Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters 358 norma magnum

been looking stuff up on this. seems a certain selectivity of bullet is needed due to velocity capability. As in wondering how the hornady bullets hold up, given i have a bunch of them in 225 and 250grain.

You have a P.M on subject. Cheers NC

The Norma is basically a 35 caliber 30-06, throwing 250s in the same ballpark as 180s in the '06. I have made my M77 358 simple by loading it with Speer, Hornady, or Nosler 250s with 75 grains of H4350 and calling it good.

If I lived in Alaska that would be my main hunting rifle. I would build it on a Mauser action w/21in barrel and good quality fiberglass stock. I'd load a good 250gr bullet for everything...probably Partitions or TTSX. It would have a Leupold 2-7x33, 1.8-5.5x38 Zeiss or 1.75-5x32 Burris. powdr

that is a good explanation, seems very similar to a 350remington magnum, but capable of a little more velocity. and in the range of a whelen.
i put a 4x12 on it yesterday to replace the 4x leupold, it does have a 26inch barrel on a belgium fn action.

I have a 358STA, so I like the bigger 35s. The 358 norma interests me in a factory rifle if I ever find one. I wish the 35 newton was a viable option, as that would be even better.

As far as bullets holding up, don't worry. Just use decent bullets. I prefer the 250gr partition in the STA, but also use the 200gr TTSX.

I put one together several years ago and have taken a couple of moose and a couple of brown bears with mine. It's a neat cartridge and performs as you might expect considering its ballistics. For a person that likes shooting less common cartridges it'll fit that bill. If you want to shoot much less expensive pistol bullets (.356-.358) it's a great option and there are a host of readily available bullet molds if you desire to cast your own. If those things aren't high on your list it would be a better idea to go with a .338 WM or a .375 H&H (or similar) and skip the .358 NM, in my opinion.

A great round in a good rifle, I have supplanted it with a 9.3X63. Does everything it will and more.

Scott did you mean 9.3 X 64 or 62? Thanks

9.3X62, fat fingers.. The 9.3X64 has even more to offer.

Strange.

I would think the 13gr. advantage in case capacity would give the Norma a significant edge over the 9.3x62 or the Whelen.

I can't see a 9.3x62 running a 250 gr bullet at 2800 fps like the 358 Norma can safely.

When I had mine I used Big Game and the 250 gr Speer at around 2750 fps from a 22" barrel if memory serves correctly, I would imagine both it and the Hornady 250 gr would work just fine at those speeds. Big Game with the 200 gr TTSX got over 3000 fps easily by the way. Sadly I didn't take any game with the 358 NM before deciding the 35 Whelen was enough for me. The big 358 Norma is a great round though.

It's hard to imagine what he is thinking as the .358 Norma is a significant step above the 9,3x62 in exterior ballistics and with bullets from 150-310 grains available it'd be tough to make a case for the improved versatility of the 9,3 over the Norma. Nothing against the 9,3x62, but a 1:12 twist .35 Whelen is everything that the 9,3 is and the .358 Norma adds another 150-200 fps to the Whelen...

That's what I found as well the 358 Norma is around 200 fps faster than the 35 Whelen.

The reason most .35's haven't sold all that well for many years is the more-or-less standard 1-16 rifling twist, which will only reliably stabilize lead-core spitzers up to 250 grains, and monolithic spitzers up to about 225 grains. .338's, 9.3's and .375's have standard twists that stabilize heavier bullets, so the .35's have been fading.

This is despite the old infatuation for .35's due to their ability to shoot handgun bullets. My guess, based on all this, is that a tiny fraction of .35 caliber owners are handloaders, and even those that are don't care much about handgun bullets. And those handloaders determined to put together "lite" loads for a big game rifle over .30 caliber are just as happy to do so with home-cast bullets, which aren't restricted to .35 caliber.

I happen to own a .358 Norma Magnum, but don't see any real reason to choose one over a .338 Winchester Magnum, .375 H&H or .375 Ruger. Or, for that matter the 9.3x62, which can indeed produce about the same muzzle velocities with 250-grain bullets as the .338 Winchester, when loaded to the SAME pressure. And the .338 is the big competition for the .358, the reason the Norma pretty much died over half a century ago.

If it makes somebody happy to hunt with a .358 Norma, then they should certainly do so. But arguing its superiority over any other "medium" caliber big game round is a lot like arguing that the .270 Winchester would have never existed if the .280 Remington had been introduced first. It's literally beside the point, because the .270 was introduced first, and shooters long ago chose the .338, 9.3x62 and .375 H&H over the .358 Norma.

I spent about a decade using an 8 1/2 pound 358 Norma as my large critter rifle. 225 TSXs at 2900+ and 250s at 2800.

A couple years back I made the switch to a 9.3X62 that was over a pound lighter. My standard loads copy and mirror JBs, the 250 at 2650 and the 286 at 2475 for heavy lifting.

My opinion of the difference between the two? The 358 Norma is 50 yards flatter shooting, which with a rangefinder and dots in the scope reticle means zip. I have zero interest or intention in going back to a Norma.

I have a couple of 358Normas and have taken moose, caribou and grizzly with them. I've used Nosler, Barnes and Hornady 250's all at about 2800fps and was happy with the performance of all of them.
I don't think I'd build another one, just because of the added expense and the mixed availability of components compared to 338Win or the 375's.

I think that I remember (any more, I'm never completely sure) back when airplane hijackings were just becoming popular. There was one somewhere and the hijacker was taken out (while the plane was on the ground, of course) with a .358 Norma. I thought that was a rather cool choice for the job.

Rick??? Aren't there rules about such blatant apostasy??!!!! (Barsness ain't a Greek name FWIW.)

I am one of those guys that likes different stuff, and picked up a set of old RCBS dies in 35 Newton.. Well, I called JES and within a few minutes I had decided to send off an old 338 M70 Classic to get rechambered and rebored to the Newton..

Making brass is pretty easy, run 375 Ruger through the FL dies and trim.. Done. Brass is excellent, lasts seemingly forever and the performance from the 20.5" barrel is pretty good.

I used RL17, RL26 (250's) and H4895 in it. Runs just about like a 358 Norma with 250's at 2800 and 225's at around 2900 without issues.

So yeah, it doesn't gain me a danged thing over my 338 Win Mag at all, but it different but I like the 358's. It might not be better than anything, but I like it..

In his Pet Loads article on the .35 Whelen, Ken Waters wrote that the best way to "improve" it would be to neck it to .338, taking advantage of the better BC's, SD's, and variety of projectiles available. Similarly, the best improvement, arguably, for the .358 Norma would be the .338 win mag. Remember that the SD of a 250 gr. in .358 is like the 225 in a .338, so to equal the excellent old-style Hornady 250 spire point in .338 you would need to find a 275 in .358.

Well yer no fun.

My argument for "superiority" was in response to the post concerning that the 9,3x62 will do everything the .358 NM will do and more, which my experience with both cartridges has demonstrated is a nonsensical statement. That's not to say anything negative about the 9,3x62, just an objective observation with regards to its external ballistics.

I stand by my original assessment that if you want something quirky that can use handgun bullets and has access to a wild array of bullet molds for casting your own then the .358 NM might fill that desire as well as any medium bore. However, most anyone is better served with a .338 WM or some flavor of .375 which will have indistinguishable performance in the field..

225 gr Hornadys in .358?

I've had a 35 Whelen for the last 14 years and can honestly say I've never used a handgun bullet in mine. I have used a few cast rifle bullets and now that I have a mold for a 200 grain gas check bullet for my 357 Maximum, I may try those with some Trail Boss in the Whelen. I have picked off a few grouse heads with 250 grain Partitions over the years and can unequivocally say they are fully up to the task though they do tend to over penetrate.

Were I starting over again building a couple of rifles for all of North America, I'd look really hard at a pair of Norma Mags, one in 308 and the other in 358 and feel like I was well gunned for anything this continent had to offer. Of course I like the less ordinary firearms anyway.

This issue of Reloader has article on 358 Norma.

In saying the 9.3X62 will do everything the 358 Norma will and more, I was not really meaning velocity and paper ballistics. I was referring to what one would hunt with one. They both are medium range medium bores meant for basically the same animals. The "more" part is the 9.3X62 in several African countries is a Legal big game and Elephant rifle. The Norma is not. The 358 Norma magnum is a great round, but for myself it is not any better than my 9.3X62 for my use. No I have not gone Elephant hunting with one, but I could.