Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire everyone needs to own a 1907 Winchester

The .351 Winchester case is second from left, next to a .351 dia Hawk 180gr round nose. The slightly bottlenecked case is a .300 Blackout, for comparison.



That rifle is from the first year of production, 1907. If you fire it slowly it will do about ~1.5" at 50 yards, using the tang sight. Let the barrel heat up and it strings vertically. I need to do some more work on the brass, though, to get it trimmed to consistent lengths. I also used CCI 41 primers, which may or may not be exactly best for it.

Hawk makes bullets, with a couple of variations. Quality Cartridge Co makes brass (need trimming), and Jamison has started up producing them again. I have 200 cases for it. It is interesting to note the .351 shares the same rim size as a .30 Remington AR, and the 6.8 SPC, so the shell holders are the same.

The magazines are not drop free, and not staggered, so the standard mag holds 5 rounds. There were 10 round "police" mags, which now go for about $200 on Gunbroker.

The firing pin was stuck on this rifle; which I discovered in the course of cleaning; I expect that's why I was able to buy it as cheaply as I did. Some fresh CLP got it cleaned up. The action is blowback operated, not a locked breech. The breechblock is a massive forging, which might cost $500 to make today.

(this is my other 1907, which killed many a gator on a South Texas ranch)



Development continues with it; it is certainly the equal of a .357 magnum carbine. They were popular among some police and prison guards in their day, but even if I to find a 10 round mag for it at a decent price, I think it will be assigned to 4 legged pests in the future.

I recall reading an article about making .351 brass out of .357.

The guy had just ground a lathe tool out of a high speed steel blank that would shape the web and the rim to .351 dimensions

It was a simple operation in a lathe.

He just stuck the case in a collet, got the tool on location, and went straight into the case.

Stick a stop in the collet, get your zeros established, and you could knock them out like shelling peas.

The article I saw came out before the .357 Maximum, and the converted .357 cases were a bit too short,..but you could make them from .357 Maximum brass and have them dimensionally correct all over.

That long springy thing at the bottom of the pic is the fun and games portion of re assembly.

France tested them for trench assault in the Great War with some making it to the front. The balance of the American used rifles stayed in the air corps. The idea was to issue them to aerial observers in both balloons and in winged aircraft as means of defense.

A gunshop in my area has a box of 351 ammo on display in one of its cases, I believe it is Remington. I have seen 351 ammo with
a picture of a skunk on the box, but dont remember the maker.