Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles .300 Win Mag - The one rifle battery

When I was stationed in Camp Pendleton around early 1997, I got there as a PFC and immediately figured there must have been deer in the hills around the base.. So, I found a decent deal my little paycheck could muster and bought a M77 MKII 300 Win Mag in Stainless and Laminate. I put a VXII 3x9 on top and got a couple boxes of Winchester Supreme 180 BT's (couldn't handload in the barracks). I took it out to the desert, zero'ed it at 250 yards and had a BLAST come Fall. It straight knocked them little muley's around I enjoyed shooting that rifle a whole lot.

I then used it to hunt elk and muley, along with a couple black bear. Used the rifle pretty steady for about 5 years till the loonie'ism took hold and I found out I needed 15 other rifles.

I ended up selling that rifle to a good friend who was heading to Wyoming on his first muley and elk hunt. By then I had a bunch of great loads with the 180 PT's and I ran a nice load that went 3050 with RL22. I loaded him up 50 of them and he went on to commence killing a couple of elk, muley's and WT's since. It's the only Ruger I ever wished I could have had back. I didn't like the weight of the laminate, but I wasn't smart enough to know I could have put it into a good McMillan still been happy.

I am currently devoid of a 300 magnum. Had a 300 Wby for a bit, a 300 WSM for awhile and I think the next one will be a Winchester again. It does alot of stuff really well as everyone has mentioned. Maybe not a Wby, but a solid 300 magnum.

This is one of the Idaho Muleys that I took with the old 300..



Makes me miss it even more when I look at that picture!