I put this together a few years back. It's more stuff about the .351 Winchester and the Self-Loading line of rifles than most folks care about.
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The .351 Winchester Self Loading cartridge was the most popular of several similar cartridges introduced by that firm during the first decade of the 20th century. First marketed in 1907, it and the Model 1907 rifle were modestly successful for the next fifty years.
Soon after the turn of the 20th century Winchester began development of a line of semi-automatic rifles. Primary design work was done by T.C. Johnson, an in-house Winchester employee who also was responsible for the famous Model 12 repeating shotgun among many other designs. The design featured a "hesitation blow-back" system of operation. The Self-Loading rifles as they were called, have no locking lugs, instead utilizing a heavy one-piece bolt and counter weight acting in concert with a heavy spring. The counter weight portion of the bolt and its spring are housed within the fore end of the rifle. It is a very simple and reliable system when used with ammunition especially configured for proper operation of the counter weight and spring. The design's worst faults are that the rifles, though of a takedown design, are extremely difficult to detail strip, are heavy for their size, and require rigid attention to ammunition specifications to strike a proper balance with the mechanical properties of the design.
A .22 rim fire version of the Winchester semi-auto design first hit the market in 1903. The Model 1903 rifle used a special .22 Winchester Automatic rim fire cartridge, which was only loaded with smokeless powder. The likely purpose of the special cartridge was to keep the then common black powder .22 Long Rifle ammunition out of the new design. Messy black powder would have gummed up the works in short order.
In 1905 the first two center fire S.L. rifles and cartridges were introduced by Winchester. The Model 1905 was offered in two chamberings, the .32 S.L. or the .35 S.L. cartridges. These rifles were advertised as suitable for big game but the cartridges were low-powered duds. The Model 1905 had little to offer other than the novelty of semi-automatic operation. These rounds quickly faded from the shooting scene when the Winchester Model 1907 and competitive semi-auto rifles were introduced to the hunting market.
Two years later Winchester sought to improve on the deficiencies of the Model 1905 and its weak cartridges with the introduction of the Model 1907. Its new .351 S.L. cartridge boasted a 180 grain bullet with a muzzle velocity of 1850 fps and muzzle energy of 1370 foot-pounds. Early factory advertising obviously wanted to tout the power now available in the Self Loading line of rifles with the slogan "The Rifle That Shoots Through Steel." The ad didn't specify how thick the steel was however.
.351 Ballistics*
Factory loads
Western 180 grain soft point(very old), MV 1738 fps, ME 1210 ft./lbs.
Winchester 180 grain FMJ (very old), MV 1962 fps, 1536 ft./lbs
Winchester 180 grain soft point (late '80s production), MV 1924 fps, ME 1480 ft./lbs.
Handloads
Winchester 180 grain soft point
19.0 grains 2400, MV 1833 fps, ME 1343 ft./lbs.
Lyman No. 357446 162 grain Lead SWC (for the .38 Special)
4.8 grains Unique, MV 1059, ME 400 ft./lbs. (This load put up in
.38 Special cases and fired singly from the rifle. Don't do this
at home kiddies).
*Fired over an Oehler Model 12 chronograph
Rifle used: Winchester Model 1907 .351 w/20-inch barrel
One more Self Loading rifle was created using the design, the Model 1910 .401 S.L. rifle. The most powerful of the self loading line, this cartridge offered some pretty impressive short-range ballistics. With this chambering Winchester had exhausted the design's limited capabilities. The Self Loading rifle couldn't be made in cartridges that offered more power for the guns would have become to heavy and unwieldy. It is said that a Self Loading rifle designed to handle the .30-06 would have had to utilize a counter weight weighing some 27 lbs.
Winchester was depending on the Self Loading rifles to compete with the Remington produced Model 1908 semi-automatic rifle, designed by John Browning. Browning and already spent a few years perfecting this recoil operated design. What was worse, Browning had become dissatisfied with Winchester treatment of him when he offered them some of his latest designs so he went calling on Remington which garnered a few really good firearms designs from him, much to Winchester's chagrin.
A Reasonable Medium Powered Field Cartridge
I've always thought that the .351 was the cartridge that the M1 Carbine should have chambered. The .351 S.L. can be thought of as a .30 Carbine cartridge on goat glands. Its .351" diameter 180 grain bullet possesses very nearly the same muzzle velocity as the .30 Carbine round but offers more bullet diameter and weight which translates into significantly more "punch". I'm sure the carbine and its gas tappet system could have been designed around this larger round. The resulting rifle would have of necessity been a little heavier but would have served the War Department's original purpose most admirably.
The Model 1907 .351 was sold to sportsmen with indifferent success. In its day it was the most expensive rifle in the Winchester catalog. It was given a much longer lease on life through its acceptance by the law enforcement agencies of the day. The short, handy rifle could be handled from horseback or in the patrol car with equal ease. Its moderately powered cartridge was sufficient for law enforcement requirements. The U.S Border Patrol was an early user of the Model 1907 as were some Texas rangers, and a number of other law enforcement agencies across the nation. The bad guys also made use of this compact rifle. A Model 1907 was among the weapons found by lawmen in the arsenal left behind following Dillinger's Little Bohemia shoot out and Harvey Bailey, one of Machine Gun Kelly's henchmen, was captured while asleep on a porch with his Model 1907 .351.
Foreign nations took delivery on quantities of Model 1907 rifles as well. France in particular acquired the Model 1907 to arm its early aviators in World War I. Some of these French contract rifles ended up being used in the trenches of Western Europe. Some have turned up which were modified in French arsenals to take the French Mle. 1892 bayonet.
Winchester pursued law enforcement sales with improvements to the Model 1907 such as heavier stocks, sling swivels, and steel butt plates. They offered slings, ammunition featuring fully jacketed bullets, and 10-round magazines (now quite rare) to make the rifle more suitable for police work. They had a modicum of success with police sales for many years. I've seen several references to magazines with capacities larger than 10 rounds but have never seen one or read of a reference in Winchester literature of the day describing a factory magazine with a larger capacity than 10 rounds. Perhaps there were aftermarket magazines available. I have an old aftermarket magazine that holds 7 rounds.
After remaining in the Winchester catalog for half a century the Model 1907, or Model 07 as it was called by then, was finally discontinued in 1957. Winchester loaded factory ammunition until 1988.
The police department of my own community maintained three Winchester Model 1907's in its armory until at least the mid 1980's. They stood along with various riot shotguns in a long gun cabinet behind glass doors in the dispatcher's office. I used to bug them to sell the old '07's to me until they finally covered the glass with aluminum foil. One officer I know said the last time he could recollect that they were issued was in the late 1970's when an inmate escaped from the County Jail and was later found lurking in Buffalo Creek.
A Collectors' Dud
Model 1907 rifles have not attained the collectible status that other more famous Winchester products enjoy. Its a shame really as they served in a very colorful period of American law enforcement and hunting history. They are very well made of finest steel and walnut with much admirable machine work and fitting. If a film were released featuring an old time Border Patrol theme such as the era when Charles Askins served, the Model 1907 might achieve stardom and become a hot item on the collector's market. Who knows? As it is they languish far behind the more glamorous Winchester lever guns in popularity and value.
I've owned two Model 1907 .351 rifles. The first one was a junker purchased as a parts gun for next to nothing. Other than the fore end being cracked and broken, a common Self Loader problem, it was complete. I repaired it and used it for some years. My best ol' gun buddy Cres Lawson gave me his .351 in about 1998. He'd purchased it brand new from Wm. Crites gun shop in San Antonio, Texas in 1923, paying $42.00 for it, a box of ammo, a wooden cleaning rod, and a bottle of Winchester Crystal Cleaner. He took his first deer with this rifle. He mounted a Lyman tang sight on it and a two-leaf Winchester express sight on its barrel and deer hunted with it off and on until 1940. On one occasion his father took a deer at over 300 steps with this rifle. It went to Dallam County, Texas near Dalhart on an antelope hunt as a spare rifle in 1950 or 1951. Cres said it was the first year that Dallam County had allowed antelope hunting in a long time and five tags were issued. He said game records for the county will show that among the other cartridges used, one antelope was taken with a .351. He loaned his rifle to a member of his hunting party who used it to take an antelope. The last time the rifle was used before I acquired it was for a javalina hunt in 1970. Cres brought the caped javalina head back to his motel in Kerrville, Texas in an ice chest and left it outside the door overnight. The ice chest was stolen and he used to chuckle when he'd think about the thief opening it.
I used the rifle to take an 8-point buck just before Cres passed away. I'd carried it into a tall deer stand on a lease in Coleman County, Texas. Not long after the sun rose a decent 8-point buck appeared about 150 yards out from me. Now the '07 has a crisp trigger pull as do all classic Winchester rifles I've seen but it breaks at about 10 lbs. Cres used to say it took "two men and a boy" to pull its trigger. I didn't want to chance a shot at that distance so waited. There was an wide opening between two live oak trees about 45 yards from me and I figured on the buck crossing there. He did all right, running and chasing a doe offering no chance for me to plug him as he flashed by.
I sat for a couple more hours but saw nothing else that morning so stiffly got down out of the stand. I determined to stalk my way back up the creek that ran beside my stand, in the direction the buck was traveling. I slipped along through the scrub oak and mesquite for several hundred yards until I came to the junction of a smaller creek. It had rained a lot the weekend before and was still very muddy so I followed the smaller creek for a ways looking for fresh tracks. I was so intend on track watching that I was practically on top of my buck before I noticed him. There he stood at 35 yards, upwind and with the sun in his eyes, alarmed but not skedaddling yet. He was quartering away from me with his left side exposed. I picked a spot low at the back of his left rib cage and, using the express sight, placed a bullet just were I aimed.
At the shot the deer flinched, drawing up his left front leg. He began a weaving, wobbly lope for 20 yards, crashing into the underbrush beneath a live oak tree. When I walked up to him he was stone dead. The bullet had cut the back rib, passed through him and exited his right shoulder after punching through the front of the shoulder blade.
I quickly field dressed him, gathered him up, and after the obligatory photo op taken by my dad, beat a path home in order to show the deer to Cres. He could no longer see but came out to the pickup to feel the deer's antlers. We were both tickled pink over the experience.
Working With the Obsolete Old Cartridge
The Self Loading line of cartridges are only suitable for "post-graduate" handloaders who are also fans of the rifles (read that as nitwits who are hard-up for something fun to do). Ammunition is scarce and expensive. No other cartridge can be reformed easily to proper dimensions. The rifle flings cases far and wide. The bore diameter of a Model 1907 is a true .351 inches. I'd read once in some old publication that .38 Special and .357 Magnum cartridges could be fired in the .351. I tried this in my old junker Model '07 with some success. One must be willing to use the rifle as a single shot as the rimmed cartridges won't feed into the magazines. Remember that these revolver bullets are of .357 diameter. While it worked for me I'D NOW CAUTION AGAINST USING ANY AMMUNITION OTHER THAN FOR WHICH THE ARM IS CHAMBERED. I've done some experiments with the heavier 9mm pistol bullets, which measure .354 in diameter. I used these bullets in the .351 cases with some success as well. If the load is too light then the action chomps the case in a sideways "stovepipe." This wastes the precious .351 cases. A functioning load may still not be properly regulated for the rifle's weight and spring system and may harmfully batter the action. One's best bet is to cast bullets properly sized for the bore, or to purchase expensive jacketed bullets of proper diameter from specialty manufacturers. I got some from Ol' Western Scrounger but several suppliers may be found by "Googling .351 bullets." Gad would be another great source.
The Model 1907 was the only rifle of the Self Loading series to gain some popularity in its day. The other Self Loading rifles of the series were commercial flops. The Model 1903 and it special .22 rim fire cartridge were doomed with the ascendancy of smokeless powder and non-corrosive priming. The rim fire cartridge didn't live on into the Model 63 which was the same basic design but chambered for the much more popular .22 Long Rifle cartridge. The Model 1905 was gone from the Winchester catalog by 1921, hamstrung by its ineffective cartridges. The Model 1910, to my way of thinking, should have been the star of the Self Loading series. The .401 S.L offers real short range performance and should have been more successful. It wasn't and the rifle was discontinued after 1936. It is said by some that the Model 1910 was a bit brutal on the butt end.
The Remington Model 8 and its successor models took the semiautomatic rifle market away from the Winchester Self Loaders. Comparatively few Self Loading rifles were made. The Winchester semi-auto rifle was very expensive to manufacture and fired cartridges of less power and range than the competition's rifle. The cartridges themselves were always an expensive item. The long forgotten Self Loading rifles are now only a small footnote in the history of arms development.
