Winchester 1907 revival

I have made it a goal this year to dust off my Grandfather's old 351, work up some hand loads (this will definitely be the biggest challenge), test accuracy, and harvest a deer with it this year. I thought some on here might find the rifle/ cartridge interesting.

The rifle is a Winchester Model 1907 (mine was made in 1908) in 351 WSL. Ballistically it falls between 357 mag and 357 max. The rub is that ammo hasn't been manufactured in about 40 years and with the current ammo crisis projectiles and cases are very hard to acquire. It's a straight blowback action with a substantial counterweight so its heavy for its size but it's very handy and somehow manages to balance nicely.

I've got a good supply of 357 maximum brass and they're the ideal candidate to convert to 351. just need to shorten it, remove about half the rim and cut an extractor groove.

for the projectiles (they're .351 diameter for jacketed) I purchased some Lee sizing dies and I'll draw down an assortment of 180gr .357 and .358 projectiles to load and test. I'll update when I've made some more progress.

[img]https://i.imgur.com/XV0LL39.jpg?6[/img]

[img]https://i.imgur.com/TPRVtbn.jpg?4[/img]

[img]https://i.imgur.com/29McmNz.jpg?4[/img]

[img]https://i.imgur.com/L7AERao.jpg?3[/img]

[img]https://i.imgur.com/YHyoVbb.jpg?3[/img]

You've already has it checked over by a gunsmith who declared it fit to shoot? .357 Max is no shrinking violet pressure wise.

He's right you know

Beautiful rifle and good luck with your quest!

Nice rifle!

She’s a beaut!

I didn’t mean to imply that I’ve never shot it, I’ve shot it multiple times over my life and the rifle has seen semi-regular use. I still have some original ammo for it, I just don’t want to count on that for hunting. Im a home shop machinist and gun builder and I’ve researched these guns extensively so I’m very comfortable shooting it. I’ve replaced the recoil buffer, recoil spring and verified that there are no frame cracks. It’s direct blowback, so there’s nothing that locks up or holds pressure other than a spring and the mass of the bolt/counterweight assembly.

That’s a really cool old rifle. Hope you can get one with it this year and put the finishing touches on a great tribute to your grandfather

That’s really cool!! Hope ya get one with it!

In that case look into medium burners.

Very nice rifle. Old guns have a style and feel all to their own.

I'm confused by your initial post.
Are you going to be using .351 diameter bullets or .357/.358?

I read it as he is resizing .357 to .351 and I'm assuming cast bullets.

You are correct sir, except I'm resizing jacketed bullets. The 351 is designed to shoot 180 grain .351 diameter bullets, the closest thing that exists (other than custom bullets for Hawk) are .357 and .358 projectiles so I'll be drawing them down in sizing dies.

Youre on the money with that one. IMR 4227, Accurate 4100 and Alliant 2400 seem to be the most popular and luckily I've got some 4227 in my stash. Len Speckin, the guy who literally wrote the book on this rifle seems to favor the 4100 loads, so I'll keep an eye out for that

Ok. I understand now.
I was hoping you weren’t going to try to push a .357 projectile down a .351 bore

Is that a problem? Asking for a friend...

Not sure if serious, but if you are I'd say it's ill-advised at the least... particularly with a jacketed bullet. Even with cast bullets that's quite a bit of excess to try to stuff down the bore. some people claim to have success shooting .355 diameter cast bullets without resizing but even that seems foolish when the sizing dies are so inexpensive and currently available from Lee.

Yeah, I am kidding. Poor attempt at sarcastic humor. I (and apparently everyone else in America) am waiting to find a set of .459 molds for the ,45-70, Plan on sizing with a gas check.

I like it. Not sure I've ever saw one before

I like this. I have a Remington Model 8 that I actually hunt with a couple mornings every season that has been passed down to me. The 1907 is awesome.

It’s the ORIGINAL 350 ‘legend’.

Nice, I've always thought the Model 8 was a really great gun and have a soft spot for the 35 Remington. Another classic Northwoods gun

It only took 100+ years to reinvent it! lol. I do like that the legend gets rid of the semi-rimmed case though. I found myself wondering if anyone would come out with a "new" version of a 1907 type gun with the 350 legend? something compact, slim, lightweight and that carries well in the woods (my only real gripe with trying to hunt with an AR) something along the lines of a mini-14, 30 carbine, Ruger Deerfield, etc?

I havent made it over to the machine shop yet to turn down all the brass but I did manually convert one case as proof of concept. I wanted to make sure my method for sizing cases would work and test the feeding/ OAL of a few projectiles.

I also found an interesting surprise regarding bore diameter for this rifle, I have heard rumors that these rules actually had a bore diameter of .352 (rather than .351 as the name implies and reloading data states) and even further rumors that the old factory projectiles were actually sized .352. I can confirm that both of these rumors are absolutely true. I slugged the bore of my rifle and it was .352 and I pulled a factory winchester projectile and it mic'd right at .352 as well.

I pulled down about 50 various 357 max reloads to use as donor brass and decided to see how well some of the projectiles would resize all the way down to .352. I was pleasantly surprised, the lee dies and unique lube worked great and I'm happy with the results. these were originally .358 Speer FP and .357 Hornady XTP, both 180 grain.



I trimmed all the cases down to length and used a hand file and drill to cut the extractor groove and reduce the rim diameter. It isn't real pretty but will worked great as an action proving dummy. I found that the Speer FP was just a hair too long so I decided to file off the small exposed lead tip and give it a light burnish with steel wool. This ended up giving me an OAL that is perfect for both the magazine and the action and a surprisingly good looking profile. I'm going to modify the rest that I have sized and try them out for accuracy, along with the XTP's.

I'll post another update when I've made some more progress.

Nice work.

Back from the dead! I tested some of my reloads back in the fall of 2021 and had decent accuracy but I only fired 5 or 6 rounds, almost all the cases had cracked badly from the case mount down the length of the cartridge (about 1/2" long). The brass I used was at least 40+ years old so I'm attributing it to the age hardening of the brass. Over the past year I've been slowly processing through it. I pulled all the bullets and primers and annealed the brass before the holidays. just the other night I was able to resize and reload 15 test cartridges.

I loaded the modified 180 speer FP bullets and this time I was able to source some Ramshot Enforcer (AA4100)

I loaded 5 with 17gr, 5 with 17.5gr and 5 with 18gr (Max) I'm hoping to make it out to the range sometime in the next couple of weeks to try these out and get some chrono info, accuracy report and hopefully verify that I've solved the case splitting.

Cool thread. I love things like this. Good job and keep us posted.

I have good news about the 357 Max brass though, The annealing did the trick and the brass remained crack free! I have a new wrinkle though. The Ramshot enforcer (aa4100) that was published to be a good powder for jacketed 180 loads was not a winner for me. It appears to be too slow burning and didn’t allow the action to cycle (it’s recoil operated, so pressure needs to drop quickly to allow the case to shrink and be pulled from the chamber) it’s a shame since it was giving great consistent velocities and good accuracy.

The resized Speer 180gr .358 flat point bullets seem to be working great, I’m going to keep an eye out and buy more as they come available. I’m also going to order a mild to try some cast bullets.

I’m going to go back to compressed loads of 19.5 grains of IMR 4227 and see if that can get me decent velocities and good cycling. I might play with some aa1680 also since it’s the only other suitable powder I have on hand, but I do t think I’ll be able to get the velocity high enough with my limited case capacity.

I’m going to keep an eye out for some AA9 and 2400 and will test those (other than 4227, those two are the most recommended powders to use)

I also took sone time to fashion a brass deflector out of leather to help keep the brass on the bench, the irony is I didn’t even get to test it with my loads that wouldn’t cycle, haha! I’ll post some pics soon of the brass catcher and my modified 357 max brass from the last range trip.

I stopped by Bass Pro looking for some powder (aa9 or 2400) but struck out there, although I was pleasantly surprised by their selection of powder available. lots of very desirable rifle and pistol powders including imr 4350, varget, h4831, titegroup and hp38 to name just a few.

I stopped by Mr. Big Guns (JC's) and they were well stocked on 2400 so I picked up a pound.

I made some test loads with my modified speer 180's and with some 180 gr XTP's using both IMR-4227 and 2400.

I'm going to try to do some velocity and function testing this week if I can make it to swan creek, or find another suitable venue.