Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters 358 Winchester mag.... why not?

Rifle calibers larger than 30 caliber have never been big sellers in the US.

I'm a fairly big fan of 35's having had a 35 whelen AI, 350 Rigby and 350 rem mag in rifles, but fully accept the 35 bore is never going to be a big seller and the last thing we need is another variant.

Let's face it, they all do pretty much the same thing pushing 225-250 gr bullets ~2700 fps. It's a good thing, just not a terribly popular thing.

.35-caliber fans are always asking about, "Why not the ----?" Insert whatever .35 you desire. The reason they almost assuredly won't appear, as some have already alluded to, is there's almost no demand.

The little demand there is will slowly disappear, as it has over the last 30 years, partly because of the same problem common on some other "older" calibers: rifling twist rates established long ago, when a common practice was to to use JUST enough twist to stabilize bullets. In .35 this ended up being 1-16, just enough for 250-grain lead-cored spitzers.

Because there are so many 1-16 twist .35 caliber rifles out there already, very few bullet manufacturers offer any lead-cored spitzer heavier than 250 grains. If they do, it's a relatively blunt "semi-spitzer," such as the 280-grain Swift A-Frame. In .338, 9.3mm and .375 caliber there's a much wider selection of bullets, in .338 with much better BC's than any .35 bullet, and in 9.3 and .375 with more bullet weight.

About the only justification for .35's is the ability to handload handgun bullets for the .38 Special or .357 Magnum, for practice or "plinking." The number of shooters who actually do this is far smaller than those who believe there's any advantage in .35 big game bullets over .33's, 9.3's or .375's. The number of shooters who actually handload handgun bullets so they can use ONE rifle on everything from squirrels to moose is.... Well, in my experience they don't exist.

The demand for new .35 caliber rifle cartridges ended when the .35 Whelen was turned into a factory round by Remington in 1988. My understanding is that about 20,000 Remington .35 Whelens were sold that year, after which demand dropped off like a rock falling down a cliff--and has never gone up since.

If some rifle company wanted to lose money for some obscure tax write-off, they'd introduce a new .35-caliber rifle cartridge. But otherwise there's no financial or ballistic reason.

I started a thread on another forum....asking about necking up the .300 H&H to .35 caliber.....the response:....It's been done....the .350 H&H and also the .350 G&H (Griffn and Howe)

Neither of them went very far it seems and it also seems that it highly corresponds to the opinions versed on this thread.....the demand just isn't there.....

The .358 Norma has been around my entire lifetime and I've never seen one.

vapodog,

I've owned a bunch of .35 caliber rifles, including several .35 Remingtons and .358 Winchesters, three .35 Whelens (including a .35 Whelen Ackley Improved, the most worthless AI cartridge), a .358 Norma Magnum and a .358 Shooting Times Alaskan. They all went bang and those I hunted with killed stuff, but aside from handloading handgun bullets I never could see any advantage in any of them over much more popular and available cartridges.

The .35 Whelen doesn't do anything the .338 Winchester Magnum (or 9.3x62) doesn't do at least as well, and often better, which is why Elmer Keith (a .35 Whelen fan until the 1930's) switched to .33's. The .358 STA I had was a custom rifle with a 1-12 twist, so I could use spitzers heavier than 250 grains. It basically duplicated the .375 H&H with more hassle. In fact I formed cases from .375 H&H brass. What's the point, other than to have a rifle chambered for some oddball round your buddies don't have?

I still have a .358 Norma, a custom 1903 Springfield built by Frank Pachmayr, probably in the 1930's, with a beautiful black walnut stock, and a 2.5x Lyman Alaskan in a Griffin & Howe detachable mount, with a Lyman aperture sight to back it up. But originally it was a .35 Whelen (and is still so marked), and was converted to .358 Norma after that cartridge appeared--long before the Whelen was a factory round. That made sense at the time, but the rifle would be worth far more if somebody hadn't decided to make it "better." Of course, that's the reason I could afford it....

I'm another that has owned a 358 Norma, 35 Rem and 35 Whelen. I loaded 148gr Double Ended wadcutters in the 358 for off season practice and small game hunting, it would shoot clover leafs at 50 yards and was one of my favorite squirrel hunting guns. Somebody offered me more than I thought it was worth and it went down the road in the 1980's and I built a 35 Whelen and it does everything the 358 N did and doesn't hurt as much, it is looking for a home now that I've gotten old. The 35 Rem is in a Rem 760 and will probably hang around awhile as I keep it back in WI in case I decide to go on another deer hunt with my family. Just don't need that much gun any longer.

I have to believe the 350 Barsness-Sisk would sell at least one rifle! Perhaps more if twisted right and offered in a platform that can seat the bullets "way out there"...

Ha! Maybe a mid-length controlled-feed action, like the Montana 1999, would really appeal to that one rifle loony....

It's all about money anymore... Maybe it always was? I have not always invested money in things that return well (my first wife for instance)! But it seems people who buy shares in a company want a return on their investment?

I love the 35's. Cast bullets and jacketed. A hunter could shoot from small game to as large as they'd want in the North American Continent, Using a 125 grain cast up to a premium 250 grain jacketed. A guy could go from a 357 Magnum lever to a 358 Norma Mag. (35 Rem, 358, 350 Mag, 35 Whelen and a few other not so popular included)

No experience in this, but I think a 358 Norma Magnum with the best available premium bullets would fair quite well on the African continent too.

Al MIller once wrote that the 358 diameter cast bullet was, in his opinion, small for whitetails after shooting a nice buck with his 350 Mag and with a cast bullet and then losing the buck until much later, after the buck's flesh had deteriorated. (losing an animal can have a lasting effect on one's feelings about a cartridge, bullet, etc. - ask me about my opinions) He suggested 375 as smallest diameter cast bullet for deer. I wonder though, if a hunter could get reliable expansion and penetration out of a cast 358 hollow point with GC say 250+ grain bullet at perhaps 2,000 fps. Or if the shooter put the bullet through the shoulders... But Al Miller knew more about cast bullets than I will ever hope too.

Oh well, there's not enough hunting days in the calendar to test all theories for us non "gun writers".

I think I've also heard of a .358 UMT based on the 300 Rem Ultra Mag case - Ouch !

And there it is.

I've even played the cast bullet game as I cast for 35 handguns and have handgun molds from 95-200 gr and the Lyman 3589 ~280 gr rifle mold. Once the novelty wore off and I got sick of re-zeroing my rifle, I realized I'd rather shoot a 22rf, a 223 centerfire or get a 357 mag rifle for plinking with cast.

If my 350 rem mag wasn't a gift I'd sell it and get a .338 win mag or 375 H&H.

I'd rather hunt game than brass and component bullets.

Nope. It's illegal to hunt dangerous game with a ,358 in most African countries. Many require at least .375. Some approve 9.3mm. That's one reason .358s will never catch on very much.

I believe it was Rigby offered a .350 Magnum as an "all around" African cartridge early in the last century. With the 9.3x62 mm coming out in 1905 and the .375 H&H in 1912, nobody cared much about it.

A 358-338 Win Mag would be nice but the 358 Norma is a wonderful round. I don't expect any new 35 caliber cartridges to come anytime soon. The only time it might have worked was when Winchester came out with the 325 WSM, a 358 WSM probably wouldn't have sold too much better though.

The ones that will continue to make it are the 35 Whelen and 358 Winchester, don't see either disappearing for a very long time, especially the Whelen.

I would prefer a 9.3 Belted as that at least offers a caliber and bullet weight jump and there always was room for a .416 Taylor if you want more than a standard .338.
John

Link from the past discussing the Long 35s UMT RUM & STA

https://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbt...tthread/Board/34/main/328657/type/thread

One man’s “dumb move” is another mans perfect chambering.

All you have to do is look around the ‘fire to see that for whatever reason, certain people are attracted to strange rifles and cartridges. Is only natural that the humans making decisions at corporations get it wrong from time to time.