I had a chance to shoot a suppressed Gen II Ruger American Rifle in Winchester’s .400 Legend at Industry Day at the Range during the SHOT Show and was impressed. It’s a big .40 caliber round getting tossed down range with 20% more energy and greater penetration than a .30-30, putting it on par with a .450 Bushmaster. It still has 20% less recoil than the .450 though, and 55% less recoil than a 12-gauge slug. At 100 yards, it’s maintaining 100% more energy than a 12-gauge slug, too. While I liked the Ruger I shot just fine, I immediately starting thinking about it in an AR platform. I built a .350 Legend AR last year and have been really impressed with how it shoots, so after SHOT I started looking into .400 options.
As it turns out, we’re still kind of early for .400 AR parts. A lot of the components are standard AR, but barrels and mags are a little trickier to find. Well it turns out that DuraMag has you covered as far as mags go. They just announced on social media this week that they’re releasing 5- and 10-round magazines specifically built for the .400 Legend.
They aren’t showing on their website yet, but should be available shortly. I asked about 20-round mags, too, because who doesn’t want 20 rounds of .40 cal rifle ammo? They said that’s already in the works as well.Since they aren’t listed yet, prices aren’t fixed, but if we look at the price of .350 Legend mags they’re going in the $22 to $26 dollar range depending on capacity, so I imagine we should be somewhere in that ballpark.
Was .400 Legend designed for the states that insist on a straight-wall cartridges for hunting?
That is correct, just like 350 and 450 versions.
they were designed for killing robert neville.
trying to post on subway article but not showing up.
What, the pills that Ruth gave him didn’t work ?
Would be typical for hollywood to bastardize the story for a money-grubbing sequel though.
idiots couldn’t even make a proper functioning 9×39 mag, then they dropped it months after release before there was any sign of 9x39importing to cease.. why was that so hard?
I think you’re confusing Duramag with D&H
A dumb caliber for 2 1/2 states where you need to hunt with straight wall cartridges.
Fix the regulations, and this thing has no reason to exist.
i at least can say i would love to do heavy bullets in a 450. Subsonic naturally.
“Fix the regulations…”
I’m with you, but easier said than done. It was a couple decades after handgun hunting for deer was allowed in Ohio, before they allowed rifles in the same calibers. It’s weird that I can use my 350 Legend AR pistol with a full 20 round mag for deer hunting, but if I put that same mag into an AR rifle, I’m automatically limited to a total of 3 cartridges in the gun. I can use a hot 45-70, or smokeless powder muzzleloader with a high BC sabot bullet, but not a 30-30 or 35 Remington. It may never get any better than it is now. So no, the cartridge isn’t dumb for those of us who live here, although the regulations are.
Depending on the round mags can be more or less finicky. That said I have some AR-308 Dura Mags, they worked but they worked better after wrestling to remove the floorplate that has locking tabs that need to be filed down a pinch, and replace the springs with shortened Wolff AR-308 springs without using the spring hole in the bright green follower, file notch the follower post base for the Wolff to lock in. The trick to making mags perform is having most of the upward pressure on the primer end along feed lips and less on the projectile end. Best mag for AR-308 are ASC with shortened Wolff springs otherwise the ones with rounded springs are worthless.
my lr243 has never had an issue with pmags unless i did wonky things reloading and testing.
400 seems like a question in search of an answer.
How does the .400 compare to the venerable .45-70?
Only looking at numbers mind you: within 50-100 ft. lbs for a typical lever action load 45-70 (300g 1880 fps) to what I saw listed for 400 (215g 2250fps). So would guess it would have a longer point blank range but less momentum and likely less flexibility in reloading as mag length is a consideration. Neat idea for another 10mm magnum.
Problem is, it’s an apples/oranges comparison. One is a rimless newcomer that works in AR platforms, the other along with it’s drinking buddy the 444 is the shitz in a lithe handling levergun, but it’s like comparing a 700 HP big block 4×4 pickup with a 500GT Mustang – there’s a little difference in their alikeness.
I don’t want the .400L for hunting at all, in my eyes it’s a 10mm Super Magnum for an AR-15, very few fire fights are happening past 250-300yrds. If 20-30rd mags that worked were readily available. This would be the most powerful, hi-cap double stack mag fed AR15 cartridge available. Once uppers are and mags readily available that work from low cost sources. I could see only needing 6ARC or 6.5 Grendel and .400L as AR uppers, now if low cost steel case ammo comes in, you could really have something without needing an AR308 size platform.
??? Huh? What are you trying to say, Hendo? The 400 Legend for social work?
Just like 450 Bushmaster, the only uses for the 400 Legend are hunting and bear defense.
It’s pointless for social work, total overkill, when there are so many better cartridges for home defense such as 5.56/.223 and 300 BLK, which have much less recoil, are far cheaper, and much lighter weight so you can carry more of them. I’ve shot the 400 Legend, and it has at least as much recoil as 308 (or 7.62), but it’s more expensive than 308, less available, and has a much shorter range. There’s nothing 400 legend can do that 308 can’t do better (at least with supersonic ammo).
Now, if and when they come out with subsonic 400 Legend ammo, then it could be useful for home defense with a suppressor, but right now there’s only supersonic ammo for it. If you want a good subsonic AR round for home defense with a suppressor, the 450 Bushmaster in subsonic is about as good as it gets, better than the 400 Legend.
Comments are closed.