Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters .300 WSM vs. .300 Win Mag

All this pissin and moaning over 10 grains of powder. I see it as 5 cartridges in the rifle over 3. Short and fat doesn't always cut it from where I'm standing.. Oh and yes, the 300 H&H is an old dated cartridge with an unnecessary belt on it. So obsolete that no one should really be using it. They belong in a museum somewhere. . Just like the old 06. Too old to be useful.

Thing to do is have at least one of each, plus a 300 H&H, there is little difference between any of them. Any animal you hit wont be able to tell the difference. The short mag seems to have a touch less recoil.

You can't put "modern powders" in a WSM? Who knew....

In factory ammo... the lawyers have to be careful with the .300 Win Mag loads... you never know what kinda rifle that stuff will end up in. The WSM fodder can be (and often is) loaded to the gills... there's almost no difference in velocity between the two rounds when factory loads are shot from factory guns... at least that I've seen.

Just read an old post where 3000-3100 was pretty common with 180s in the .300 WSM... out of 23-24" barrels. Seems 66 grains of RE17 (a "modern powder") was running 3060 with 180 NBTs. Giving up only 75-125 fps to the .300 Winny loads MD referenced above... and using as much as 19 grains more powder (25-30%).

I have a 17" barreled .300 WSM that'll run 2850 with a 180... which bests about any 24" 30-06 with the same bullet.

I was in Cabela's yesterday... they had as many varieties of .300 WSM factory loads as they had .300 Winchester.

What factory rifle holds 5 .300 Winchester rounds in the mag... but only holds 3 WSMs in the same guise?

The .300 Winny is a bad ass round, and deserves its place as one of the preeminent big game cartridges of the world... as does the '06... something right in the middle of the two ought to do pretty well in the field... even if it is 60-90 years younger....

PS.... here's the link to that old .300 WSM thread....

http://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/topics/5000039/all/R17_and_the_300_WSM

My original first cartridge choice of 308 Winchester was at age 17. At that age, knowing nothing of wildcatting or having custom rifles built, I used to sit at night thinking the perfect cartridge would be a 350 Rem Mag with a 308 bullet. I would have likely stepped up to the 30-338 had I known how to get one.

I have 300 WSM's because it was what I was looking for when I bought that first 308.

The short mag cartridges are hard to find fault with, per se. Execution on the rifles built for them has sometimes been a bit off.

By far, the best thing about the .30 Holland is the rifles it was built on.

Same could be said about the Winnie, albeit from a different perspective.

The market will go where it will go. Sure people get emotional regarding 'their' rifle. As I see it the 06 will be where it is a long time. Brass is cheap as is ammo, you can find it everywhere. That promotes its use. It os an excellent cartridge.
The 300 Win Mag is very popular. I believe the most popular 30 caliber cartridge. You can find ammo and brass nearly everywhere ammo and brass can be found. These things promote the cartridge's use and it stays popular. There's nothing wrong with the 300 Win Mag.

So a new cartridge comes along and gets almost.,. Well the brass isn't everywhere and the ammo isn't everywhere. So what that it is faster than the 06 and is almost a 300 Win Mag in power. That's not the point!

It's a fad. A rifle for loonies. Nothing wrong with it if that floats your boat. But don't expect that the short magnum will upset the 300 or the 06. It's really nothing but a fad. A cartridge that has few advantages and a few disadvantages besides not being available as the 300 Win Mag.

If someone wants a short magnum good for him or her. To me these short magnums have not caught on with the mainstream hunters/shooters for reasons. But go ahead and buy what you want. It's good to have choices.

Well .....I don't recall saying you couldn't feed modern powders to a WSM. Not that it will do any good....The 300 Win Mag will always hold the velocity advantage,due to greater capacity. Also don't recall saying the round isn't useful......simply that it does not have the horsepower and flexibility of the 300 Win Mag.

My old rifle gave 3210 with 77 gr IMR4831 and a 180 gr bullets so who needs modern powders anyway?

I settled for a more sedate 3140 and killed everything from here to Alberta and the West. BTW this was back in the roaring 1980's and early 90's. You gotta come up with something I find "new and exciting" but the 300 WSM sure ain't "it"...

I was fooling with powders similar to RL17 before some on here were born,so know the capability.

As to the 300 WSM, I had 4-5 of them wrung out before the round was 5 years old.....of course I sold them all after noting the "advantages". Most all were New Haven M70,s which shot well but functioned like junk....a Kimber Montana that functioned well but shot like junk; ditto a M8400; and a M70 EW that was far and away the best 300 WSM I've owned. Very accurate rifle.


Nothing wrong with it...I just had no need for it. It's a short,fat 300 H&H.Even the charges are almost the same for those two cartridges.

I concluded....then as now....it aint no 300 Win Mag, but does fits squarely between a 30/06 and the Winchester magnum.

In choosing one, I will take the 300 Winchester Magnum round.

My friend who is an outfitter,has had several hunters with short mags,have them jam in the heat of elk hunting battle. Not sure if this is pilot error by the dudes, or something which occurs because of the short, fat case.

A lot of takers though. The 300 WSM was Federal's 10th best selling ammo in 2015. Not as popular as the 300 WM at 7th, but a popular fad none-the-less.

My current .30 hunting rifle inventory includes the 308 Win, 30-06 Sprg, 300 WSM, and 300 Win Mag. Of them all, I like the 300 WSM best by a noticeable margin. All three of the 300 WSM I've loaded for have shot 66.5gr RE17 with a 168 TTSX very accurately. There's nothing I can do with a 30 cal hunting rifle anywhere in North America that I can't do with a 168 TTSX @ 3100fps. The fact that the two 300 WSM that I currently own hit the field under 7lbs each total with optics makes them easy to carry and generally cause me to leave the 300 Win in the safe, though I love that rifle, too...

The short answer is that you can't go wrong with either. Even better, buy both!

Short fat cases don't help feeding issues,although it isn't impossible to get them to feed. Early M70 Classics WSM's were mostly junk when it came to feeding WSM cases.Part of the problem seemed to be box magazines that were too small...one I had would throw cases out of the box when you pulled the bolt back. The rails wouldn't hold the rounds down.

Later South Carolina rifles I was exposed to functioned beautifully and Kimbers likewise.

Other problem is manufacturers don't hand coddle rifles for great function today...they can't afford to and sell them to us at prices we like. Americans love cheap shidt.

Not like Mausers, Mannlichers, and pre 64 M70's and old school winchesters in general,which mostly never left the factory unless they worked . Those were different days and different rifles.

Who cares about the "mainstream hunters?" Do they call an annual quorum & decide what cartridges to promote?

I bet you probably own a .270......

R28, what about those that own both a .270 and 300 WSM?

Yeah, like me....

Then again, maybe I'm not a "mainstream hunter."

300 Winchester Mag...deficient?? Damn! I'm gonna go open the safe and get that bastid out I used to win all those 1000 yard LR matches over in Texas and give it a good cussing for letting me down!!

If you have one rifle, you would be better off with a common caliber, I think. But if you have over 20 rifles as many of us do then why not have odd ball cartridges. I have a 256 Mag in a lever action. Would that be my one rifle? NO!

I also own a 350 Mag in on a 600 action. Not the best prairie dog rifle. But I can afford more than one rifle. If I had to have a 35 caliber rifle and it would be my main rifle, I'd have a 35 Whelen, btw.

I don't give a $hit about what rifles others like. Most of my rifles were picked for a particular reason. I have little need for the all around rifle as that would be boring.

But the short magnums are a fad. I just happen to be a bugger about fads and have several rifles that are fads. I'll keep buying them

But I own 6 30-06's and a 270, (I've never shot that 270 at big game BTW)

I do not like short magnums but I don't care that you do. My friend loved his 25 WSSM. He talked his buddies in getting some. Now they can't buy ammo for those rifles. That wouldn't be a problem for most loonies. BUT IT IS FOR HIM!

I'll bet he wishes now that he went with a 25-06 instead. I'll also bet that in 10 years the 25WSSM is all but gone. A passing fad.

I simply find it objectionable when people make choices based solely upon what everybody else is doing. And, of course that usually results in them owning a 270. Thus, those who promote that cynicism rub me the wrong way.

Some one commented that the short magnum lacked something in the execution. I have a Win. M70 Super Grade and don't think it lacks anything in the execution, be it looks, function or accuracy.

I have a 30/06 but have never taken any game with this caliber. For bigger I have a .338 Win. mag. Next to my .270's this has been my most successful caliber.

When circumstances force me to start culling out my collection I will have some hard choices to make.

Jim

What's a 25 wssm?

It's not a huge deal, but load your 300 WSM up with 3 in the mag and 1 in the chamber and see what it does to the case (particularly the shoulder) on the top of the mag when you extract the fired round. I've had 2 FN's (300WSM's) and they still suffered from the tight mag box BobinNH talked about earlier. Although he said the Newhaven classics exhibited the problems, I've seen the same problems with the FN's.