American Rifleman – September 2019

50 SEPTEMBER 2019 AMERICAN RIFLEMAN

WINCHESTER 350 LEGEND

recover any bullets. And given how impressive the penetra-
tion had been, I was really curious as to how much the
projectiles had expanded upon entering the animals, since
exit wounds can only tell us so much. To my mind, this
meant that some penetration testing was in order.
Many of the 350 Legend ries that have entered the
market in the past six months utilize 16" barrels, so I was
particularly interested to see how the same Deer Season load
would fare through the shorter tube of my test CMMG. To
that end, I arranged two 16"-long blocks of Clear Ballistics
10-percent ordnance gelatin end-to-end and backed them
with a box lled with rubber mulch—just to be absolutely
certain to capture the projectile—and then red one round
into the gel from 50 yds. Inquisitiveness then got the bet-
ter of me, and I repeated the procedure with the heavier
Power-Point load. Even through the carbine-length barrel,
the 150-gr. Deer Season XP projectile tunneled 17" into the
gel—completely penetrating the rst block and coming to
rest about an inch into the second. The 180-gr. Power-Point
burrowed even farther, stopping only after traveling 29" and
nearly exiting the second block. Again, SDs are not the end-
all, be-all indicator of penetration.
Upon retrieval of the bullets, I found that the Deer
Season and Power-Point projectiles had blossomed to 0.59"
and 0.55" in diameter, respectively, at their thinnest points
and 0.64" and 0.61" at their broadest. The recovered Deer
Season load still weighed 98.7 grs., having retained two-
thirds of its mass, while the soft-point weighed 172.6 grs.
with 96-percent retention. In light of 350 Legend’s consis-
tent ability in the eld to bore straight through Missouri’s
sizeable whitetails, I was initially concerned that the bullets
weren’t expanding properly, but these results put those fears
to rest. And even more owering of the projectiles could be
expected through the chambering’s longer-
barreled options. In light of its AR compat-
ibility, however, some will inevitably ponder
the use of 350 Legend in a home-defense
capacity, and I think these results demon-
strate that overpenetration of the cartridge
should be a serious consideration for most
indoor scenarios. Out around the property on
the other hand ....
Penetration-testing successfully com-
pleted, I then moved on to function and
accuracy work with all three ries, but
rst a quick caveat. It is the policy of this

magazine to, whenever circumstances allow, use only

production guns in our evaluations. At the time that this

story went to press, production ammunition for all three

evaluated loads was already rolling off of the assembly

lines at Winchester Ammunition, as were ries from both

CMMG and Ruger, however, the sample XPR Compact sent

by Winchester Repeating Arms was a pre-production unit.

Given that XPR production is expected to be in full swing

by the time this reaches the reader, the decision was made

to move forward with testing through a pre-production

barrel so as to get this information to you prior to the start

of 2019’s deer season.

The 350 Legend is not really shaped to facilitate reli-

able feeding (shoulders are an asset in this regard), yet

throughout my testing I’ve experienced no issues with any

of the three guns—when loading them from their respec-

tive magazines. While shooting the XPR, however, I did

discover that I could induce a failure to feed nearly 100

percent of the time by singly loading a round directly into

the ejection port; doing so caused the nose of the cartridge

to hang up on the feed ramp consistently. As this is not a

gun where such practice will regularly be employed, I think

this is a relatively benign issue. CMMG warned me before

my testing began that 350 Legend runs a bit dirtier than

.223 Rem., and while my experience does conrm this, it

was not so much as to have an impact on reliability during

my 300-odd rounds of function-ring.

The SAAMI spec for the cartridge stipulates 1:16" right-

hand-twist riing, which Winchester indicated should

provide the best accuracy across the entire span of avail-

able bullet weights, and the barrels of all three test ries

were cut to this rate. Accuracy—using Rieman’s ve-shot,

ve-group protocol—was solid but unspectacular, which is

During a Missouri whitetail hunt using Winchester
XPR Compacts ring the 150-gr. Deer Season XP
350 Legend load, six deer were harvested, at
distances ranging from 13 to 200 yds.

Recoil anticipation is the death of accuracy; if you’re still thinking about how badly the last shot rocked

you, your fundamentals are going to suffer on the next one. Totally disproportionate to its effect on game,

the 350 Legend’s recoil is minimal enough that bracing for the kick never even entered my mind.