Those extra 5 or 6 grains of powder could be the difference between you getting eaten by a bear or blowing your own face off with your rifle.
It’s kind funny when there are statements like this. “His load as he stated it was probably 5-6 grains above max saami pressure for the 300 WM.” Wow! Kind of apples and oranges there bud.
I’m not recommending anyone exceed limits with their loads. As stated above 26th edition Hodgdon Data Manual states 83. I very judiciously worked up to 85. A lot of other factors can be weighted. That is why I stated my procedure above. I’m not hiding this at all, I very openly and willing gave this to T/C Arms, the jury, and this forum.
H-1000 is one of the slowest burning powders around; which makes a 2 grain increase not much of a pressure rise. Hand loaders can archive more constant accuracy, and pressures over factory loads. Factory loads on a hot day in the SW US or Africa can have pressure spikes well above my loads.
My loads were within SAAMI service maximum avg. pressure limits.
You can disregard everything I say but PLEASE if anyone has this gun or knows someone with one out of morbid curiosity check the headspace or have a gun smith check the headspace. I don’t know if there is much more I can add here.
Can you actually answer the questions that have been asked multiple times about what actually happened to the gun? My own Encore .300 WM had excessive headspace, but my gun didn't explode. Is the action still in one piece? Were the locking lugs intact, etc? All of these things would have been brought up in court if they applied and even though you stated haven't handled your gun since the incident it would have likely been present in court so you could at least tell us what was broken, what wasn't, etc.
Also, are you sure H1000 burns at the same rate once it's compressed heavily? Lots of powders don't so what are you basing your assumption on? Using visual pressure signs for max loads is always a bad idea which is why you were found partially at fault as many reloading guides now include pictures showing exactly that-no visible signs of grossly overpressure loads...
I have multiple Encores and would like to legitimately know what happened to your gun, not just that you think the design is bad as clearly several of us have had similar headspace issues that didn't result in catastrophic failure and the only legitimate difference thus far seems to be your use of max/over pressure loads...
