Staff Pick: Ruger Ranch Rifle in 350 Legend
STAFF PICK:
RUGER RANCH RIFLE IN 350 LEGEND
By Kieran Harris
In 2019 the 350 Legend was introduced by Winchester Ammunition Company. The sleek, pistol-like cartridge was marketed as being the fastest straight wall hunting round currently produced. With muzzle velocities of up to 2325 fps and 1800 ft lbs. of energy.
Ruger was one of the first companies to jump on board and chamber several of their models in the new caliber. The Ruger American Ranch rifle is already a well-established best seller in Ruger’s line up, so it only made sense that they would offer it in .350 Legend. Its compact, lightweight design lends itself to being a fantastic brush rifle for heavily wooded and bushy areas, where shot distance can vary from 20 to 250 meters. Likewise, the .350 Legend is a mid-range caliber made for laying a hard and fast hit on hogs, goats or deer.
At the range the Ranch rifle performed extremely well. Once sighted I was able to easily produce sub moa groups at 100 meters with both Winchester Deer Season 150 gr and Hornady American Whitetail 170gr. The rounds are fed via an AR style steel box magazine. The internal body of the magazine is wider to accommodate the larger diameter .35 cal projectiles, and these can be had in either 5 or 10 round options. The 16.38’’ barrel is threaded 1/2x28 should the user want to suppress the rifle or add a muzzle brake. Recoil is very mild considering the cartridge’s ballistics rivals that of a .30-30 and Ruger offers a soft rubber butt pad which aids in this. A hardwearing FDE stock is standard on the Ranch rifle and the whole package weighs in at just 6.1 lbs. un-scoped.
The nature of this rifle and caliber combo mean that it is also perfect for a new or smaller statured shooter, therefore Ruger also offers it in a compact version with a 12.50’’ length of pull vs the standard 13.75’’. If you want an easy to use, accurate and reliable platform in a hot caliber that has plenty of grunt and knockdown capability, then I have no doubt the Ranch Rifle in .350 Legend will serve you well.