Does anyone have any experience with the 358 Winchester ina single shot pistol? How does this round perform in a 14" barrel? I am thinking of getting a Competitor single shot in the 358 chambering for whitetails and black bear over bait.



Craig

Craig,
I have a .358 Bellm in a 14" Contender. It is a rechamber of a 35 Rem and has a bit more capacity plus it uses a 444 Marlin case necked to 35 caliber and uses 358 WIN dies. It is one of Mike Bellm's Triad of chamberings. I did the evaluation and load development that is now posted on Mike Bellm's web page. Look for www.bellmtcs.com then click around until you find the Triad and then the 358. The long and short is - It is a hell of a performer. It will handle up to a 225 grain bullet and push it at 2100 f/s while giving sub-minute groups. It does have stiff recoil, but not so much you have trouble handling it. With a Contender, it is necessary to limit the breech pressure to about 45,000 psi, but even at that pressure there is plenty of killing power for bear and I use mine for elk.

Hope that helps,
Don Shearer

Hi Craig
I had a 14" 358 Win. in a Competitor. I was getting a bit over 2100fps with a 250 grn. Speer bullet and my cronograph reads a little low compared to others. I believe I was using around 44grns. of IMR 4064. This was easy extraction and very accurate. Dave

I forgot to mention Craig, I prefer the 16" barrels in the Competitor. They seem to be better ballanced and are still quite compact not to mention the added velocity.

I agree with the 16" barrels in the Competitor, I have a 16" .22-250 and a 14" .357 Max barrel for my Competitor and the 16" balances better. I was considering rechambering the Max barrel to .35 Whelen but am just going to buy a 16" barrel.
Jason

I have a .358 Win in a Lone Eagle with a Magnabrake and it's not bad at all. Matter of fact I am selling it.

I have a 358 Win In Competitor pistol and with a 14" BBL I get just over 2600 fps from a 150gr bullet.

Wow ! I had no idea there were so many Competitor owners, especially in .358 Win. I thought maybe I was the only one. Mine is a 14 or 15 inch bbl with a muzzle brake. Very loud gun, but quite a thumper. I have not shot mine in several years, but I recall getting 3 shot groups into an inch and a half at 100 yards using a Harris Bipod on a bench rest. Oh yea, this is with a Burris 2-7 power scope. It's possibe I could have shrunk the groups, but I was going for absolute maximum velocities with 180 and 200 gr Hornady and Barnes bullets. This was back in the days when minimum caliber for handgun deer hunting was .357. Now they have changed the law to allow down to .243 dia. bullets, so a 6mm Bench Rest bbl sound like the ticket to me.
Had trouble with the original trigger locking up when firing. Sent the original stock, which houses the trigger, back to Competitor Corp, and they replaced it with a new stock complete with a new style adjustable trigger. I bought a 16" .45 Colt (also known as "Long Colt") barrel for it, but it is still new in the box. Here's something funny, all that power and the only thing I ever shot with it was a ground hog at about 10 yards.