About the .360 Buckhammer
Though word leaked a week prior, the official launch came at SHOT Show 2023 in Las Vegas, Nevada. There’s no denying the cool factor of the name, though astute hunters may remember a long-discontinued Remington shotgun hunting slug also called Buckhammer, unassociated with this product.
The official name is indeed .360 Buckhammer, abbreviated .360 BHMR, though actual bullet diameter is .358 inches. While other straight walls are built for most every other action, the BHMR is optimized specifically for lever-action rifles with the rimmed round.
Remington claims that energy, velocity, and ballistic drops are most similar to a .30-30 Winchester. It is, of course, of immediate interest to old school fanatics of the throwback .35 Remington round, using projectiles similar to those from the .35 Remington thumper.
Initial ammunition offerings from Remington’s Core Lokt family show either 180-grain or 200-grain soft-point projectiles. Without doing field testing, this type of load range and velocities should work well on a wide range of medium-sized North American game.
Everything about the .360 BHMR is all-American. As always, Remington is USA-made and partners with Henry Repeating Arms, known for its “Made in America or Not Made At All” guarantee. At the time of the launch, Henry is offering four rifles: the Steel lever action, Side Gate lever action, blacked out X Model lever action, and the single shot Steel.
Chasing the .350 Legend
There’s no denying it will be tough to unseat the .350 Legend. That round surprised even the most cynical hunters and gun store owners, having gone on to find chamberings on handguns, bolt actions, semi-automatic sporting rifles, single shots, and more. What’s been missing, though, is the lever gun market, and that’s the exact market the .360 Buckhammer targets.
The question everyone has been wondering – how does the BHMR stack up against existing straight wall cartridges? Based on specs alone, the .360 is 200 to 300 feet per second faster at the muzzle than its two modern counterparts, with less drop at 200 yards. As a rimmed cartridge, it feeds well in lever-action rifles. We’ve only been able to pull the trigger a few times, but on initial impressions, .350 Legend recoil feels less.
Related: A Primer on .350 Legend for Hunters
What about the .450 Bushmaster?
The large-bore .450 Bushmaster pushes .458-diameter bullets largely from AR-platform rifles. The new .360 BHMR uses considerably lighter bullets than the .450, with significantly less recoil. Like the .450, the .360 becomes immediately relevant, and finds its strongest market in Midwest states that are switching over from shotgun-only areas to straight wall cartridges.
Related: Beating Around the Bushmaster – A look at the .450 BM
While we’d almost always opt for the .45-70 in straight wall stardom, that whopper of a classic round is ruled out in most of those restrictive states due to its casing length.
And the Throwbacks?
By definition, the term “straight wall” encompasses so many classic hunting rounds. In addition to the .45-70, there’s the .38-55 Winchester, .44-40 Winchester, and the whole contingent of cartridges commonly found in both revolvers and lever guns: .44 Magnum, .357 Magnum, and .45 Colt, among many others.
Some more recent choices have faded yet retain a quiet following. We’re looking at you, .444 Marlin and .50 Beowulf fans. The fact of the matter is that all these rounds were created – and are still in use – because they work.
Why Straight Walls?
Remington calls its new .360 BHMR the “ultimate straight wall cartridge” but it indeed faces stiff competition. The .360 Buckhammer will be pounding out a niche between two popular modern straight wall rounds: .350 Legend and .450 Bushmaster.
But why are these rounds – generally limited to 200-yard ranges, so popular? The number one reason involves the largely Midwestern states that limit hunters to either shotguns or straight wall casings in an attempt – however misguided – to limit shorter-range trajectories.
Certainly, that’s an admittedly limited market, yet the .350 Legend has been selling like hotcakes across rifle actions including bolt, semi-auto, single shot, and even handguns. It turns out that hunters are drawn to the low-recoiling, practical round that works equally well on game like deer, hogs, and even black bear.
What Drives the Straight Wall Craze?
For instance, in our local Midwest shop in a state with no such casing restrictions, firearms chambered in .350 Legend fly out the door. Why? The bottom line comes down to “recoil meets performance.” With felt recoil in most platforms closer to that of a .223 Rem, and with far greater performance and knockdown on big woods whitetails, the round has attracted the attention of many shooters.
Of specific note, many parents and grandparents are opting to start their youngsters – or adult new hunters – on this friendly round. In addition to recoil, most shops seem to have cases of .350 Legend ammo in stock while old standbys like .243, .270, and .30-06 are in short supply.
While there’s no danger these rounds will replace any of classics, several of them – .350 Legend for sure – are carving out their niche in the market. The .450 Bushmaster certainly has a following, but seems destined to fall short of such widespread acceptance.
Where the .360 Buckhammer will align remains to be seen, but unseating the now-established .350 will be an uphill battle. Still, it’s the variety that drives the spice of life, and while we have mixed feelings about many new chamberings, the straight wall market is doing big things.
What’s Next?
Even before we finished writing this article and studying the young Buckhammer, yet another straight wall chambering was announced: Winchester’s .400 Legend. Built to find a middle ground between the .350 Legend and .450 Bushmaster, the fledgling .400 is largely an unknown to us.
But rest assured, we’ll be giving it a try soon. What once seemed a dull topic is now one of the hottest in the outdoor industry. The straight-wall revolution is upon us.
