New carbine chambered in 350 Legend makes a great southpaw truck gun

The value proposition for every straight-wall cartridge I can name is that it mates well with a lever gun. The venerable 45/70? Give it to me in a Henry Big Boy or maybe a Winchester Model 1886. How do I want to shoot the .444 Marlin? In a Marlin Model 336 lever gun, of course. A .357 Magnum? Give me The Gun That Won The West, the Winchester 1873 carbine.

So when Winchester debuted its hot new 350 Legend as a modern, spiffier version of the .30/30, I fully expected it to be chambered in a profusion of lever guns, maybe even Winchester’s own Model 1885 Low Wall or that classic Model 94 that’s sent downrange more .30/30s than any other model.

But not only is Winchester not chambering the 350 in a lever gun, nobody else is either. Instead, it’s become fodder for some of the least inspiring modern bolt guns, including Mossberg’s Super Bantam, Savage Axis, Ruger American, and Savage 110. Those are all immensely capable rifles, but they don’t necessarily stir the heart like a lever gun can.

Of course, there’s good reason the 350 Legend is showing up in these rifles that are long on talent and adjustability but short on price: the round is an excellent choice for beginning shooters of any age. It’s accurate, deadly on deer-sized game out to 200 yards and has little recoil. In other words, it’s a wonderful first-deer cartridge.

With that in mind, and with only short, nostalgic looks over my shoulder at lever guns, I can make the case that the 350 should be available to hunters and shooters of any age, stature, geographic location, and handedness. That’s right, I just threw the left-handed flag. Though we’re only 10 percent of the population, southpaws like me are disproportionately represented in shooting and hunting. And we’ve noticed the paucity of left-handed rifles to serve our disability. Happily, Winchester just changed that with the introduction of its XPR in a left-handed model. And chambered, very happily, in 350 Legend.

I spent most of last deer season with the new rifle, at the time still under wraps. It’s a snappy, fast, accurate and tough little carbine, and very well-suited to join its peers as a first rifle for deer hunters.

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LEFT-HAND XPR DETAILS

In most ways, the lefty version of the XPR is a mirror image of the traditional right-handed version. The same adjustable M.O.A. trigger of the original. Same detachable box magazine. Same black polymer stock with its very responsive Inflex Technology recoil pad. Same two-position thumb safety, on the right (I mean left) side, this time. Same oversized bolt handle. And same excellent barrel.

I should note that the XPR Left-Hand model is also chambered in .308 Win., 6.5 Creedmoor and 400 Legend—all with 22-inch barrels—as well as 24-inch barreled versions in .30/06 Spfld and 450 Bushmaster and the 26-inch .300 Win. Mag.

And I should add another note about that crisp M.O.A. trigger. It’s the same trigger Winchester uses for its Model 70, and among the best you’ll find on a rifle at this price point, which retails for right around $700.

The rifle is drilled and tapped for a scope base, and I opted for Talley’s lightweight one-piece mounts to accept Leupold’s Patrol 6HD, a 1-6×24 low-power variable optic with an illuminated center dot that has a wide enough field of view at lower powers to give me great situational awareness, and enough bullet-placing magnification at 6x to reach out to 200 yards, even in low-light deer-hunting situations.

I missed the 350 Legend when it was introduced in 2019, so I was eager to make up for lost time last fall. I had a handful of Montana antlerless whitetail tags to fill and planned to take the XPR to Kentucky for a rut hunt in the hardwoods.

The value proposition of the straight-wall cartridge revolution, which includes throwbacks like the .45/70 Govt and .444 Marlin along with newcomers like the 360 Buckhammer and Winchester’s 350 Legend, along with Winchester’s 400 Legend, introduced last year, is deer-thumping energy from center-fire cartridges that have flatter trajectories, more accuracy, and less recoil than shotgun slugs. But they don’t carry as far as high-velocity necked cartridges with lighter bullets. States, including Iowa, Ohio, Indiana and Michigan, that have previously been closed to rifle hunting for deer now allow straight-wall cartridges of at least .35 caliber.

Of course, another attribute of the 350 Legend cartridge, beyond its straight-wall case dimensions, is its rebated rim that fits standard AR bolt faces and a wide selection of bullet weights and types.

BULLETS AND TERMINAL PERFORMANCE

To prepare for the Bluegrass State hunt, I field-tested a trio of loads on Montana whitetail does. I settled on the 160-grain Winchester Power Max for its combination of accuracy and terminal performance.

My XPR actually shot each of three loads I fed it fairly well. Winchester’s 180-grain Power Point, a traditional cup-and-core soft point, is probably the thumper bullet I’d opt for at closer ranges, but I struggled to get it to group tighter than 1.5 inches at 100 yards. Winchester’s 150-grain Copper Impact was the most accurate of my test loads; I punched 1.1-inch 5-shot groups at 100 yards. I fully intended to take this load to Kentucky, but then I shot a big Montana whitetail doe, making a double-lung hit at 165 yards. Instead of going right down, she went about 200 yards before tipping over dead. Based on that terminal performance, I opted for the bullet that gave me the best combination of drop-dead performance and accuracy, the 160-grain Power Max. 

After zeroing my XPR at 100 yards, and confirming a muzzle velocity of 2,185, I shot steel plates out to 300 yards to assess the drop of the 160-grain bonded jacketed hollow point bullet. While it’s no pumpkin-arcing .30/06, it does have a rainbow trajectory. Just as significantly, it shed energy pretty quickly, which is maybe why I didn’t dump that doe in her tracks.

At the range, I noted that my bullet dropped just over 8 inches at 200 yards and fully 33 inches at 300 yards. Based on that elliptical arc, I kept my shots inside 150 yards in order to stay within the vitals of a whitetail with a point-blank aim. Deer shot inside that range dropped quickly, and I was pleased to see very little meat damage, an important consideration for us doe-tag hunters.

Kentucky’s experience was as enjoyable as I expected. The weather was warm, which was throwing off the rut a bit, but I encountered plenty of whitetails from my treestand perched on the slope of a high ridge that connected a deep creek cut with a hay field. It was the perfect transition zone, and given my visibility through the woods, I had confidence of making a 200-yard shot on the buck of my choosing.

When the treestand failed to produce, I got on the ground, deployed my rattling antlers, and ended up rattling in a fine hardwoods buck. I shot it on a trot at about 40 yards as he angled up the ridge. I stabilized the rifle against the trunk of an old oak, snapped off the safety, and followed the buck in my scope until he cleared some limbs. He went straight down at the shot, but somehow kicked up and went about 50 yards, guttering blood the whole time, before he was down for good.

CASE FOR A TRUCK GUN

My experience with the Left Hand XPR in deer season confirmed its mild, deadly nature. But now I want to make the case for the carbine as an all-around truck gun. I have a couple of these, from the Ruger Scout Rifle (in left-hand action, no less!) to the Browning BAR MK3 Stalker.

They both exhibit attributes of what I consider a suitable truck gun. They’re short (20- to 22-inch barrels) and easy to maneuver. They’re durable and can take all the bumps, dust, and temperature differentials that define my ride. And they’re equipped with low-power scopes that can deploy targets inside 50 yards and out to a couple hundred yards. And mine, both chambered in .308, are beefy enough to dispatch livestock (which I have to do more than I want), take out varmints and engage targets for fun.

The XPR is a welcome addition to this roster. The 350 Legend has both close-range and medium-range attributes. The overall length of 42 inches is about right for stashing behind a seat or for maneuvering inside a pickup cab. The detachable box magazine is just right for storing in the console until I’m ready to pop it in and run the gun. While my sample wasn’t threaded to receive a suppressor, Winchester has a version of the XPR (it’s the XPR SR, which stands for Suppressor Ready), with a 20-inch barrel that’s perfect for truck-gunning.

The Winchester’s all-weather build is perfect to take all the abuse I dish out. The Perma-Cote receiver is impervious to scratches and rust. The polymer stock is built to take all sorts of unexpected punishment. And the textured grip panels make it easy to handle, even in wet weather or if I’m wearing gloves.

Lastly, the snappy action is plain fun to run. As a lefty, I can work right-handed bolt actions just fine, but because I’m either reaching over the receiver to run the bolt or I’m dropping the gun from my shoulder in order to run the bolt with my off-hand, they’re frankly awkward. So it’s a real joy to get the chance to run a mild-recoiling rifle with my “right” hand while keeping the stock in my shoulder and the scope at my eye. The oversized bolt handle and the 60-degree bolt floating on Nickel Teflon coatings simply coaxes the bolt open and closed, making follow-up shots fast and certain. Not that you’ll need them.

Final conclusion: I argue that Winchester is our original purveyor of left-handed rifles, based on its catalog of ambidextrous lever guns. While I wait for the talented 350 Legend to show up in that platform, I’m very happy recommending the capable XPR as an excellent choice for a left-handed shooter looking for an affordable, accurate, versatile and snappy rifle chambered in a variety of game-getting calibers.

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