inch barrel. When you claim the 150 grain 30-30 has more energy than the 350 Legend, you are comparing a 24-inch 30-30 barrel against a 20-inch 350 Legend barrel. When fired out of the same length barrel (20 inches for both), the 350 Legend beats the 30-30 in energy. Most 30-30 lever-actions use a 20-inch barrel or shorter, so they will never achieve the listed specs for 30-30 ammo. Winchester is being more reasonable with the 350 Legend by measuring its performance from a 20-inch barrel, because hardly anyone uses 24-inch barrels these days, especially in an AR-15.
When fired from a 16-inch barrel (like some Marlin 336 lever-actions use for the 30-30, and like most AR-15s use), it’s no contest; the 350 Legend beats the 30-30 by an even greater margin.
My hero! Hell, the way this old man wrote this I believe he was having delusions of sniping terrorists in Afghanistan. It’s shooting pigs from a safe “bird perch” for Christ’s sake! I have been called a “gun nut” myself over the years, but people who get such a woody over such activities are beginning to make me feel that the term has merit when applied to some individuals.
this guy clearly doesn’t have a clue what he is talking about. Wow…..
The 300blk energy wise is similar to a 45acp in subsinic. Its been mentioned on here as a ‘counter’ sniper round. As a retired LEO, I have to giggle at that a bit. Agencies looked at it 10yrs ago and projectile performance wasn’t there and engagement range must be within 50yds. I think 50ft would have been more realistic. The marketing behind it was in being a cheap conversion. Our marksman at the time stayed with 308win subs out if a 700. We also found the suppressed mp5’s 9mm and 40sw rounds outPerformed the 300 because the larger diameter thin walled bullets performed better at those subsonic velocities. Its a good round for civies to play with and thats about it. Loaded with some of the 105-110gn bullets its acceptable. I own one their fun
Great – great – … – grandson of the 351 Winchester Self-Loading ?
I share the sentiments of the first two commentators. I got caught up in the 300 BLK flavor of the moment craze and now own three AR rifles, two of which are SBRs. In retrospect, one would have been enough!
They are fun to shoot supressed.
I recommend Barnes TAC-TX bullets for hunting with the 300 BLK. It will do the job with decent shot placement at 125 yards or less. This is the only copper round I have had any luck with, but I am prepared for a follow up shot or two, given the lowish energy of the 300.
My go to pig round is 30.06 . Federal Fusion , an inexpensive 1 MOA product, will mushroom down to the bottom of the shank and dump all the energy into the hog. I recover the bullets with my metal detector.
Im a gun nut but really we have such many good rounds out there its crazy to keep trying to come up with something.new.because virtually all hunting situations have been covered for years!someone posted on here about the 350 remington magnum i have 3 my last one a remington 673 guide rifle that i glass beded put a pacific tool and die stainless stell firing pin in it to do away with remingtons stupid j lock witch ruined a day afield for me when i had it come on and the little key was at home!,Id like to punch the dumb bastard who came up with that damned contraption!oh the point i was going to make is this caliber kills like the hammer of thor acuracy is around 1 inch with good bullets never worse than 1_1/2 with any bullet why it never had much of a following still baffles me?
Using the word “obsolete” to describe .300 Blackout smacks of salesmanship rather than objectivity.
I think I will keep my 450 Bushmaster “Thumper”
The only reason I own guns chambered in 300 BLK is for shooting subsonic suppressed. That is what JD Jones designed the cartridge for. Later, folks realized it had potential for supersonic use. I never saw a need to use supers. There’s plenty of superior calibers that fit in an AR 15 for that use. The 350 legend however, was designed to shoot supersonic. Although it does offer a 265 gr subsonic load. I don’t think it’s fair to compare the two because of the difference in intended uses. Even though they were based on the same brass- I get that. That being said if bullet manufacturers started making 265 gr+ weight projectiles in .357 diameter I would be interested in a 350 legend build around the concept of subsonic suppressed hunting. I would be interested to see how short the barrel could be to reach optimal performance using subs. The 300 BLK achieves optimal performance at 8.5-9” of barrel using subs. It makes for a nice compact gun when using a suppressor. I would think the 350 could achieve similar results from an even shorter barrel thanks to its straight wall and larger bore. I have an MP5 K clone that shoots subsonic 9mm(.355) but 147-158gr is as heavy as it gets for projectiles. An AR 15 chambered in 350 in SBR format or pistol with a short barrel firing a 9mm(.357) 280 gr pill through a suppressor would be an interesting competitor for the 300 BLK. Kind of like an American VSS. Google Russian VSS if need be. The larger diameter and weight of the .357 would certainly outperform the .308 diameter lighter bullets (180-240gr) from the 300 BLK inside its respective ranges of less than 200 yards. The higher BC of the 300 would only matter at longer ranges that are impractical (but not impossible) for subsonic velocities when hunting.The only real advantages the 300 has is slightly quieter suppressed operation due to smaller bore diameter and the fact that is a bottleneck cartridge which offers advantages in feeding reliability. I see the draw to the 350 for those living in straight walled states, but until the heavy bullets are readily available I’ll stick with my 300 BLK for quiet operations or my choice of bottlenecked AR calibers for hunting with full power loads like the 6.8 spc, 6.5 Grendel, or 458 SOCOM.
As far as I know, killing game with one shot was never one of the goals off the 300AAC/BLK, it was just incidental for a lot of hog hunters. What it’s SUPPOSED to do is offer a sub sonic 100yd sniper/counter sniper round that works in a standard carbine setup with only a barrel and gas tube change, quietly with a suppressor. And it manages to do those things masterfully. No other calibre on the market can make those claims. It just so happens to also be a decent hog hunting round and doesn’t care if it’s being shot out of a 16 1/2″ or 8 1/2″ inch barrel.
News flash: when a specialty AR round gets popular enough that brush hunters think it was meant for them and the market responds with myriad options for it in bolt and lever action form, it’s gained enough traction that it’s not going anywhere, regardless of the performance of the flavour of the week.
I know im old.fashion but the ar platform as a hunting rifle sucks to me,their about as good looking as a bumper jack! Now give me a rifle that will allow a large enough.cartridge that power is not in quesstion all of roy weatherbys rifles come to mind expensive yes but quality is certainly there along with impeccable workmanship !And one more of my opinions on the ar rifle if i really had to fight for my life give me a good old m1 or m14 then my freind you have the range and knock out power ,i dont care who tries to tell me the 5.56 will kill as quickly as say an 0_6 or 7.62/308 is full of it!!!