A straight-wall deer rifle after the zone, judged by others’ tests

In the Lower Peninsula, hunters can use all legal firearms from Sept. 12, 2026, according to the 2026 Deer Hunting Regulations Summary (its PDF cover says rules apply Aug. 1, 2026 to July 31, 2027); the zone explainer in this issue holds the rule and what changed. A hunter with a straight-wall rifle can now ask whether to keep it for deer. This piece is research-based: Michigan Hunt and Fish tested nothing, and it has no sponsors and no affiliate links; none exist. The cartridges were chosen from the published record: the four straight-wall rifle cartridges that independent writers have reviewed, five more (.44 Remington Magnum, .45 Colt, .357 Magnum, .500 S&W Magnum, .45 Raptor), and six common bottleneck calibers. Every result is credited to its original tester, with publication, rifle, conditions and date.

The use case is the regular firearm deer season, which the Summary lists statewide as Nov. 15–30, hunted with a rifle in the Lower Peninsula. Three criteria applied. The cartridge is legal under the Summary’s list of legal firearms, which statewide includes a rifle of any caliber larger than a .22-caliber rimfire. It has a drawing from SAAMI, the Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers’ Institute (Z299.4 for rifle, Z299.3 for pistol and revolver cartridges). And a factory load was listed as orderable at Sportsman’s Warehouse on Oct. 30, 2026; whether the listed .357 and .45 Colt loads are hunting loads was not checked. The .45 Raptor has no drawing and no load listed, so it stays only as a gap, and the .500 S&W Magnum is listed though no factory deer load was recorded.

Maker figures are claims

The table holds maker-stated figures, not findings, with each maker’s barrel. A SAAMI date is the drawing’s issue date, not the market debut. The makers’ figures are as the named pages read on Oct. 30 and again on Oct. 31, 2026; the SAAMI drawing dates were read from SAAMI’s PDFs on Oct. 30 and were not captured again.

Hornady lists its handgun-cartridge loads from 4.75 to 8.5 inch barrels (the .45 Colt 225 gr at 960 / 460), so they describe those barrels, not a rifle’s. Winchester states effective ranges of 250 yards for the .350 Legend and 300 yards for the .400 Legend (Winchester blog, whose address carries 2025/11; the page shows no date). Remington’s chart of May 29, 2023 states free recoil of 14.1 ft-lb for the .360 Buckhammer and 21.0 for the .450 Bushmaster. The table’s .360 figures are from Remington’s product page; the same chart prints different .360 figures (2,300 ft-lb at the muzzle, 948 at 200 yards), so Remington’s pages disagree. These are claims. Philip Massaro, American Hunter, Sept. 17, 2019, repeated Winchester’s 200-yard penetration figure for the .350 Legend, 11.7 inches, and said he could not verify it.

What the independent tests found

Two gel tests of the straight-wall rifle cartridges turned up, one per cartridge. The test figures are as the named pages read on Oct. 30 and again on Oct. 31, 2026.

Kelly Young, American Rifleman, Aug. 20, 2019, tested the .350 Legend in 10 percent Clear Ballistics gel, two 16-inch blocks, at 50 yards from a 16-inch barrel. His three rifles were a pre-production Winchester XPR Compact (20-inch barrel), a CMMG Resolute 300 (16-inch) and a Ruger American Ranch (16.38-inch); the gel shots came from the CMMG. Winchester’s 150-grain Deer Season XP penetrated 17 inches and kept 98.7 grains, about two-thirds of its weight; the 180-grain Power-Point penetrated 29 inches and kept 172.6 grains, 96 percent. His six deer, taken at 13 to 200 yards, were all pass-throughs; five-shot groups averaged 1.28 in (Power-Point) and 1.34 in (XP), which he called solid but unspectacular. It is the only gel test found for the .350 Legend.

Grendel Hunter, a page with no byline and no date, tested .450 Bushmaster loads in Clear Ballistics gel from a 16-inch upper, calibration unstated. The site sells .450 Bushmaster uppers. Hornady’s 250-grain FTX expanded to .665 in at 100 yards and kept 85 percent of its weight. The unfavorable result: Hornady’s 245-grain soft point showed minimal expansion at 100 yards in three tests, its jacket separating from the core. Remington’s 260-grain Core-Lokt expanded to .733 in and kept 96 percent at 100 yards. It is the only gel test found for the .450 Bushmaster. Its distances (100 and 200 yards) and cartridge differ from Young’s, so the two cannot be set against each other.

Frank Melloni’s .44 Magnum gel work (Athlon Outdoors, July 6, 2023) is not a deer test. No independent test of the .45 Colt, .500 S&W Magnum or .45 Raptor in a rifle was found.

Field and accuracy reports are looser evidence. Tyler Freel, Outdoor Life, updated Feb. 8, 2025, tested .350 Legend rifles at 100 yards (his page says eight rifles in its subheading and results list, and “I tested six different rifles” in its text): groups averaged 1.33 in to 2.33 in by rifle, 1.78 in overall against 2.02 in for eleven .308 rifles. He listed feeding, trigger and magazine faults rifle by rifle and put the effective range at about 150 yards, sometimes 200. John B. Snow, Outdoor Life, Jan. 12, 2023, shot a pre-production 20-inch Henry in .360 Buckhammer with 200-grain Core-Lokt ammunition that he says was intentionally handloaded to lower pressures; its twist (1:14) differs from the final rifle’s (1:12). It averaged 2,148 fps against a 2,217 listing, and five five-shot groups averaging 2.442 in. Aram von Benedikt, American Hunter, April 22, 2024, took two bucks at 113 and 58 yards with a Winchester XPR and 215-grain Power-Point, writing that bullet performance was ideal each time; he found the .400 Legend challenging beyond 200 yards and its recoil like a mild .308. B. Gil Horman, American Rifleman, May 4, 2017, fired Hornady’s 250-grain FTX from a 16.12-inch Ruger American Ranch in .450 Bushmaster: recoil hearty even with a brake, and a rifle he judged not for beginners.

Hank Forester, National Deer Association, June 26, 2024, reports 13 deer in a Michigan program with the .350 Legend and .450 Bushmaster, none running over 80 yards. One buck left little blood with soft-point lead bullets; after the switch to Barnes copper bullets, he says he does not think a bullet has failed to exit. It is anecdote; the association promotes the program and CVA and Vortex supplied gear.

The bottleneck set, and shot distance

The figures are Federal’s, one maker for consistency, with no test barrel stated on any of the Federal Power-Shok pages, straight-wall rows included. The figures are as those pages read on Oct. 30 and again on Oct. 31, 2026.

Guy Miner, Ultimate Reloader, Sept. 11, 2022, shot handloads from one rifle each into Clear Ballistics gel at under 20 yards, a harsh test by his account: a 6.5 Creedmoor 143-grain ELD-X reached 24.5 inches, a .30-06 178-grain ELD-X 27.5. Richard Mann’s Field & Stream roundup of Jan. 23, 2026 reports gel results for three .30-30 loads without saying who shot them, the distance or the barrel: about 16 inches for a Federal 125-grain HP, 23 for a Remington 150-grain Core-Lokt, two feet for a Federal 150-grain HammerDown. The article discloses affiliate links. No credible published terminal test was found for the .243 or the 7mm-08.

No Michigan shot-distance data exists in anything this research could find. Two out-of-state samples have caveats. Charles Ruth, South Carolina Department of Natural Resources (undated page), counted 603 shots at a timber club with scoped centerfires from .243 to .30: a mean of 132 yards, though the page’s shot counts by sex (375 and 227) sum to 602, not the 603 it reports. Richard Mann, Realtree, Feb. 8, 2022, drew on his own and a friend’s trophies: whitetails averaged 102 yards, and he allows that he may be an anomaly and that he, his friend and the friend’s family may simply be good hunters who can get close to game. Neither is Michigan.

Who might keep what, and what it costs

No source ranks these cartridges, and this piece makes no pick. Shots inside about 150 yards are within the range Freel gave for the .350 Legend and Snow for a pre-production .360; past that, the evidence is makers’ claims and single testers’ opinions:

• To 200 yards: Bryce Towsley (American Hunter, Aug. 29, 2023) calls the .360 a 200-yard deer cartridge and Freel says the .350 sometimes reaches it, while von Benedikt found the .400 Legend challenging beyond it. Winchester and Remington claim more; no source defines “effective.”
• Recoil: Remington lists 14.1 ft-lb for the .360 and 21.0 for the .450, a maker claim; Horman found a braked .450 hearty. Sportsman’s Warehouse’s recoil table, which says its figures come from sources including a recoil nomograph, online calculators and the Lyman handbook formula, lists 10.6 for a .30-30 150 gr and 15.8 for a .308 150 gr from 7.5-pound rifles, with no .350 or .450 row.

On lead, statewide, the Summary says lead-free ammunition is not required by law but is recommended. The DNR’s page “Precaution About Lead in Venison,” undated and read Oct. 30, 2026, is guidance, not law: rifle bullets containing lead can leave particles in the meat, and it suggests considering non-lead ammunition such as copper. The venison guide in this issue covers the meat. The priced listings below do not state bullet construction; a buyer who wants non-lead ammunition should read the box.

Sportsman’s Warehouse search pages give these prices, for boxes of 20 unless noted: read Oct. 31, 2026 for the .350 Legend, .360 Buckhammer, .400 Legend and .450 Bushmaster, and read Oct. 30, 2026, not captured again, for the other rows. With no quantity shown, “orderable” is all that is claimed, and a retailer’s price changes. Each range covers only the loads the research tracked; the Oct. 31 pages also list loads outside those ranges (.350 Legend loads from $16.99 to $44.99, a .400 Legend at $41.99 and a .450 Bushmaster at $59.77). A second retailer was obtained only for the .350 Legend: one MidwayUSA comparison page, read Oct. 31, 2026, showed Winchester Deer Season XP $25.11 (listed as reduced from $28.99), Federal Power-Shok 180 gr $36.49, Underwood 170 gr $39.99 and Winchester Copper Impact $41.99, stock not shown. MidwayUSA’s other pages, Brownells and Cabela’s returned no price to the automated reads. The MidwayUSA listing was read for the .350 Legend, the cartridge it shows, and for no others.

The missing Michigan numbers

No source read compares straight-wall and bottleneck cartridges for Michigan deer. The bullet evidence is two single gel tests, one bullet keeping about two-thirds of its weight and one soft point expanding little.

Every accuracy figure above comes from someone else’s rifle, several pre-production, so a hunter’s own groups with the load they will carry are the numbers that matter. The statewide quiet period of Nov. 10–14 in the Summary, and what it allows on the way to a range, are set out in the two-week plan in this issue.