Winchester Model 1907 .351 WSL

I am surprised you had so much trouble finding a .351 there were quite a few available in Eastern Canada, the Prisons used to issue them to guards. My Grandfather had one that was detroyed in a Gun-shop fire. He killed a few moose and some deer with it. He told me once that he watched his sister shoot three deer in an orchard coming to eat apples, the deer landed in a pile, he was pretty impressed.

I often think about getting one and getting it shooting again. Best of luck with yours.
 
Sheesh guys, here I am thinking they are hens teeth and you're swimming with them out east.....

PM me the details, i'll start clearing out the backlog to ease up the Ontario market. :D

So what makes the .401 so much more desirable? I found that brass, dies and bullets were even more hard to come by than 351 components..

Meanea, you have one you want to part with?

Turkeyslayer 1300 said:
I often think about getting one and getting it shooting again. Best of luck with yours.
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Haha, well if you want one, apparently they are hoarding them out east, so you should find one easily.
 
the 07 351 sl was an anemic round at best. Its one redeeming feature was its short action length.
It was issued to prison staff south of the 49 and was advertised by Winchester in some old literature I rustled up as a predator round.
The rifle seems to hold no apparent interest to Win collectors down here but there is a market for ammo as a lot of the surplus penal rifles found there way to the public.
The 10 model also faded fast. No powder capacity to drive a bigger bullet any distance.
Ammo is even scarcer for this model here.
Doc.
 
Mike Webb said:
I think the .401 is pretty similar in power to the .44 magnum, at least from what I've read.
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Thats not so bad. I shoot lots of old cowboy rounds which are lucky if they get up to 1200 fps, so for me the 351 and 401 are positively magnum-ish.

Doc you actually in Mexico? If so I wouldn't be surprised that 401 is hard to find.
 
Hola Amigos;
Yes I actually live in Mexico and it is not as bad as the news makes out.
Here in the desert you can pretty well do as you please within reason and my neighbors
are not crowding my porch.
A good day and a half and I can be in Arizona.
I keep a summer place in Canada fer when the desert is near an inferno and have hunted your swamp donkeys in October and some bear and Deer there with success.
You got some nice country there pard, but some darn strange gun regs to my way of thinking.
Anyhow, tis a good thing we all don't like the same flavor or she'd sure be a bore
Regards
Doc.
 
Further to the discussion tho, This was brought out to compete with Remingtons No.8;
This was the 1st successful semi in a medium high power and Winny needed to catch up.
Sadly for Winchester; Remington no 8 was available in 35 remington. 105 years later you still got the 35 rem cartridge; and to further the misery Remington brought out the model 81 in 300 savage 30 years later.
We had Texas Rangers using and perfering the The Model 8 and 81 for the more powerful and common cartridges
I got a mint Win 07 but shes a belle that never gets to the dance.
Regards
Doc.
 
I had a minty Remington Model 8 from 1916 or so with an original tang sight....I don't know what I was thinking when I sold it.....now that I am driving along Old Semi-Auto Blvd more now, I am regretting it.

But yea, the Model 8/81 has outlived the SLR's because hey, 35 Rem is still around and at least they had the flexibility to build third party calibres into it whereas the SLR couldn't handle anything except its original proprietary cartridge.
 
Well its been a while, since these last posts I have put together the dies, brass, bullets, made some rounds, shot them off, bulged some cases, ripped some rims, bought another 1907, reloaded more, and shot again....thats the short version.

Newly manufactured 351 WSL cases, 180 grn SP bullets, small rifle primer and 10.0gr of Unique as per the 45th Lyman guide. Seated bullets to 1.89. Rifle fired and functioned fine, threw the brass all over the place, I couldn't even find a couple of them.

Got home, cleaned brass and when going to resize, found that the cases had a real prob going through the resizer, it was at this point I noticed at the base of the case there was a slight bulge. Got worried.

Fourth case in to the resizing, the rim snapped off, couldn't get the case out. Friend got the case out next day, tried a couple himself, noted the bulge put the case from the spec of .380 to about .387. Not to mention some of those first cases seemed to screw up the primer pocket, when I went to reload them, some of the primers slid right in with no resistance, so I deprimed and chucked 'em.

Worried now I had a dud gun and with so little on these things around, there were no ready solutions, so I did what any cgn'er does, I went out and bought another one to compare. Got another first year, but this one looked like it had been around the block. Murphy's Law of guns though, the nice one has a good clean barrel with worn rifling, the ugly abused looking one has a pristine barrel :rolleyes:

Took both 1907's out and shot the last five 10grn rounds, three from the newbie, 2 from the first one. Both cases bulged in a similar manner. Had also loaded a bunch of resized once fireds and some virgins with 9.0grn of Unique to compare 1) the lesser load and 2) additional stress on the resized cases.

The 9.0grns still shot well, the brass still flung far, and the cases didn't seem to bulge as much. Resizing them was much more normal, and when I ran them through an inspected them, the bulge wasn't all around the base of the case, it was only on about 1/4th in a half moon, which corresponds to the ramp area of the breechface. When I stick an empty case into the chamber, you can see this little portion which is unsupported by anything, hence the bulge.

Funny little design issue, I have to assume this was not uncommon since its the same on both of my copies. Anyone else have any experience on shooting/reloading this round?
 
I had the opportunity to work on a.401 and had a similar problem. I found the chamber was corroded and gripped the case after being fired and ripped of the rim of the case. After chatting with a few different gunsmiths they suggested that I solder the chamber and rechamber. I could not find a chamber reamer but tried something different. I ran a stainless brush through the chamber and then used some vinegar to remove the rust. After that I cleaned the chamber with acetone, took a fired case and threaded the primer pocket , mounted the case on the end of a threaded rod in a drill and coated it with liquid metal and spun it in the chamber back and forth like I was honing it. I let it cure for a couple of days then coated the same case with diamond lap compound and repeated the operation. After re-assembly a trip to a gravel pit with the gun strapped to a tire and rim fired a half dozen rounds of factory fodder all ejected nice and clean with no stickies. Sent it back to the owner with a clear explanation of the "Bubba " work and he has been using it for 16 plus years no issues. Seeing how no barrels were available this was worth a try and it worked, althoughI do not know if I would try this rescue again.
 
Thanks for the input, I won't say I want to try a 401 next....but. :p

Anyhow, its not that the chambers have degraded in anyway, they are in excellent condition. I think it is just the manufacture of how Winchester originally did these barrels which is a little faulty. The rims on the cases were ripped off by my resizing die, the gun treated the brass much better and everything cycled and functioned well.

I guess it could be the way the new brass is manufactured too....
 
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