The Browning BLR lever action rifle has
been in production now for over 25 years. The .358
Winchester cartridge has been around for almost fifty years.
The BLR is about as modern as a lever gun can get, and the
.358 Winchester is a highly efficient and powerful cartridge,
which has killing power all out of proportion to its compact
size. In terms of power, efficiency, accuracy, and recoil, the
.358 Winchester should be one of the most popular hunting
cartridges extant, but it just ain’t so. In Europe, it
enjoys a bit more popularity as the 8.8x51mm, but in the
United States, the only mass-produced rifle available
chambered for the .358 is the Browning BLR, and that is
stretching the term "mass-produced".
It is not the gun makers’ fault. Savage,
Ruger, Mannlicher-Schoenauer, and Winchester have
all produced rifles chambered for the .358, but sales were
sluggish, so they were discontinued. The .358 Winchester
is based upon one of the most popular and abundant cartridge
cases in the world, that being the .308 Winchester case, which
itself is a shortened .30-06 case. With a .358 Winchester, a
hand loader can propel a 200 grain Hornady Spire Point
in excess of 2600 feet per second, and I have safely exceeded
that. The .358 Winchester, when introduced, was a short to
medium range hunter’s dream come true. It could send a 200
grain bullet downrange about 350 feet per second faster than
the old .35 Remington could, and the 250 grain load was
perfection for elk hunting in the timber. It should have been
an instant success, but it wasn’t. I can’t explain it. If
one of our large ammo makers introduced a new .35 caliber
Super Short Atomic Ultra Magnum tomorrow, with similar
real-world ballistics, shooters might scramble to get
one….but I doubt it. It seems that the only .35 caliber
rifle cartridge that keeps hanging on is the good old .35
Remington, and that is chambered in just one lever action
rifle. The .358 Winchester and the .35 Whelan cartridges offer
great performance on large game, but are ignored with a
passion by most hunters. For some reason that defies
explanation, the thirty-five caliber rifle cartridges have all
but died. In handguns, the thirty-five is one of our most
popular calibers, but in rifles, it is largely ignored.
One of the best, most efficient, and handiest
of the thirty-fives is my beloved .358 Winchester, and only
Browning keeps it in production. The good news is that
the Browning BLR is arguably one of the best lever action
rifles ever produced. It is certainly one of the
strongest.
Browning has chambered their BLR off and on
for the .358 for many years. I have searched many gun shows
over the last two decades looking for one, but none were
to be found. It seems that shooters who have been able to find
a .358 BLR never let it go, and for good reason. Now that
Browning is cranking out the .358 BLR once again, I figured it
would be a great time to procure one for testing.
The newer BLRs are built with a detachable
magazine body that does not protrude significantly below the
receiver as it did on the older rifles. The newer BLRs
also are built with an aluminum alloy receiver, which does
shave a few ounces off of the weight. The .358 BLR that I have
here weighs six pounds and eleven ounces empty. It has a light
twenty inch barrel, straight stock, and an overall length of
just under thirty-nine and one-half inches; all of which makes
for a quick handling, well-balanced rifle. Many hunters burden
themselves with a rifle that is too heavy and ill-balanced for
a quick shot at game. I hunted some last season with a .25-06
Remington Sendero that was very accurate, flat-shooting, and
powerful, but handled like a pig on a shovel. From an elevated
stand, it worked well. In the woods, it was a handicap. I sold
it. A deer rifle should feel lively but steady in the hands,
much like a good twenty-gauge bird gun. The short-action BLR
has this unique feel. It comes to the shoulder instantly and
naturally. It wears a straight grip stock, and looks like a
traditional Levergun. Mechanically, the BLR differs greatly
from other lever action rifles on the market. The BLR is in
reality a lever-operated bolt action. The bolt has a rotating
head which locks into the breech of the barrel, allowing the
rifle to be chambered for high pressure belted magnum
cartridges. The smooth operation of the action is
attributed largely to the rack and pinion gear drive of the
bolt. The trigger rides with the lever, eliminating the
possibility of pinched trigger fingers, and speeding the
operation for quick second or third shots. The detachable box
magazine allows the use of aerodynamic spitzer shaped bullets
for better downrange power and a flatter trajectory.
While on the subject of trajectory, many who
are ignorant on the subject proclaim that the .358 Winchester
is a short range cartridge only. That just ain’t so. For
example, with the excellent 200-grain Barnes X bullet
sighted in at 200 yards, bullet impact is only 2.4 inches high
at 100 yards, and only 4 inches below line of sight at 250
yards. The Barnes 250-grain bullet shoots almost as flat.
Leaving the muzzle at 2300 feet per second and sighted dead on
at 200 yards, the bullet is only 3.1 inches high at 100 yards,
and just 4.8 inches low at 250. Even out at 300 yards, the
bullet has dropped only a foot, and still has nearly a ton of
kinetic energy left. Even if a hunter is no good at all at
range estimation, the bullet will never be more than three
inches high or low out to 225 yards. The trajectory of the
200-grain bullets closely follows that of a 180-grain bullet
from a .308 Winchester; which no one regards as a short range
only rifle. For medium to large game, the .358 pokes big holes
with excellent penetration, with a trajectory that allows
reliable hits at 250 yards and beyond. If deep penetration and
bone breaking power are needed, I really like the Barnes
225-grain XLC bullet. It offers a flat trajectory and plenty
of power for elk-sized game out to 300 yards.
Besides the ability to accurately handle these
heavy bullets, the .358 BLR is capable of being hand loaded
with pistol bullets of .357 to .358 diameter for explosive
performance on vermin and predators. The .358 can push a 125-grain
hollowpoint to 3000 feet per second, offering excellent off
season practice on groundhogs and such, and leaves nothing but
feathers and mist from a crow.
For strictly deer hunting, my favorite bullet
is the 200-grain Hornady Spire Point. It demonstrates
perfect expansion on whitetails along with good penetration,
and excellent accuracy. I have used this bullet for many
years, first using it in an old Savage model 99. It is one of
those bullets that has no gimmicks or fancy names, but just
works very well, every time. Also good for whitetail hunting
is the only factory load available at this time; the Winchester
200 grain Silvertip.
I recently tested the BLR with some excellent
cast bullets from Mt. Baldy Bullet
Company. They are perfect for slightly reduced loads,
or for use where good penetration with minimal meat damage is
desired. I have not tested them on large game, but they are,
like all Mt. Baldy bullets, cast from quality alloy
with known performance characteristics. In testing this BLR, Hodgdon’s
Varget and 322 powders, along with IMR 4064, proved to
be both accurate and efficient. Primers used with all loads
were Winchester WLR.
Back to the rifle. The BLR is, as I have come
to expect from a Browning centerfire rifle, very accurate. It
is capable of grouping any of the bullets listed above with
the exception of the 250 Barnes under the one inch mark at 100
yards, for three shots. The 250 Barnes X grouped right at one
and one-quarter inches. The light barrel heats up quickly, but
three shots clustered together is all the accuracy that anyone
needs for hunting big game. The trigger pull on my
sample BLR released crisply at just over six pounds, which is
a bit heavier than I like, but the crispness and the
wide trigger made it feel lighter. The BLR employs a unique
and clever manual safety. As can be seen in the picture, at
half-cock the hammer rotates forward to prevent contact with
the firing pin, yet is instantly ready to fire by simply
thumb-cocking the hammer as one would with any lever action.
The wood on the BLR is very good-looking American walnut, is
checkered on the forearm and grip area, and is finished in a
gloss urethane, which is a bit shiny for my tastes, but is
nonetheless handsome and durable. The BLR wears a good set of
open sights, and is drilled and tapped for scope bases.
The detachable magazine on my .358 held four cartridges, plus
one in the chamber for a capacity of five rounds. The magazine
will accept cartridges with an overall length of 2.8 inches,
and has shoulders built into the mag body to protect the
bullet points from recoil damage. The buttstock wears a good
rubber recoil pad. While on the subject of recoil, the .358
BLR is not at all punishing to fire. While the heavy bullets
are traveling at a respectable speed, the cartridge is very
efficient, and uses relatively modest powder charges to propel
the big slugs towards the target.
The Browning .358 BLR is a very practical
rifle. It offers the power to take America’s largest big
game animals with reliability, using the right bullet. It
offers quick handling in the heavy lodge pole pine thickets or
Southern swamps, along with a flat enough trajectory for the
occasional long shot down a clear cut or power line. It offers
accuracy for deer and predator hunting across open fields, and
the lightning quick repeatability of a lever action. It offers
cheap and effective varmint practice in the off season, which
can only serve to make a hunter better with his rifle come
fall.
The Browning BLR also offers one intangible
feature that is hard to describe, but is more of a feeling;
that being pride of ownership. It is a Browning. For many
decades, that has meant something. It identifies the owner as
someone who knows what he wants, and wants the best. The .358
BLR lives up to the Browning reputation for quality. For
anyone wanting a quality rifle capable of taking any North
American big game, I highly recommend it.
Check out the BLR and other fine Browning
products online at: www.browning.com.