Just picked mine up today. Looks fine for what it is. Not going to get super excited until I see how it shoots. I like a steel and wood firearm, but have several with high end synthetic stocks. Can't get too excited about an injection molded plastic stock from Ruger, Remington, savage, etc.
Our best groups from a 358 blr and a marlin 356 were both with imr 3031 both are sweet shootersOriginally Posted by Norske
Got my dies in today. Can't pickup my rifle until tomorrow, but decided to give it a go. Initially, the Lee sizing die was slipping the decapping/expanding rod, even with generous lube. I removed it and buffed it up a bit. After polishing, it worked great! Not any different than regular sizing. I gave the case necks a light annealing after forming. Boolit is the Lee 200, cast from 49/49/2, clear powder coated and gator checked. Sized to .360. Decided to start with 2400, if I'm not happy with that, I have RL7 and 4895 to try. Assuming my brass chambers and doesn't crack on the first firing, I'm pretty pleased with my first attempt at case forming!
Headed to the mainland today to get mine, dies and a bunch of lake city 308 cases should be here Monday. Looking forward to it, really hope the 230gr ranch dog bullet will feed.
Picked mine up today. A few observations: the barrel is touching the stock on the left, and has a wide gap on the right. A little work with a box knife would probably fix this, but I shouldn't have to. Does anyone know of Ruger will send a new stock without having to send in the entire rifle?
My necked up brass loads were hard to chamber for the first firing, they were better with the second.
The magazine has quite a bit of play towards the front. I had a few rounds get hung up on either the front of the magazine or the bottom of the feed ramp, not sure which. Also had the bolt override one round. If I pushed the magazine up, it fed just fine, but would contact the bolt. Not using pointy bullets probably contributed to the feed issues.
Once zeroed, my cast loads looked like they wanted to group in the 3" range, but then I started getting fliers. The barrel appeared clean, so I'm thinking barrel pressure or too soft of an alloy.
Plenty of work left to do...
Last edited by Silvercreek Farmer; 03-28-2019 at 04:15 PM.
Forgot to mention, the 358 is putting dimples in my AR500 at 100 yards! Even more so than when my buddy hit it with a jacketed 308!
Shot some 1.25-1.5" inch 3 shot groups this morning with the Lee 200 over Reloder 7. ACWW, Harbor Freight Red, sized .360, checked. 32 grains put me around 2050-2075 fps. Didn't chrono many because I couldn't shoot groups at the same time. If I can make the same load work with my softer alloy, I will be pretty pleased. Ruger is sending me 2 of what I am calling the old style mags. They have horrible reviews, but if they give me the feed angle I need, I might be able to make them work. They also said they could send a new stock with pics of the warped one.
Last edited by Silvercreek Farmer; 03-29-2019 at 03:47 PM.
Got some cases formed and a few loaded up, pretty impressed so far. The 1.6cc of IMR 4227 (20grains) with the powder coated 230gr Ranchdog shot the best. I just dipped the powder charges and used what i had kicking around for bullets on the bench and they all did pretty well. Next project will be to find a full power hunting load for the 230gr boolits. I did have the same feeding issues as Silvercreek reported with his but no issue with the stock, barrel is centered in the channel with nothing touching on either side. I may look at slightly modifying feed ramp to better accommodate the flat points of the ranchdog bolts.
The Ranch dog looks good for sure! Did you end up with the same, non-rotary, mag? While I think feed ramp work would do it, I think I might try adding some sort of bullet guide to the front of the mag first, if the rotary mags don't do the trick.
Did you just contact Ruger Customer service for the new mags? I guess i will wait till you get the rotary mags and see how they work before grabbing the die grinder and working the feed ramp over. I am pretty pleased so far, going to be raining and nasty here tomorrow so i may cast so more of the 230's and get more cases formed.
Load data for the Ranchdog 230gr bullet and the 358 winchester
Was able to shoot a fair bit this morning. Excuses: Swirling winds up to 10-15 mph, cheap 4x scope with heavy reticles, plastic table, milk crate seat. I think that is all of them! Despite all this, I was able to produce some very usable 100 yard accuracy. Boolit was Lee 200, ACCOWW, HF Red, Hornady Check. Reloder 7 for powder. Tried Win and CCI large rifle primers. Extreme spreads were in the triple digits, until I hit 36 grains which settled out at around 2150 fps. I didn't paper those loads, but they did seem to open up a touch on steel. Probably a little faster than I want to push my hunting alloy in the event I hit a shoulder. I might try a pinch of Dacron to see if I can get a consistent lighter load with RX 7, otherwise I might try H4895 which may also require some Dacron. If I decide to stick with the RX 7, I'll need to check it at different temps as it seemed a bit sensitive as the day warmed up. Including the 4x scope the rifle comes in at 6.8 lbs on my digital bathroom scale. 200@2150 off the bench wasn't painful, but certainly enough to know you had pulled the trigger!
Last edited by Silvercreek Farmer; 04-01-2019 at 04:23 PM.
Nice looking shooting, will have to give RL7 a try. I am happy with anything from 1850 to 2100fps for a deer load with a 200-230gr bullet, seems to be the sweet spot for effectiveness. I have some of the RD 230's loaded up with 36 grains of 3031 as well as with 47.5grs of Data 85. The Data 85 is pretty slow for this cartridge but a case full should yield the 2000-2100fps i am looking for. I have had good luck with both RL19 & Data 85 in the 35 Whelen and 348 winchester so hoping it will working well in the 358 as well.
Try IMR 3031 if you get a chance. My .358 loved it right off the bat.
I tried some trail boss for a light load, went with 2.2cc (10grs) and two different boolits. I was only shooting at 50yards this morning but amazed at how well the powder coated 358315 bullet did. I also like the fact it is dead on point of aim at 50yards with the same scope settings to put me a bit high @ 100yards with my faster loads. Really glad i got one of these rifles.
Nice work! I shot a few of the Lees over 12 grains of Promo and got VERY consistent velocities around 1450 fps, but the wind was working on them too much to shoot for groups. I'll try again when we get some calm weather. These guns are shooters for sure. My barrel has remained shiny as well through 100+ rounds now. I hastily ran some copper remover and some JB paste through it before I shot it. After the first couple strings, I used a bit of Hoppes and more JB. Yesterday I bore snaked it a couple of times before shooting. No signs of lead or excessive fouling.
Mine is pretty smooth as well, I was worried at first as when i first took it out of the box i saw a trace of copper fouling right at the muzzle from being test fired at ruger. I did a similar pre-shooting cleaning with Butchs Bore Shine and followed up with JB, was amazed at the crud i got out. Since then i have just been pushing a few patches with Kroil and bore is like a mirror. Not sure if I will ever do it but that threaded muzzle sure has me thinking about a suppressor, it would be a lot of fun with that big hollowpointed bullet going subsonic. I took a deer years ago with that hollow point bullet out a 357 rifle, worked like a champ and was only going about 1100, sounded like a bat hitting a softball with the bullet hit her.
A supressor would be tempting. I ordered a cheap muzzle brake of of eBay just to play with since it should go on easily. It does appear the threads are 11/16x24. All the cheap brakes are 5/8x24, so I found an adapter for $20 so I can use any of the 5/8 brakes.
Forgot to mention that I have had 2 FTF due to light primer strikes. Both rounds fired on the second attempt. Thought I might be bumping the shoulder back a little too far so I backed out the sizing die after the first one. After the second one, I marked the case. The case fired fine several times after that. I haven't disassembled and cleaned the bolt yet, but it on my list of things to do. I also haven't been cleaning primer pockets which may be the culprit. I think some of the initial stiff chambering was due to the extractor having a hard time snapping over the rim, but it seems to have broken in. I'm going to adjust the trigger down in a few minutes...
Picking mine up tomorrow. My RAR in 300BO will go out for adoption and this 358 will do almost everything the BO would have done. I want to hear from anyone that suppresses their 358.
I took the action out of the stock and backed out the Allen screw. 2-3 turns was enough to remove all tension from the spring. I don't have a trigger scale, but it did make a noticeable difference. Feels pretty good now, a bit of creep, but smooth enough. Still takes a positive pull, nothing like a "hair" trigger. I'm sure it'll get better with use as well. When I put the action back in the stock, I pulled it to the side with the gap and tightened the action screws. It shouldn't have made a difference with the V block bedding, but it did get the left side of the stock off the barrel by just a hair. I shot a couple groups, then re torqued the action screws to make sure it was seated properly and it seems to be.
Had a few minutes to shoot. My first shot, still fouled from yesterday, was about an inch low. Next group had a high flier about 2" out of the group, that clocked 60 fps faster than average. The third group settled in nicely at just over an inch. All three shot groups with 36 grains of Rx7 and my Lee 200 cast out of 50/50/2. I'm going to continue to bump the Rx7 charge and see if it settles in a bit more velocity wise, the alloy seems to be up to the task.
I really should be using a proper sight in target as well. I'm sure it would improve my groups a bit.
Last edited by Silvercreek Farmer; 04-02-2019 at 04:14 PM.
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