Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles .358 ideas

I have a 760 rebored to .358, got a Mauser rebarrel off here recently, them Dad stumbled in to another 760. Have only shot 200gr Factory from my 760 before so will be our first round of .358 reloading. Thinking 225gr.

Pa whitetails mostly inside 100, occasional max 200 yards. Remote possibility for Black bear.

If you were starting from scratch, what would your starting ideas be?

Got a Whelen set up and rolling 250gr RN a little warm, so don't need snot knockers.

I have a .35 Whelen that is my go to whitetail rifle, for years I loaded 225gr. Sierra Game King bullets. They performed admirably, since having shoulder surgery I switched to 200gr. Hornady Inter-lok RN bullets. This bullet also performs well as far as accuracy and on game. The last bullet that recovered was perfectly mushroomed and retained 66% of original weight. I got my loads from Ken Waters Pet Loads, I used IMR 4064 for 225gr. and IMR 3031 for 200gr.. I hope this information is helpful, feel free to PM me if you have any additional questions. I have been shooting and loading .35 Whelen for more than 25 yrs.

If you guys get stuck I have a bunch of 358 WIn brass and Speer 220 JFP bullets

Have you considered a 180 Barnes? They hammer 200 pound pigs, would damn sure kill a Whitetail deer. I use them in a Savage 99

I really like the 200 Hornady Interlock. Shoots great for me and hammered a deer at 200 yards with it. The 225 Sierra shoots great for me and another great option as is the 180 or 200 Barnes TTSX.

Just use TAC for the powder. Any of the 200 or 225 gr bullets will do what you want.

Nothing wrong with the 250 grain Speer at 2200 fps.

The 358 Winchester isn't terribly finicky depending on what components you have or can get. Years back I had good luck with W748 with both 200 Hornady Spire Point & 250 Speer spitzer. Dead deer is dead deer. Never recovered a bullet. After getting a chronograph, IMR3031 & AA2015 both get better speed with good accuracy in my rifles with 200 & 225s. Just started testing RL10X & it shows promise as does RL 7. Haven't bothered much with the 250 since the 225s came out.

40 some years ago, I started with the 200 gr Hornady Spire points. That's where I ended too. Powder has bounced around a bit, IMR 4320 is my favorite but have used IMR4064 and dabbled with both Reloder 7 and TAC.

Dale

I fooled with 748 a bit finding it a bit too bulky in the 358 so I switched to 3031 and stayed with it. My wish to build rifle is a light model 7 in 358.

Yeah, 748 filled the case right full. It shot pretty good & all was well until that little electronic box appeared. The deer sure never knew the difference. AA2015 is my 1st choice nowadays, but still piddling around with other stuff. I had 2 or 3 different Ruger 77Rs that took turns, but finally had a pushfeed M70 action gussied up & rebarreled with a 21" Shilen by a benchrest buddy in PA. Just under 8# with a full magazine, sling, & Leupold 1.5-5x.

IMR 3031 is your huckleberry with 200gr. bullets, I'm using a Ken Waters load in my .35 Whelen which produces 3 shot cloverleaf groups @ 100 yds. IMR 4064 produces similar results with 225gr. bullets, these are my two powder selections with these bullet weights. When I got my Whelen back from rebore more than 25 yrs. ago i did extensive research and range testing which resulted in the selection of these two powders. I tried 180gr. bullets but they did not yield as fine accuracy as 200 & 225 grainers, always felt that 250gr. was more bullet than necessary for whitetails.

The 200gr bullets are some of the fastest killers of deer sized game, dumping them in their tracks in most cases, as long as impact velocity is decent, say above 2200 fps. Probably with round nose bullets this will even be more pronounced. When speeds drop much below that I'm not sure the the 35 bores really kill faster than anything else. The 200gr Hornady spire point as mentioned above is a very unsexy bullet but again I've found it kills faster than the .358 225s and 250s. And because it expands to a slightly smaller diameter than say the 225 game king, it penetrates fairly similarly (about .65 vs .75 in the ones I've caught). It's edges typically end up a fair bit sharper and more jagged than the 225 SGK as well. Which I also like.

The 225 SGK is accurate and I like them and if they are going fast enough they make a huge hole. But they are weirdly hard and below 2000 fps, (contrary to what I have seen elsewhere) I have found they do not expand at all. The 200gr hornadys open up at least down to 1900 fps and possibly lower, but I've caught them at 1900 +/- fps and they had expanded. Guessing the round nose hornadys might open up even slower. On a random note the 220 Sierras hot core flat noses need to be going about 1800-1850 to expand.

I've been pondering a Whelen so I'll have to remember that if I end up with one. In my 358 WIn, IMR 4064 typically gave me better accuracy with the 200s than 3031, which did give more velocity. IMR 4064 worked well with the 225 Sierra too. I don't remember trying 3031 so I may have to give it a try with that bullet. TAC or X-Terminator have also worked well with the 200s for me.

Personally I liked 225 grain sierra’s in my 358’s.

Very serious penetration, and you can eat up to the hole.

My first 358 was a Browning lever action, an early steel frame model. When I got it the 250 grain Speer was on sale so I bought 300 of them and 1 box of the Hornady 200 gr. Spire points. I also came into a bunch of Remington coreloct 200 gr. RN's. I got to test them all in that 358 and my 35 Whelen. All of those bullets performed with excellence. But I like the 250 Speer the best, it always expanded just fine started at 2200 fps, made nice exit holes from all angles on some pretty big feral hogs. I even killed a coyote with it. I use it today loaded to 2300 fps in my Whelen. Recoil is nothing to snivel about and it just seemed to me that if I were going to use a .358 bore diameter that the heavier bullets were the reason. I can shoot 200 and 220 grain bullets in my 30 calibers and if I were to shoot the same weight bullets in a 35 the question would become why buy a 35 in the first place?

50 gr TAC and a 225 sgk

My Ruger Hawkeye is not picky in shoots 180 TSX’s and 200gr interlocks to the same point of impact with TAC. Last week, I got a chance to try the interlocks out on a few Texas hogs.

Some nice ferals there Region6. Be Well, RZ.

Hornady 200gr. Spire Points
Barnes 180 or 200gr TTSX
Nosler 225gr Partitions

Tac

The end. 😉