Hi Magnum Man,
No. I think that the .300 Win Mag is an excellent cartridge, as I wrote in a post about five above this one.
We know properties of cartridges. It's up to hunters to research before buying.
When I was a teenager, I had ability to shoot friends' big guns including the 7MM Rem Mag, .300 Win Mag, and 8MM Rem Mag. I figured I needed to start my mule deer hunting operations with a .270 Win. Through the years I've fired other big guns including the .338 Win Mag and Big Five loaded .45/70, and, of course, 12 gauges with slugs & buckshot. I never did take to shooting guns that hurt. However, I can see how they're good for other hunters.
When I figured it was time to get serious about elk hunting, I picked up a 7MM Rem Mag, a cartridge that was designed by elk hunters for long range elk killin'. Fact is, I could've stuck with my .270 Win & been just as good and elk just as dead.
In my opinion, the 7MM Rem Mag is the best magnum cartridge for all North American big game hunting. The reason is superior sectional densities and ballistic coefficients of .284 caliber bullets coupled with manageable recoil. Its bullets will travel farther & flatter & penetrate more deeply. For instance, a 160 grain .284 caliber bullet is superior in SD & BC to a 180 grain .308 caliber bullet. The reality it's all minutiae. Last I knew, big game don't know how to read micrometers.
Hunters can turn darn passionate when it comes to defending cartridges to which they have abiding loyalty. I'm good with that. But reality is emotion chases intellect from thinking when hunters take to defending cartridges they love...or gun writers need material.
I'm good with any reasonable cartridge that any hunter wants to use to kill anything he wants to hunt. However, they lose me in convoluted logic when they try to tell me that the .024" separating .308 caliber from .284 caliber is crucial when it comes to room temperature reducing elk or that a magnum will kill elk deader than an '06/.308 Win. I'm good with passionate loyalty to cartridges as long as opinions don't mock the fact that all that lives will die sans it heart. Nor is there a biology category of deader than dead. Dead is dead. Rigor mortis comes after that, not deader than dead.
I'm good going with knowing characteristics of big game I want to hunt, knowing terrain of areas I hunt, figuring out big game patterns, and figuring out how I can get as close as possible to big game I want to kill. For me it ain't about killing at distance or extreme distance. It's about hunting skill and humanely killing big game. Other than a brain shot, the best way I know to do that it to destroy oxygenated blood pumping apparatuses.
Even though my friend hunted with a Mark V .300 Wby Mag, he knew it was a whole lot more wise to use skill to stalk within a far more reasonable distance than to leave a lot of space between muzzle and animal.
Jus' sayin'...
