by Winchester Ammunition, a division of Olin Corporation, announced a new cartridge called 400 Legend at the recent NRA Annual Meeting. It is a straight walled cartridge aimed at hunters in those states, primarily in the Mid-West, that prohibit the use of necked cartridges for deer hunting.
The cartridge is reported to have double the energy of a 12 gauge slug at 100 yards, 55% less recoil than a 12 gauge slug, and 20% more energy than the venerable .30-30 Winchester. It is an upgrade over the 350 Legend. The representative that I spoke with at the NRA Annual Meeting denied that they were trying to one-up the Federal/Remington 360 Buckhammer and that they had been working on it long before the SHOT Show.
In today’s email, I received a press release from Savage Arms announcing their plans to chamber a number of their rifles in 400 Legend.
Savage Arms is proud to partner with Winchester® Ammunition to bring deer hunters several rifles chambered in 400 Legend in time for 2023 hunting seasons. The new hard-hitting, yet mildly recoiling, caliber means new opportunities for deer hunters across the country. Savage will launch the 400 Legend in the 110 Apex Hunter XP, 110 Hog Hunter and Axis II XP—but will also chamber it in another 11 models in 2023.
Straight-walled cartridges, and especially the 400 Legend’s predecessor the 350 Legend, were born for states like Ohio and Michigan. The premise being bring modern projectiles and cartridge technologies to areas, states and hunters originally limited to shotgun slug or historically limited rifle caliber options. Due to the popularity of these cartridges that has been driven by performance—straight-wall options have gained traction outside of traditional shotgun slug areas as well. The 400 Legend will no doubt continue this legacy and Savage has responded by adding it to so many rifles in its lineup.
You are probably saying to yourself, “That’s nice but so what!”.
Federal and Remington, makers of the 360 Buckhammer ammo, are part of the Sporting Products Division of Vista Outdoor. Savage Arms was a division of Vista Outdoor from 2013 until 2018 when it was spun off in a leveraged-buyout to return to its roots as an independent company. If they still had been part of Vista Outdoor, I would think that they would have gone with the Federal/Remington 360 Buckhammer from sister companies over the 400 Legend.
I am neither pro-Legend nor anti-Buckhammer. I just found it interesting that a former division of Vista Outdoor went with a competitor’s new cartridge instead of one from their old sister companies.
I live in Michigan, and have been a hunter since I was old enough to do so. I used a 12 gauge shotgun almost exclusively, save a couple of times, only one time killing a deer with a rifle, my dad’s old 30/40 Krag.
The last time I went deer hunting was 2 years ago, with my oldest son. I took my home defense shotgun, an 18 inch, pump action with an open bore and just a plain front sight. I was using the new slug that weighted 1 oz, inside of a plastic sabot, shaped like the old slugs we always used.
I killed a nice spike horn from around 60 yards, dropping him with one shot, not holding over at all. I know that bullet makers are always coming up with better and better technology for ammo, and new types, like this 400 legend, which fits a niche, although I am not sure it fulfills as large of a role as they seem to believe.
Just like the Remington Core Lokt ammunition, which is still a pretty good option for the average hunter. The more modern types that cost much more are quite useful for their intended use, but that use always seems to be hunting where the expected shots are not measured in the 100-200 yard range, but in the 400-600 yard range, which to be honest, I don’t think that I could ever feel comfortable making, no matter how much I practiced.
I am glad that the load developers out there continue to push the envelope, because that does trickle down to things like better 9mm rounds and better manufacturing techniques for our old standbys. I guess that time will tell if this new 400 Legend is a keeper or falls to the dust bin of other wildcats that almost made it but not quite.
They coulda just resurrected the .414 SuperMag instead of creating the Buckhammer stuff.