350 Legend vs 360 Buckhammer: Ammo Comparison
It’s tough to bring a new cartridge to market. Cartridges that are often well over a century old really saturate the current market. These old rounds offer plenty of useability and satisfy most users, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t any room in the safe for a new caliber, especially if that caliber can do something new that another cartridge can’t quite do. That was the name of the game for two new cartridges that have hit the market and we are comparing today, the .350 Legend vs .360 Buckhammer.
350 Legend vs 360 Buckhammer Specifications
350 Legend
360 Buckhammer
Why compare 350 Legend vs. 360 Buckhammer?
The .350 Legend and .360 Buckhammer are quite similar. Both are relatively new to the market, and both have dominated the respective SHOT Show of their release. They specifically produced these two cartridges for hunting. It’s pretty obvious from the name that the .360 Buckhammer is mostly designed for deer. The .350 Legend certainly chose an optimistic name, but it’s also a deer cartridge.
Both rounds are straight-walled cartridges. Straight-walled cartridges lack any bottle-necking. The case diameter is nearly the same as the projectile diameter. These cartridges use big, heavy projectiles that kill by sheer force and penetration rather than speed. There are a lot of states and localities that only allow straight-walled cartridges for hunting. The main reason is often population density.
Rifle rounds can travel a very long way and in dense environments that pose a threat to the average individual. A straight-walled cartridge drops comparatively fast to a standard rifle round. This limitation helps ensure that their travel is reduced, lowering the likelihood of causing issues with denser populations. You might ask why the industry releases two very similar rifle rounds so close together. Is there room for both cartridges on the market? That’s what we aim to find out today.
350 Legend History and Purpose
I can’t say there is a whole ton of history for this cartridge. At SHOT Show 2019, it was the bell of the ball, or at least Winchester would have you thinking that. The banners for this thing were far and wide, and everyone knew the words .350 Legend by the end of the show. Winchester’s principal claim to fame was that the .350 Legend was the fastest straight-walled cartridge in production. This claim is only true if we use standard factory loads and not some pissing hot loads from reloaders.
SAAMI, the institution that sets industry standards for ammunition, accepted the cartridge on January 31, 2019. This takes it out of the dark zone of commercial ammunition and makes it easy for everyone under the sun to produce the round. One key to ensuring a new round is accepted is to get it out there, and SAAMI approval made it easy for big names in ammo to produce the cartridge.
The developers built the .350 Legend to be a deer hunting cartridge that could be applied to other medium-sized game animals. The cartridge’s max range for deer hunting was about 250 yards. One of the interesting features of the .350 Legend was the fact it had some direct similarities to the .223 Remington. Particularly the rim diameter and the overall length. It is evident that the .350 Legend was designed to be compatible with AR-15 rifles.
Best Ammo for 350 Legend
There is much more ammo options out there for the 350 Legend than there is the 360 Buckhammer, at least at the moment.
Hunting Ammo
Winchester 350 Legend 180 gr PSP
Marketplace | Cost Per Round |
| Gun Deals | $1.04 |
| Firearms Depot | $1.29 |
| Guns.com | $1.44 |
| Gritr Sports | $1.55 |
Copper Hunting Ammo
Barnes 350 Legend 170 gr TSX
Marketplace | Cost Per Round |
| Gun Deals | $1.54 |
| Optics Planet | $2.10 |
| GunMag Warehouse | $2.29 |
360 Buckhammer History and Purpose
The 360 Buckhammer also doesn’t have much of a history. The cartridge hit the market in 2023, which makes it less than a year old at the time of this writing. Much like the .350 Legend, the Buckhammer saw a massive push at SHOT Show. There were banners everywhere, with the Remington ammo brand pushing the cartridge hard. This is the first cartridge released by the revived and rebuilt Remington ammunition factory.
The .360 Buckhammer cartridge did gain SAAMI acceptance prior to SHOT Show, and by January 15, the new round was in full production. The cartridge has admittedly seen some fairly quick adoption by numerous hunters looking for a more classic straight-walled cartridge.
The Buckhammer uses a .30-30 cartridge as its parent case, but obviously gets rid of the bottle-necked portion of the cartridge. Using the .30-30 as a parent cartridge makes it easy to chamber the cartridge into lever guns. The big, pronounced rim makes it a nonproblem to engage the extractor on your standard lever action rifle.
Best Ammo for 360 Buckhammer
Since it is so new to the market, there are not many 360 Buckhammer loads yet. Here are some of our favorites:
Hunting Ammo
Federal 360 Buckhammer 180 gr JSP
Marketplace | Cost Per Round |
| Gun Deals | $1.24 |
| Firearms Depot | $1.31 |
350 Legend Vs. 360 Buckhammer
When you get into these niche cartridges, you have to judge how each cartridge is going to be used. Both cartridges fall into that brush gun territory where the ranges are short and the big bullets take quick effect on the target. We have to judge them in that category and not necessarily as standard rifle rounds. With that in mind, both the .350 Legend and the .360 Buckhammer offer plenty of pros and cons.
My first impression of the .350 Legend was one that was rather anemic. Compared to other straight-walled cartridges, the .350 Legend seems kind of pitiful. As long as it’s used for deer and medium-sized hogs, it’s perfectly fine. However, if you’re a real American born with an inherent knowledge of the .30-30, you recognize the .350 Legend wasn’t reaching even those ancient levels of energy and power.
However, a by-the-numbers reading tells us the cartridge wouldn’t be brutal to the shoulder and the fact it works in AR-15s and other semi-auto rifles gives it appeal to those recoil-challenged shooters.
On the split side, the .360 Hammer packs a bit more of a punch with its straight-walled design. Up close, the .360 Buckhammer can be used for more than just bucks. The cartridge could take down large hogs and even exotic game like Impala. Heck, with a good heavy round, it could even take a black bear. The cost is increased recoil and the fact it really works best in lever guns.
To get a better view of these cartridges, let’s break both cartridges down and look at the numbers.
Ballistics Comparison: 350 Legend Vs. 360 Buckhammer
Neither of these cartridges are well known for their long-range performance. These are cartridges used within 300 yards, often well within 300 yards. If we use 200 yards as a happy medium, we see the .360 Buckhammer has a very slight advantage. At 200 yards, it’s still moving at 1,557 feet per second and hits with 969-foot pounds of energy. In terms of drop, shooters will have to compensate for about 7.8 inches.
With the .350 Legend, we are seeing velocities of around 1,509 feet per second with 809-foot pounds of energy and 9.4 inches of drop. As you can see, the differences are slight, but the Buckhammer gets the advantage. How much that matters depends on where you’re hunting. What really matters is that power within 100 yards.
Most hunters using these cartridges are staying within close ranges, and to be fair, we’ll compare 180-grain load for the 360 Buckhammer and 150 grain for the 350 Legend. At 100 yards, the .360 Buckhammer delivers a little over 1,517 foot-pounds of energy on target. The .350 Legend round hits the target with 1,206-foot pounds of energy. That’s a fairly sizeable difference.
| Distance (yards) | 360 Buckhammer 180 Gr Core-Lokt Velocity (fps) | 360 Buckhammer 180 Gr Core-Lokt Energy (ft-lbs) | 350 Legend 150 Gr Win Power Max Velocity (fps) | 350 Legend 150 Gr Win Power Max Energy (ft-lbs) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | 2399 | 2300 | 2225 | 1759 |
| 100 | 1948 | 1517 | 1843 | 1206 |
| 200 | 1557 | 969 | 1509 | 809 |
| 300 | 1247 | 621 | 1243 | 548 |
The .360 Buckhammer hits harder, which is why it can be used to take game larger than deer. The .350 Legend is really stuck in that medium-game realm. Deer and hogs are where it shines. The .360 Buckhammer doesn’t have the same degree of available loads as the .350 Legend.
You can get some very lightweight projectiles and some very heavy projectiles with the .350 Legend. This allows you to better tailor the round and your rifle for a specific purpose. This includes heavy subsonic loads that work well with suppressors. Although those rounds have even less range than a supersonic option.
Recoil and Muzzle Rise
Neither of these cartridges is necessarily a shoulder beater. The .350 Legend has about 8.5 to 9.5 foot-pounds of recoil energy, depending on the cartridge being fired. The .360 Buckhammer hits a little harder with about 14.5-foot pounds of recoil energy. When used in an AR-15 rifle, the .350 Legend can also have very little recoil . The buffer and semi-auto action absorb a ton of the recoil.
The .360 Buckhammer can’t quite do that, and I don’t know of any semi-auto actions that can use the rimmed cartridge. This means you get a full dose of rifle recoil with every shot. Recoil isn’t always a big deal, but when we consider these are close-range cartridges, recoil becomes a little more important.
Recoil affects your ability to make follow-up shots, and less recoil makes for faster follow-up shots. Plus, a semi-auto rifle design makes for even faster follow-up shots. Although a lever action rifle can be pretty quick, you need a little more skill to be fast with a lever gun.
Rifle Selection
The .350 Legend has made its way into the world of AR-15s by sheer force of will. Everyone seemingly makes a .350 Legend AR these days, from the affordable PSA option to the Gucci semi-custom Wilson Combat rifles. There is something for everyone in the AR market.
.350 Legend also found its way into a ton of bolt action rifles, both expensive and affordable. You can get a Ruger American for 500ish dollars or a Ruger Scout for 1,200, not to mention the fact it’s even in single-shot rifles, which are lightweight and handy.
The .360 Buckhammer isn’t as blessed. In fact, it’s only available in lever action rifles. With that said, Henry is currently the only company producing lever action rifles in .360 Buckhammer. This limits your options by a large margin and forces you into a box you might not want to be in. It’s unlikely that we’ll see the .360 Buckhammer in AR-type rifles, but a semi-auto is always possible, as is a bolt action or single shot. They just currently don’t exist.
Price
The 350 Legend ammo prices vary wildly. Interestingly enough, it’s easy to find FMJs, which are great for training and tasks like a rough zero of your rifle. The price for appropriate hunting ammo varies from 25 bucks to 70, depending on how fancy you want to get. The cost tends to be about 30 bucks for a box of good hunting ammo. Specialty rounds like subsonics are affordable.
The .360 Buckhammer has a lot fewer options available. There often are 200-grain and 180-grain loads, and that’s it. The average price of ammo is just under 30 dollars a box. Ammo price: there isn’t a vast difference outside of FMJs being available for the .350 Legend.
Where the real price difference comes in is weaponry. The wide availability of AR-type rifles has brought the price of a .350 Legend rifle down to a very comfortable level. You can get away with a .350 Legend rifle for less than 600 bucks.
Since Henry is the only producer of the .360 Buckhammer rifles currently, the price is quite high. Henry makes very nice rifles, and they are fairly expensive. You can’t get into the cartridge for less than a grand unless you find a sale. That makes it a lot tougher to justify the power of the cartridge and its benefits.
Our Take – 350 Legend Vs. 360 Buckhammer
These straight-walled cartridges are certainly meeting the demands of new and old shooters. They serve hunters primarily and offer powerful, competent options for close-range firepower. The 350 Legend really seems like the overall winner. Most hunters are deer hunters, and for deer, this cartridge works very well and is very affordable to get into. The variety of rifles and their low price makes them easy to get into.
The .360 Buckhammer offers you a cartridge that’s a bit more versatile for hunting deer and larger game. If you hunt deer one season and bear the next, then the Buckhammer makes sense. For most deer-only hunters, I don’t see a ton of advantages in this cartridge. It’s impressive, but its lack of riffles and load variety pigeonholes it.
Both cartridges work well, but the Legend seems to be much easier to get into for the average hunter, but the Buckhammer is a real hammer. What do you think? Let us know below!
About Travis Pike
Travis is a former United States Marine Corps Infantryman and currently a firearms writer, instructor, and works in Emergency Management.
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