Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Winchester 351 semi auto?

Hi, I have the chance to buy a 351 winchester from a guy for 350 dollars, I've never heard of such a caliber and I guess the only way to get ammo, is to reload it. Is this a collectable rifle, and is it a good price? The rifle seems to be in decent shape

The 351 SL is not all that powerful, more along the lines of a pistol round. However, a friend of mine took the biggest bull moose I have ever seen (and packed out) with one.

This happened on a berry-picking trip near Tanana, Alaska. He and his wife were carrying the 351 in case of a bear encounter, and when they pulled into a slough a huge old moose stood up. A couple of well-placed shots and the moose dropped. No one knew anything about B & C scoring then, but the outside spread was over 70".

My uncle wanted to give me a .351 and a case of ammunition but couldn't � he was a U S marshal, and the Marshal Service had issued him a .351 and ammo, but he'd never found any use for it and couldn't dispose of it.

The rifle was a failed attempt to market an autoloader center-fire rifle that worked on the blow-back principle. I've neither fired one nor gotten any report on how well it worked.

The cartridge looks like a funny .357 Magnum � I doubt that it'd be much different from a .357 Magnum in a good modern lever gun. Any brass for it would be ancient, and ammo for it is no doubt rare. Handloading for it would probably be iffy.

It wouldn't appeal to me.

I had a friend whose dad owned one back in the 70's. He was a prison guard and got it some how from the prison if memory serves. The gun seemed to weigh about 12 pounds and the ammo appeared to be hard ball of some type.

Mike took it deer hunting and shot a small buck at about 75 yards. That ammo seemed to sail through him with out even making him flinch. Never recovered the deer and we gave up on using it as a deer rifle.

Saying that it isn't much different than the .357 Magnum is praise itself. No it probably wouldn't be the best deer round, but for personal defence it should be fine as long as the rifle functioned properly. There are several lever actions chambered for the .357 Magnum so why not a similar 351 in a semi auto.

MidwayUSA has the brass although it is rather pricey.

Druther have a lighter, proven reliable .357 Magnum lever carbine and modern brass. De gustibus non disputandum est.

The 351 Winchester was only chambered in the Winchester 1907 Self Loading rifle, a blowback design. It was therefore a relatively low powered round. It will kill deer at close range (under 100 yards), and was popular as a prison guard (tower) weapon. Later Winchester introduced the 401 Winchester SL in the Winchester 1910 SL rifle with considerably more power.

Both cartridges are relatively scarce collector's cartridges and are expensive.

Sorry I don't speak Latin, but I agree with you on the .357 Magnum. I do think , however, that the 351 would be ok if ,like you said, it is similar to the .357 magnum.

I have my Grandfather's M-1907 .351 that he bought new in 1909, along with the Winchester catalog he used to choose it from. The list price was $28 while a Win M-94 listed at $21. In 1926 the prices had risen to $79.40 for the '07 and $47.90 for the '94. Talk about inflation, wow. So, a definite reason for some of the difference in popularity of these two models was the cost factor. The M-1907 was expensive. It was his only deer rifle for thirty years and he took several whitetails with it. He wasn't a particularly good shot, and he would practice a little with it by shooting an occasional short-range woodchuck (with how many shots?). The only thing he had to compare it to was his 12-ga. slug gun, a Winchester M-1911 semi-auto (another expensive, poor-seller) which he loaded with round balls because he didn't trust the new Forster-style slugs. He never owned a .22, even. I believe his modus-operandi was to try to get off two or three (or more) fast shots and hope one of them hit something. Most of his deer hunting consisted of drives in thick cover where the usual opportunity was a running shot at thirty yards, so he was fairly successful. Typically, several shots would be fired by more than one hunter to bring a deer down and there were frequent "discussions" to decide who really got the deer. It is a wonder more hunters weren't shot by each other. This was in the 1920's and '30's in upstate NY and PA.

I have dies and proper bullets to make good ammo and have shot this rifle enough to be familiar with it's abilities. I got all my components from Yukon Arms in Missoula, MT over ten years ago. Open sight groups run about 4" at 100 yards. I can get an occasional, rare 1" group at 50 yards. The comparison to the 357 Magnum is valid.

The gun, other than an heirloom, is just a curiosity. It is not accurate enough to be very interesting, and ammo is too expensive or too much trouble to be really good as a plinker. Alot like an M-1 Carbine, but less convenient and much heavier than the M-1. It is good to impress the grandchildren with when shot offhand at full soda cans at 50 feet, when telling them about their great-great-grandfather. Ernie Lind, the exhibition shooter, used a M-1907 in his act. Using extended magazines he would hold his trigger-finger stiff, letting the blow-back recoil bounce the trigger back on eack shot, creating a machine gun effect on water-filled cans at short range. Apparently this was a real crowd pleaser. Some M-1907's were sent to France during WW-1 and mounted on aircraft as an air-to-air weapon. After that war they were popular as prison-guard guns.

Much more information can be found in John Henwood's book, "The Forgotten Winchesters".

The Winchester was a successful design, and the 351 is much more powerful than say the 30 carbine.

My uncle used one for Blacktail deer hunting very successfully.

Now that's cool. A hundred years and counting.

A gunshop in my area has/had some 351 ammo for sale.
The box has a picture of a skunk on it.

aka mkbenenson. IMO fine for whitetails in thick woods.

Gee I posted a question here about mine 2-3 months ago, asking if should fix it up or honorably retire it, and everybody thought I should shoot it.

Mine was born in 1907, s/n 2XXX, and lived a long hard life on a ranch in South Texas, before it wound up with the good friend of my Grandad, who in turn gave it to my Dad, and he to me. No finish left, but the 20-30 shots I fired in it were reliable, and not terribly inaccurate, despite old ammo and poor sights.

Mechanically, they are rather interesting, an early semi-auto rifle with a blowback action. They are surprisingly heavy, and complex in design. Here's a photo of one apart:



Mine is still a project in progress. I have it apart, but need to make a new recoil spring for it, as the old one is well worn. Setup charges being what they are for springs, I'll likely get a few made up.

Random comments, from what I've learned so far:

1. They have more power than a .30 carbine or .357 mag, but less than a .30-30. IIRC 180's at ~1800 fps.

2. Hawk Bullets does make .352 dia jacketed bullets for them.

3. Redding dies are much cheaper than RCBS, and Midway had them in stock.

4. Old Western Scrounger had some ammo, but it would likely be expensive.

5. Quality Cartridge does make brass, if you can't find the original ammo with brass in good condition. $65 per 50 at Midway.

6. There were 10 round mags made for them; if you find one now they may cost half what the rifle costs .

7. I think Cartridges of the World had load data - I have never seen it anywhere else. Need to dig out my copy to confirm.

****

Worth $350? In good shape, I think so, but you'd better be ready for a challenge to load or find ammo. They aren't bad looking rifles when they are in good condition. Power and accuracy ? - I'll know after mine is shooting again, hopefully with a tang sight

I think mine is one made in the 1950's. Nice little rifles. Bill

I like mine, even have a brand new barrel to put on if I ever wear out the old one.

Loading data may be found in older Lyman manuals. Seems like my #45 had data in it. But it was gone in later manuals.

It's too bad that the round is relegated to being merely an oddity. If brass were more common and less expensive... And if it had a .357 dia bullet, it would make a fun and useful plinker. But, AFAIC, the expense of componets rather rules that out.

Brass can be formed from .357 Maximum, but rims must be lathed-turned and that's a lot of work.

Edw

it is a great interesting rifle.My dad bought on from the local gun shop about 20 yrs ago.I enjoy the rifle but ammo is expensive and getting higher

What I like about it is the quality of it, like many of the older Winchesters. I would not want one to carry around (heavy), nor would I hunt with one, but the design and shape give it a quality look that I could appreciate.

There is just something about the old Winchesters, Pre 64 94 and 70, Mod 64, older the pump action and semi-auto 22s that you just want to hold and admire.

Yesterday I saw a mint pre 64 Model 94. I didn't pick it up because I didn't want to get drool on it, but if I had had sorta deep pockets, I would have brought it home. The mint model 42 in .410 in the same store had about the same affect, as did the Rem. Model 29, the only one I have ever seen.

I have read yesterday that Handloader #43, has some data, have not yet confirmed that to be true. I did find some other references & will post a link tonight.