Good stuff guys: when I re-barreled my original .300 barrel I could have went with a .338 and did give it a tiny bit of thought. But for me, I was thinking of the mountain hunting application as well as being in a land with big critters so the .300 made more sense to me. The recoil issue for me hasn't been much of an issue with this particular rifle for 2 reasons I can think of. The first is, as I mentioned previously, the rifle comes in at 8# 12-13 ounces. Then, I wanted to use 180s but just could not get them to shoot in this barrel. After a lot of frustration, I tried some 150 Barnes TSX which did shoot very well. And I really noticed a decrease in felt recoil over the 180s. I know the 150s are not the preferred weight for the .300 but I went for accuracy over bullet weight. With the Barnes copper I did not really feel bad about penetration even at the .300 velocities. I did not chronograph the load but I believe it was right up there with the 25" barrel. The load was 75gr./imr 4350. Would my .270 have worked well on that goat. Sure, but remember this was an unguided hunt on Kodiak Island (my son is an Alaskan resident so I could hunt goats without a guide as long as he was with me) and we did see the big bears.
