Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters .358 Winchester

Yeah, they grow some nice ones.

Good job, guys

DF

Nathan turns out some nice work. He puts a lot of time and effort into his publications.

DF

+1 on this suggestion if you want a bolt action. Down in the AR & MS area where I hunt the most, primitive season allows the use of single shots that are .35+ with an exposed hammer. Most of my friends meet this requirement by using a .35 Whelen and have been pleased with the results. I am particularly fond of my Ruger #1 in 9.3x74r but unfortunately I can't hunt with it during primitive season because the #1 lacks an exposed hammer (I use a .405 Winchester or a .44 Magnum instead). But the 9.3 is still a great round to use during the regular modern gun season. The cartridges that you're looking at would be good choices too. I seriously looked at acquiring a .358 in a Browning BLR so I'm definitely not criticizing that round. I just wanted to put a vote in for a 9.3.


Yea...my 9.3 rounds do make my 6.5x55 cartridge look kind of small. But it's a versatile caliber that can be used on a variety of game & situations so I would recommend it as an option to be considered for your current usage. My appreciation of it isn't purely technical. I also think it's a fun cartridge to shoot & own. Long slender cartridges with a rim are easy to load in a falling block whose breech is covered by a scope so I may be biased by my particular usage.

This is a 358 Winchester conversation, but how about a single shot in 9.3x74? I have a double and they knock things down! But I still like the 358 Winchester. Be Well, RZ.

Yeah, looking at those long, sleek, rimmed rounds. Didn’t look like 9.3x62, more like 9.3x74. I’ve had two 9.3x62’s.

Good round, just didn’t need them.

DF

Geezus christ. 5 pages of gibberish and "maybe" a baby deer?

There is no "heavy" bullet advantage to a Whelen over the 358.

Just like their is no "heavy" bullet advantage in the 30-06 over the 308 win.

Easily getting better than 2400 fps from the 308 winchester using leverevolution powder and 220 grain partitions.

Better yet, 2550-2600 fps from all the flat based 200 grain spitzers.


In the 358 winchester, 42 grains of 10x gave 2200 fps using 275 grain woodleighs. A smidgen behind the whelen in velocity, but guess what they did to a coupla big bulls?

They fkn sailed through those front quarters n ribs. The big bulls died on the dry bank, not in the fkn river, youre welcome.........

Mainer, you done good.

Nice.

DF

"No the 358 is not its equal. Anymore than a 308 is the equal of the 30-06. Powder charges matter. "

When it comes to factory ammo I'm inclined to say BS. A few years back I ran a speed test of 180 gr. Winchester Power Point factory ammo. The .308 was 20 FPS faster than the 30-06. Both rifles in the test wore 22" barrels. I've always wondered if the difference held true with other weight bullets in the two cartridges.

On the .358 v .35 Whelen, my vote goes to the Whelen. I have rifles chambered to both cartridges. I'd gotten interested in the .358 Win. on an elk hunt up on the Olympic Peninsula In Washington state. I was sitting on a stand at the edge of a swamp hoping to ambush a bull that I'd been dogging for a while. As I looked around, it came to me that something like a .358 Win. would be real handy where I was hunting.

When I got home after the hunt I checked newspaper adds to see if a used .358 might show up. It would save me the trouble of building one or finding a .308 to rebore. Saw an ad for a Ruger M77 Tanger so gave the guy a call. Turned out it was an LGS and the gun was NIB, $250.00. Then in rapid succession three more came into my hands, all in less than a month and a half. Another Ruger M77, a Browning early Japanese BLR and the queen of the pile, a Savage M99. It gets interesting as the Rugers were 1 in 16" twist barrels and the BLR and M99 1 in 12" twist. Sad to say, the two lever guns were noticeably more accurate than the Rugers. I got a few loads worked up but the planned elk hunt fell through. The place where we'd stayed for the hunt closed down because of the ban on logging and the spotted owl.

In the meantime Remington legitimized the .35 Whelen although the somewhat castrated the round so it wouldn't damage the pump and semiautos they made. Properly handloaded the Whelen definitely outshines a properly handloaded .358. Like what was said, "Powder charges matter." One could if they wanted download the Whelen to be a .35 Rem. or .358 but I fail to see why other than for experimentation.

I really ought to break out one of those .358s and mess around with some loads. Maybe see what it does loaded to duplicate the 9x57 Mauser round. Old John Taylor spoke fairly highly on the qualities of the cartridge.
PJ

The .458 Winchester thread in the Big Bore forum has been active for 2.5 years, has 177 pages & over half a million views. So we still have a long way to go before we hit what is considered “too much info & opinions” on the ‘Fire. (Nice moose photos!)

I feel a certain amount of confidence that any .35+ caliber bullet (e.g. 35, 9.3, 375, 416, 458, etc.) that is put into a bottleneck cartridge & fired at an Iowa deer at 200 yards or less is going to do a pretty stellar job of ruining that deer’s day. So the efficacy of the .358 for accomplishing the intended task is undeniable. I’m trying to think of a cartridge in this category that would be considered inadequate & I’m drawing a blank.

I grabbed a random Google image of 35 caliber cartridges below. All of those look pretty capable. The guys I hunt with use the .35 Remington on the left & the .35 Whelen on the right to good effect on MS deer so I’m assuming everything in between is capable as well.



The Iowa hunting regulations gives a partial list of suggestions. Those look capable of killing deer too. The only question here might be about trajectory & range.



So if regulations force hunters to use such large calibers, then I don’t think Mully220 can make a terrible choice. But if the OP enjoys overthinking decisions as much as I do, then I’m more than happy to help by providing (possibly irrelevant) opinions. Some of the rounds suggested could be better choices if a rifle is going to be used for things other than just hunting deer or if a person relied on purchasing commercial ammo.

But the .358 Winchester is absolutely a good choice if that’s what the OP chooses.