A brand-new but old-style looking, the .350 Legend wad developed by Winchester and is not derived from any other existing cartridge.
The world's fastest straight-walled hunting cartridge
With its nostalgic straight-wall design – i.e. non-bottlenecked – the .350 Legend is said to be a viable alternative for hunters in some US states where modern high performance cartridges with the dominant bottleneck design are not allowed due to their dangerous long-range ballistics and flat trajectory.
Winchester claims that the .350 Legend is the world's fastest straight-walled hunting cartridge delivering more energy than a .30-30 Winchester, .300 Blackout or .223 Remington. It should also have 20% less recoil than a .243 Winchester with a 20% more penetration. Even when compared to the .450 Bushmaster, the firing behavior of the .350 Legend should be more mild and pleasant.
Winchester offers the new cartridge in a variety of loads, with 145 Grains FMJ, 150 Grains Deer Season XP, 265 Grains Super Suppressed, 160 Grains Power Max Bonded, and 180 Grains Power Point bullet. The 265 gr Super Suppressed subsonic version develops an initial speed of 323 m/s. The 145 gr full coat cartridge, 716 m/s, while the 150 gr load 708 m/s, the 160 gr 678 m/s and the 180 gr 640 m/s.
The right rifle for this ammo: the XPR models from Winchester
A new cartridge obviously also includes the appropriate hunting guns, that Winchester had brought to the Industry Day at the Range 2019. Basically, they are the Winchester XPR series rifles in different finishes and colors. The test guns at the Industry Day were all black and equipped with a synthetic stick.
We were pleasantly surprised by the relatively mild recoil of this large cartridge and can only say: especially in the version with sound suppressor, shooting it is a lot of fun. And you can assume that the knock-down power of the new cartridge fits your hunting needs.
But is the new .350 Legend “a solution in search of a problem,” as someone put it? For sure, it is and remains predominantly a pure US-American affair and compares with other young cartridges such as Hornady's very latest .300 Precision Rifle Cartridge (PRC) or Federal's .224 Valkyrie already introduced into the market.
For more information on the .350 Legend please visit Winchester Ammunition website.
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