I bought a Savage Axis 2 350 Legend for my daughter for gun season this year. We are shooting 150 grain bullet out of it. I liked it so much that I used it during gun season. The gun is so accurate that is is almost like cheating hunting with it compared to slug guns with rifled barrels. I shot a mature doe at about 60 yds. Due to the angle of the shot the bullet went in the deers chest and exited through the guts. The doe ran about 70 yes and fell over dead. I followed the blood trail to check it out and there was not much of a blood trail on the green winter wheat field the deer died in. Since the bullet exited out the guts I figured maybe that was why the blood trail was sparse. Two weeks later Ohio had a second 2 day gun season. At his time my daughter shot a nice 8 point at 50 yds. The buck was standing broadside. She drilled it through both lungs. The entrance hole of the bullet was small as expected, the exit wound was maybe the size of a quarter. The ground was snow covered and the buck ran about 60 yds and fell over dead. I followed the tracks in the snow to check out the blood trail and there was very little blood even with the double lung hit. It was worse than the blood trail with the doe. Love the accuracy of this round, but have concerns about the blood trail it produces. Has anyone else had this experience with this caliber. Any ides for a possible way or bullet recommendation that would improve the blood trail. We were shooting the Winchester Ballistic tip bullet. Thanks

Gonna be hard to find a bullet to do what you want. Look at some of the 35 Remington loads and see what bullets they are using. If you are going to reload for it you are going to have to do some reading. It apparently head spaces off the case mouth so it will have to be trimmed after every firing and sizing and only a taper crimp can be used. Seems like a good round just gonna take some R&D. I will also mention that deer shot with exits in the gut area normally don't bleed much as they will plug the hole. Also a lung shot deer can do the same thing as the lungs are very sticky and depending on how high the shot is it may take a bit for the body cavity to fill with blood to start a good trail.

From what I see other than low recoil not much upside to whats already been invented.

Its made for states that require straight wall cartridges for deer hunting, that's why they are popular. I have an upper for my AR that I'm waiting to be returned for the second time from the manufacturer in .350 L, hopefully they get it to function right this time. It was super accurate, but wouldn't cycle correctly. I couldn't trust it for deer hunting this season, but next year we'll see how it does. I wish they made a 150gr HP round for ir factory. I really like HP ammo for hunting.

A quarter sizes exit hole through both lungs is going to pump out a lot of blood. It will be in a spray pattern. When the droplets hit the snow, they melt straight down and can't be seen too easily until you kick away or walk through the snow.

I feel like it isn't just 350 legend

it may be my limited experience with shooting deer with a rifle , I have yet to see a shotgun like blood trail

for those who have not double lung shot a deer with a 12 slug , typically a blind man could follow the blood trail . differently so from a rifle when the slug exits there is a bunch of hair and blood , white/pink lung tissue

that big slow slug plows it's way through dragging stuff out the exit wound

I admit I haven't shot a lot of deer with a rifle really only 3 myself but 30 some with a shotgun slug and over a hundred shotgun slug deer that I have trailed and or gutted

my son and dad have shot 3 more rifle deer that I have been there for and gutted

I end up gutting a lot of deer I have made my son do a few , so that he knows how but , my dad I just gut and drag his deer for him now toss him the keys and send him for the truck. I can be done in 5 minutes and we can be back to hunting. if there are 2-3 to do at once I just do them all.

in those 6 rifle shot deer
2 300 blackout
2 30-06
1 308
1 223

no or very little to no blood splatter

4 were hit through the lungs 3 of those 4 had an exit wound but none of them had much for blood

I have a theory that the either bullet stops the heart or that the shredding of the lungs is so significant that blood pressure drops so fast from the shock they bleed internally a lot but really don't have any pressure to pump the blood out.

this is likely changed some by a high to low shot where the blood can drain from the exit , once tracked an arrow shot deer that only leaked going down hill no blood going up hill but a trail going down hill.

when I go to gut these deer the chest cavity has a fair amount of blood pooled but little if any has exited even from the entry hole if it was low

adding to this you can see when they shoot gel blocks bullets enter through a hole that almost seals back up completely some where after an inch they expand often leaving a big stretch cavity for 4-8 inches then they slow and usually exit base first they may have slowed enough especially in not overly powerful cartridges or in bullets that rapidly transfer energy and exit with very little left over energy.

in some of the high speed video of bullets in clear gel blocks you will see the bullet stretch out the back of the block 2-3 inches then fail to have enough left to exit or if it does it almost pops out and falls the elasticity of the block then pulls the bullet back 2 1/2 to 3 inches so that it is at the end or within the last inch of the block if it wasn't for the high speed video we would never know the back of the block was stretched out 2-3 inches.

deer hide can stretch quite a bit also the 223 bullet was under the hide it had enough energy to break ribs but not stretch and exit the hide. also getting 20ga slugs form the far side under the hide as well

my 30-06 shot deer this year was shot low high as it came down a hill (i had hill behind the deer when I shot so it was safe) 3 rounds 165gr all in just in front of the shoulder through the chest and 2 exit high back on the far side the 3rd it has fallen and was trying to get up in. in was nearly the same spot neck forward of the shoulder and out between the shoulder blades very little blood even though the first 2 rounds ripped the hide for inches on the back far side.

while shotgun shot deer often bleed a lot , I have had them bleed so heavy on a double lung shot with a 12ga that the first 75 feet of the blood trail was 3 foot wide on every birch tree and then down to dribbles by 125 feet I was following drips and dribbles. by 200 feet scuffed leaves that was a 150 yard trail and more than half completely bloodless.

does that mean I want to use a shotgun if I can use a rifle

heck no , your right in that shooting deer with a rifle feels almost like cheating , compared to foster slugs a rifle is like a laser beam for speed and accuracy

you have the accuracy , Use it , Break somehting and don't trail them at all.

it is also getting such here that it is a big headache if your deer runs to the next property that is now owned by Peta FIB's

350 is a cartridge designed around 2 things A strait wall cartridge states laws and B fitting a finished cartridge into an AR-15 magazine , and to be as effective as possible in the space allowed.

if you sat down an engineer and said I want 35 cal deer round that is as close to 100% effective on any shot I could take inside 200 yards it would look a lot more like a 358win with a soft nose of about 100gr and a bonded base of 150gr to carry that round through after it does a massive energy dump with the soft nose

however when the instructions are get all you can get out of a 1.8inch or shorter case , keep it strait or tapered no more than 3 degrees and max length needs to be under 2.4 inches

my advice is the same in shotgun and rifle now , if you have the accuracy break some bone if you can drop them with no tracking 2-3 pounds meat loss is nothing if you loose the entire deer.

I have shot a couple dozen deer with the same 30-06 using the same federal loads. All have been been heart or heart/lung shots. There has NEVER been a real blood trail to follow. A drop here, a drop there. Even when the exiting bullet hit serious bone and there was a decent exit hole, there wasn't much of a blood trail.

The 1 deer I double lunged with a shotgun, a blind man could follow that trail.

I realize it isn't a 350 legend but I hunted for 20 years with a 35 rem. as most shots were less than 75 yards it was easy to place the exact spot the deer stood on the off side on the grass or snow there would be a quarter size chunk of lung and immediate heavy blood trail this was with 200 grain round nose bullets after shooting many deer with both the 25-06 and 6mm I found blood trails non existent for at least 30 yards a heavy blood trail meant you were almost on top of the deer from what I've seen over the past 50 years has been a slow moving slug needs a heavy fast expanding bullet a round nose 150 -180 grain soft point may yield better results at the 350's limited velocity

i dont have the 350 legend but i use a 357 max and put lots of time into making loads for it when i first got it. when the 357 max is handloaded (particularly towards 55k versus its pistol version) its pretty similar to the factory legend loads available as far as velocity. i'd have to mess around alot with the factory winchester 150 grain tipped bullet you are shooting to feel comfortable hunting with it. granted most of what i had for options when load developing at that point were pistol bullets but 180 grains gave best results for expansion/penetration/accuracy over 150/160 grain offerings.

can't help with the blood trail as only one deer really required any tracking. in fact most have dropped within a couple of steps but then again those werent lung shot either

Google, was the 350 legand a mistake . bullet diameter is actualy .355 and ..357 bullets cant be used for handloading. also technicly not legal to use in ohio.

Just shoot them in the neck . But wait no blood trail either , because they don't run !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

whats interesting is the SAAMI specs call for a .357 cal bullet I think some manufacturers found they could load a .355 and it worked https://saami.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/350-Legend-CC-Drawing-Website.pdf

slugging the barrel on a number of 9mm barrels you will find them cut to .357 one cutter 3 calibers or one barrel stock , and make 9, 38 , 357 barrels

if you purchased .357 cal bullets you could easily run them through a .355 or .356 die to reduce them if they would not chamber but I expect they will and the spec is .357 in the Saami

Winchester designed the 350 legend on purpose. It has a .357 bore but .358 bullets can be safely used. It is designed for 55,000 kpa. Go to Belm TC and see what Mike Belm recommends for the .357 max. He does custom barrels for Encores in 357 max and 350 legend. Mike is a subject matter expert on T/C Encores and the 357 max. I know he has a pet load for hunting. I really don't see that much difference between the max and the legend. I know that the legend and the 35 Remington are almost exactly alike as far as performance just the Remington works at lower pressure.

this has been the case on the 300 blackout shot deer both neck shot both down where shot
the 110gr vmax don't even exit on a neck shot but they break the spine 1000fpe dump to the neck (I am not recommending this bullet)

but if you were going to try and bust s shoulder or be able to take virtually any shot you could take with a 35rem I would run the 180gr bullet at almost the same velocity as the 35 rem 180gr poer points https://www.midwayusa.com/product/1020843647 2100fps


I understand you give up a little bit in the recoil when you run 180s

There was a post from the DOW saying they were legal so I'm anticipating a change in the regs soon.

good thread

they are legal because winchester was smart and submitted .357 -3 to sammi. then made the cal to 355 butsince it is listed in sammi as .357 it is legally a .357 cal. lot of thinking went in to this round.

Its a shame they didnt just stick with the 375 winchester. I have one in the marlin and its a perfect woods gun

there are a few reasons they could not use 375win to do what they were trying to accomplish

most importantly the case length of 375win is longer than 1.8 inches to meet the requirements in some of the strait wall cartridge states max length of case to be legal

any of these strait wall cartridges the manufacture wants to appeal to a wider market than just a few states hunting laws and that means making it fit an AR-15 platform

this is also a good idea because many people have found starting youth with a AR platform reduces the recoil and with the adjustable stock you can fit a range or growth add in that it is affordable often for about 300 dollars you can get a new upper that snaps onto your existing lower if the only thing that needs changing is the barrel then it keeps production costs down on 350 legend uppers

375win is longer than the mag will feed in an AR , it is a rimmed cartridge , and wider than would feed from an AR mag

yes 450 bushmaster and 458 Socom use custom mags however you can see the appeal to keeping to standard mags even if they might work better with a new floor plate , floor plates are cheap compared to an entire magazine redesign.

rimmed cases have always had some complication feeding from mags. even bolt action rimmed cartridges like the 7.62x54R sometimes had rim-lock even with the beveled rim , generally this is user error but in a world of lowest common denominators and rampant social media any thing you can do to avoid user error that your product will be blamed for the better

the 350 legend basically is a 223 rem case expanded strait to the base wider than the rim to get greater case capacity and make a rebated rim then tapered very slightly to the case mouth to hold a .355 bullet.

yes a 200gr .375 cal bullet at 2350fps would have been great
however they got a 180gr .355 bullet at 2100fps or a 150gr bullet at 2400fps which is a lot in a little package because of the powder used in these small cases they build pressure early and by the time the rifle is moving in recoil the recoil impulse is nearly over this is now the rifle of similar weight , velocity and projectile weight produces less felt recoil.

it is my opinion when you can't go fast go heavy as reasonable and the much greater number of positive consumer reviews of the 180gr Winchester load on deer vs 150 reviews appear to show it holds true for the 350 as well.
either with good shot placement clearly makes dead deer and how far they run will be more a matter of shot placement. a heavier bullet carries energy through mass and bone better than light but 30gr isn't a huge difference.
often part of the issue is the manufacture because the round is accurate to 200 yards or better wants a bullet that still expands at 200 yards , the trick is making one that doesn't over expand at 30 yards and fail to give the penetration wanted.

also my opinion many rifles make poor blood trails when compared to shotguns and there certainly seems to be some agreement among others here whom have shot deer with both. a 1oz 72cal or 5/8oz 62 cal projectile moving 1400 to 900 fps makes a different woon channel more blood .

rifles and shotgun can both kill very well within their range and shotgun range is over in most cases by 80-100 yards less for 20ga and more if your running a sabot load through a rifled barrel that is not to say that a foster slug is not lethal beyond 100 yards it very much is you just have little ability to place it on target and it retains less than half of it's original energy.


for any state or local that does allow the use of non strait rifle cartridges of a nominal length the market is loaded with options that deliver greater terminal performance.