Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting .350 Legend for deer in Iowa?

Does anyone know if there has been a determination as to whether the .350 Legend will be legal for deer in Iowa? It seems there was some question due to whether the bullet was .355 or .357?

Has anyone seen anything definite?

Wish I had an answer for you buddy. Ohio had the same conundrum and ruled it legal

Ron

I have seen different posts saying both yes and no.

The Iowa regs say anything of .357 caliber and up. I sent a email to both Hornady and Winchester asking what diameter the bullets in their .350 Legend ammo measure. We will see.

It’s .357 bullets.

https://winchester.com/350-Legend

Thanks for the link. That would indeed suggest that the bullet diameter is .357, which is what the Iowa regs state. I wonder why there has been some confusion?

Not sure for confusion. This cartridge was specifically designed, not for its awesome ballistics, but to provide another centerfire option in states that have restrictions to calibers, like Iowa.

I think some of the confusion was related to groove/land numbers. A couple of threads had stated it was not legal as the bullets were .355 not .357 as required in Iowa, but that appears not to be the case

IN legal.

Our regs are 0.357 min and max case length of 1.8 inches. Thinking about an upper or new MSR for my son. I like the concept, hate the name.

For those in states with regs similar to IN, consider a 35 Rem with the neck trimmed to 1.8 inches. Neck is short but I haven't had concentricity problems with seated bullets. Even though the base is 0.460 it works in SA bolt guns with an 0.473 base and you can use 35 Rem load data for SS pistols. I use a Rem 700 SA with no feeding problems and good accuracy. Also works in Marlin 336 loaded to standard COAL and standard pressure.

Another option for SS pistol that works in most states with these kinds of regs is 357 Max. Know a guy that uses one on a TC rifle and is very happy.

Multiple ways to skin this cat...

None of these cartridges are for long shots and don't perform any better than an in-line muzzle loader. They kill deer and they are better than my rifled barrel slug gun. I like having a rifle that is legal anywhere in the state on public land

What a bunch of BS laws to have to work around.

Yeah, when most of the country gets by just fine without them.

Email The Iowa fish and game people and ask. If you have any question then print the email and keep it with your tag. Why guess.
I recently had a question for a hunt I have in Ohio about tags. With in a day I had a answer and the email is saved on my phone.

Yup. Here, any centerfire is legal, maybe too much of a good thing!

If I lived in one of those states and needed a low-recoil deer rifle, I'd buy a Henry single-shot .357 and have it rechambered for the Max. A feller that already had a Contender laying around could get a custom barrel for maybe a bit less. Since I can still "take a punch", I'd go a bit heavier, maybe .38/55 or thereabouts.🤔

Why the limitation to straight walled cartridges? Too populated?

Or too flat.

I suspect they want to allow a few more options, just ones that don't exceed the ballistics of the MLs, shotguns, and possibly handguns that were previously legal. The logic behind it ain't perfect, but certainly the present situation is better than the previous one.

For years in Ohio it was shotgun only. Then straight walled handguns were added. A few years ago they added straight walled rifle calibers. I have a Marlin 1895 45-70, a Marlin 1894 in .44 magnum, and a Ruger .44 magnum carbine to choose from. Although, I've been eyeballing A Ruger Ranch Rifle in .450 Bushmaster.

Ron

Yes, and no. The Ohio rule is straight wall or tapered wall only, from .357 - .50. (This is the much simpler version that the previous rule, which specified specific allowed calibers and left out many others that also fit the criteria. I spent time at the ODNR legal dept asking for the whys involved, and I was told how it evolved.
Ohio was a shotgun only state for a lot of years. Then they allowed for handguns to be used for deer hunting. Since every step forward is met with pressure pushing back, they decided, that for any handgun already allowed, they had a matching rifle version, it too would be allowed. Since there were alot more suitable rifles than handguns, this led to irratating and undefendable omitions, so the rules were rewritten again.
I built my AR-15 .450 BUSHMASTER before the rule change, because the .450 Bushmaster and the. 50 Beowulf were scheduled to be introduced to the acceptable lineup soon, but that failed to happen on schedule. I had a functional rifle 2 years before I could use it for deer here.
The purpose of straight wall or tapered only, is to keep it to short range rifle. They want big fat slow bullets, not tiny fast bullets that travel long distances. Ohio has a large hunting population, and the Orange Army, upon the opening of deer season, is thick in the woods.
Squirrel hunting, however, has declined over the years, so ANY RIFLE or shotgun is allowed in the same woods we hunt deer in. The difference is the hunter density to area ratio.
Opening day, a few years ago, I hunted public lands. I and a friend, parked the trailer, and scouted the previous day, after satelite photos, and other details were studied previously. We used GPS to not only mark our paths, and climbing stand locations we sited, but back up locations, should we need them.
Opening day, we woke to a heavy fog. You couldn't see 15' in any direction, but we could follow the GPS trace to our stands. The fog HAD to have restricted most hunters to thier camps, but come sun up, the fog burnt off enough to see, and I could see nearly a dozen spots of orange from my stand, and we had hiked in nearly 2 miles.
There are places here where the the schools shutdown for opening day.

Bowhunters (as a lobby) don't really care for the use of advanced rifle technology, that coupled with the fact drive hunters can't seem to quit shooting each other every year.

The 38 Special isn't legal either, but you can bowhunt for 3 months straight.....

You bet! What never made sense to me was that essentially any centerfire cartridge was legal in a SS pistol. For example, I can use a 350 Legend rifle on public and private, a 243 rifle only on private but I could use a SS pistol in 243 on public or private? Never made sense to me...

As per my local gun guy the .350 legend is good to go with whatever bullet if it is a Factory Load. If you are loading your own it has to be .357. He claims he got it from a DNR Officer who was in the shop.

kwg