The .351 Winchester Self-Loading (also called .351 SL or .351 WSL) is an American
rifle
A rifle is a long-barreled firearm designed for accurate shooting, with a barrel that has a helical pattern of grooves (rifling) cut into the bore wall. In keeping with their focus on accuracy, rifles are typically designed to be held with bo ...
cartridge designed in 1906.
History
Winchester
Winchester is a cathedral city in Hampshire, England. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a local government district, at the western end of the South Downs National Park, on the River Itchen. It is south-west of Lo ...
introduced the .351 SL in the
Winchester Model 1907 self-loading rifle as a replacement for the
Winchester Model 1905 and the
.35 SL. The .351 SL proved popular with police and security forces as the only chambering available in the model 1907, and was used by France in both world wars.
[Barnes & Amber, ''Cartridges of the World'', p. 86.]
The 8×35mm cartridge of the
Ribeyrolles M1918 was based on the .351 SL. An experimental
Thompson submachine gun
The Thompson submachine gun (also known as the "Tommy Gun", "Chicago Typewriter", "Chicago Piano", “Trench Sweeper” or "Trench Broom") is a blowback-operated, air-cooled, magazine-fed selective-fire submachine gun, invented by United Sta ...
was also made to fire .351 SL in 1919 but was never produced commercially.
The modern day
While a few gun writers in the 1960s criticized the .351 SL for being inadequate as a
deer hunting
Deer hunting is hunting for deer for meat and sport, an activity which dates back tens of thousands of years. Venison, the name for deer meat, is a nutritious and natural food source of animal protein that can be obtained through deer hunting. ...
round, and the round's power has sometimes been compared to a .357 Magnum carbine load, the .351 SL's killing power falls somewhere between the
.30-30 Winchester and the
.35 Remington. Townsend Whelen praised it as a "good cartridge for deer and similar game in close timber."
Most commercially available loads for the .351 SL launched a 180 grain .351 caliber bullet at between 1,850 and 1,925 fps from a 20-inch barrel, yielding identical muzzle energy to the .30-30 when fired from a 20-inch barrel (rather than a manufacturer's long test barrel). When compared to other medium bore rounds, the .351 SL is closer in power to the .35 Remington (200 grain .358 bullet at 1,950 to 2,000 fps from a 20-inch barrel) than it is to the
.357 Magnum carbine (158 grain bullet at about 1,800 fps).
The .351 SL cartridge used an unusual bullet diameter of .351 instead of the .357 or .358 more commonly used in .35-caliber rifle cartridges. Most ammunition available today for the .351 SL is produced by a few boutique manufacturers, often using either cast lead bullets or copper-plated bullets or, occasionally, .358 jacketed bullets resized to .351 or .352 caliber. This ammunition is often loaded to lower velocities in consideration of older firearms which have not been properly maintained, and large differences are seen over the chronograph relative to vintage .351 SL ammunition. But for the handloader who has taken the time to replace the recoil spring and buffer in the Winchester Model 1907, the .351 SL can be loaded to its original velocities. As of 2017, Hawk bullets still makes .351 jacketed expanding bullets with jackets of appropriate thickness.
["Winchester Model 07 Self-Loading .351 Caliber: Its Past and Its Future with Modern Brass, Bullets and Powders" (2011) Speckin, Leonard pp 88-96]
File:351 Winchester Self-Loading cartridge.png, A ''.351 WSL'' cartridge.
File:351 Winchester Self-Loading.JPG, ''.351 WSL'' advertised.
File:Munit07.jpg, .30-30 Win, .35 Rem, .351 WSL, a.o., sizes.
See also
*
List of cartridges by caliber
*
List of rifle cartridges
List of rifle cartridges, by primer type, calibre and name.
File:Cartridge Sample 2.jpg, 350px, From left to right: 1 .17 HM2,2 .17 HMR, 2.5 .17 wsm, 3 .22LR, 4 .22 WMR, 5 .17/23 SMc, 6 5mm/35 SMc, 7 .22 Hornet, 8 .223 Remington, 9 .223 ...
*
Table of handgun and rifle cartridges
This is a table of selected pistol/ submachine gun and rifle/ machine gun cartridges by common name. Data values are the highest found for the cartridge, and might not occur in the same load (e.g. the highest muzzle energy might not be in the sa ...
*
9mm caliber
References
External links
''.351 Winchester and .401 Winchester: Auto-Loading Pioneers'' thebiggamehuntingblog.com
''.351 Winchester Self Loading'' cartridgecollector.net
hensleygibbs.com
''Early Semi-Automatics: Winchester's first Self-Loading Rifles'' americanrifleman.org
{{DEFAULTSORT:351 Winchester Self-Loading
Pistol and rifle cartridges
Weapons and ammunition introduced in 1907
Winchester Repeating Arms Company cartridges