Sent an email last week to CZ "recommending" that if they would like to sell a few rifles then they might think about chambering their 550 series in .358 Winchester. The rep who wrote back stated that was his favorite hunting round but since mine was the first request this year for that chambering it probably was not going to happen.

They would gladly chamber rifles in any caliber that they think will sell but if they, or any of the other manufacturers for that matter, don't hear from us they will never know that there is a nitch in the market waiting to be filled.

Write them at CZUSA if you want to see something happen....Bob

A manager at Kimber said that the 358 was a favorite of his also. So far that has not resulted in any 358's though.

What Kimber needs is a custom shop for rifles too. What Remington does with the Classic series every year is very good marketing.

Many years ago, I decided not to wait for Remington to come out with the .358Win in the Classic. I had a .308 BDL rebored by the late Dick Nickel in WA, put a Classic stock on it along with a Leupold 1.75-6X. One of my favorite deer/bear rifles.

WN

I had a Model 70 stainless rebarreled by Shilen in 358. Great gun!

Bob257

Done and done, I sent CZUSA a nice e-mail regarding the possibility of a .358 Win. With spring black bear around the corner, I can't think of a better-suited cartridge for putting them down fast at the ranges I'll be hunting...

Thanks for writing Mike....hope many more of you will take 5 minutes and do the same if you would like to see a .358 on the market. If CZ did it, it would not be long before others did also. Look at the .350 Remington Magnum. Was out of production for 30 years. I was told by the Custom Shop it was their #1 requested cartridge for many years but it took 30 years for the light to come on at Remington.
My friend also wrote CZ and would like to hear back what the response was to anyone who writes.

Thanks again,

Bob

I understand MRC is making some actions for CZ. This week I'm finally getting my left handed MCR in 358.
Should be a no brainer for CZ to offer a 358, MCR provided the action and barrel for mine.

One has to understand the thinking of the time. The .358 came out in about 1960. Who were the major gun writes at the time.... Elmer Keith for whom anything less than a BIG .33 caliber was unexceptable.. Jack O'Connor who championed the .270 Winchester..and look at the Weatherby line, 7mm Reminton Magnum so what was the bottomline..velocity, velocity, velocity..... and these guys influenced a lot of people. Long barrels, heavy rifles lots of recoil.... And for what..the majority of whitetails in all the east and a lot of the south were shot under 100 yards. But that made no difference, you had to have a supermag just in case.

And who made .358s.... a Savage lever action, a Winchester lever action, a Winchester bolt gun. Ruger made a few of their early bolt guns in .358 and .350 Remington Magnum and then a special run of a .358 carbine in the 80's that now sell for $1200-2000 IF you can find one for sale. Remington...no, they were busy with the .350 RM. And Mannlicher-Schoenauer. Winchester I don't think ever made a post 64 bolt gun in .358 and it was gone from the catalogs in their M88 by 1968. Only Savage and M-S had guns listed in the Shooter's Bible in .358 that year. So if there are almost no guns out there how is anyone going to sell ammo....

So what do we have now... an ugly-a$$ Browning leveraction. Better than CZ, if Kimber came out with their light weight Montana what a gun that would be for woods hunting.

There is a market there for a good quality moderately priced bolt gun in .358. But who is going to be first....?

Bob

A .358 Winchester really sounds like the hot poop, I would imagine they would sell every one they would make. My question is a little off the subject but, does anyone know about the .308 Winchester case being necked up to .338 caliber? I would think that there would be more bullet selection and a little better sectional density than the .358, you'd be working with some good heavy slugs.
Thanks,
Jeff

RJM hit the nail on the head. Not only was the .358 a victim of the high velocity race, but it had no major writer / supporters in the main stream press. O'Connor wrote about what a fine "woods" load it was but never used a rifle chambered for it to hunt with. Keith also, he talked about the 333OKH and the .35 Whelen, both which he used quite a bit, but then ran off with some harlet named the 338.378 ! Keith viewed the .358 the same as O'Connor. Charlie Askins is the only writer I remember as actualy using the .358win on game. In S.E.Asia,(Vietnam) Keith shot several head of game including buffalo. He tried to find a tiger to shoot but I don't recall success. He boasted the little cartridges strengths.
Our problem is this. Before any major gun maker is going to go out on a limb and produce a .358 win for us, they need to be able to support it. That means ammo. Remington with their Classic is our greatest hope. Followed by Winchester and now Ruger, since they're are holding hands with Hornaday. Steve Hornaday will get a personal Christmas card from me thanking him for the 225 spire point sp...if he would only build it!
Without support, it's a wildcat cartridge now that Winchester dropped its load from production and no bean counter is going to risk his miserable neck making rifles for it. I emailed Remington and asked for the .358 in their next classic. They politely blew me off. I feel that if more did the same, we might actualy see it built and supported.
Then they need to send a Boddington or ...fill in the blank...a free one and ask him to use it and write about it to let the shooting world know what a useful cartridge it really is. Craig is a fan already!
Until that time, we will just have to keep on building and supporting our own .358's and making our own success story.
BT53 - Sako carbine .358 win, 225 Nosler pt, 2x7 Leupold.

I was going to agree with RJM, but when you are going to use that kind of language in front of my BLR, well, you can forget it!

The 358 will do 99% of the hunting in North America. All we need is a stout bullet, like a 200 gr. TSX. The other thing that is missing from the picture is a low power (either a fixed 2.5 or 1.5x6 type variable) with a drop compensating reticle. Such a combination would be near perfection. I would call that a 300 yard rifle.

We don't need writers to talk about the 358. We need writers to talk about the reality of hunting: that 300 yards is too far for 95% of the shooters in the field. JMO, Dutch.

Dutch I didn't mean to offend anyone....I just loved the original BLR with the small action and straight stock.

As to ammo, Winchester makes a run of .358 yearly....so ammo can be had. Wholesale it's $24.00 a box. Two manufacturers bring out rifles and someone else like Federal will bring out a load also.

Scope...I have a 1.5-5 Leupold on my .350 RM 600 carbine right now. 2.5" high at 100, dead on at 200 and 10" low at 300 with a 220 Speer at 2650 fps. At 300 I just aim at the top of the back and the round drops into the boiler room. There is a Shepherd 3.5-10x40 P3 range compensating scope on the 700 Classic. With the 225 Nolser it is on the money out past 500 yards...

I would also love to see a 225 Hornady. Just ordered some 250 grain spire points to try. Hard to beat a 225 in a .35 however...

Bob

Gents,

If anyone is interested I know where an "As New" 358 Win. Ruger 77 lives here in Cody. The price is high but of course the chambering was I believe a very short run for Ruger.

Regards,

Mark

RJM, ok, you redeemed yourself. My BLR is the old, steel, straight stock (not the drop-mag version, though).

Still want a 200 TSX. JMO, Dutch.

I would just buy a suitable basic CZ 550 and rebarrel it to .358 Win.

When they needed a shorter rifle for the WSM cartridges, CZ-USA had them built over here on the M99 action. You could do the same thing with an M99 and possibly Serengeti.

I expect waiting for a .358 Win to be born in CZ Europe will be a very long wait.

jim

Dutch...now that is a rifle. I was just in a shop a few hours ago and held one of the new straight stocked .308s....with that loooooooog action it just doesn't feel right.

I think that the next letters need to go to Browning explaining why their BLR in .358 is great but an A-Bolt would be GREATER....Bob

Anyone hear back for CZ?

...And while someone is at it, send Winchester an e-mail about making me a freakin' .358 WSM! That would open up some bullet selection in .358 and maybe they'd stop neglecting the old .35 caliber.

A lightweight bolt gun in .358 Win would be a short range black bear STOPPER. Just the ticket with the right bullets and a 1.5-6x scope.

Mark,, PM sent.

ALL RIGHT...
Any recommdations on who to contact to build a
LIGHT, short actioned, bolt action, glass stock with a med light 20" tube???

Something in a 5-6 pound class.

jbmi,

That's a beautiful rifle. As you know the .358 is a favorite of mine. I like dark stocks like that and have a blank that Serengeti laminated. Your choice of the dark metal finish goes as well. I was going to crash ahead and do a SS gun on the stock. It sounds good but would not look as good as yours. Try RL 10 if you can find some.

Lawcop,

Almost any barreled action with a cored stock, such as Bansners, would be as light as I wanted in a 358 if the heavier bullets are going to be shot.

If you have big bucks then NULA may chamber for the cartridge.

A Kimber 84M Montana in say 308 will cost about $900. Get a new one with the three position safety. Then a barrel would go maybe $450 bead blasted and all. Thats half of a NULA and you get a strong stock, pillars, CRF, a good trigger and not least of all a Decelerator pad.

Hey....one brown down with my .350 Remington Magnum shooting the 220 grain Speer bullets....

So has anyone else heard back from CZ?

Bob

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder - I had mine made in stainless. Everything is identical except mine is right handed and stainless with a 21-inch barrel. I even have the same mounts, rings and scope - except in silver.





and pretty is as pretty does - this is a .250, 3-shot, 100-yard group. (.608 outside diameter - .358 = .250)

OHHH, I like that a LOT! Beauty and functionality. What was the load may I ask? BT53

It was a mild "break-in" load of 42.5 gr of W-748, a 250 gr Hornady Spirepoint and a CCI LR primer. Surprisingly, I was able to consistently ring a gong at 250 yards with less hold over than I thought!

The .358 joins a group of exceptionally fine cartridges that are excellent in every way except popularity.....this includes the 6MM Rem, the .257 Rob, the .260 Rem, the .280 Rem, the 8MM Rem Mag and maybe a dozen others I haven't listed. They are just not popular with the masses of buyers and will forever be represented as a custom product. It's the stuff custom rifles are made of and the reason why some rifles have large collectors value.

RJM,

I believe CZ-USA already has chambered rifles with what might be the best cartridge in that class of ballistics, its the 9.3x62 Mauser. Putting aside the need for a short action only, which the 358 Win would give you. The 9.3x62 will do anything the 358 Win or 35 Whelen will do and more. It certainly offers a better comfort zone in close quarters with big critters firing 286-293 grain bullets. Yeah its a standard length action, but the Mannlicher stocked CZ550 FS with 20.5-inch barrel is already in the CZ stable. I doubt they would roll the dice on the forgotten 358 Win. As for me, I think the 358 Win is possibly one of the best designs for a basic needs cartridge to come out of any factory offering.

For you 358 fans I have a line on a Savage 99. PM me and I can give you a contact number.