Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters 300 Savage powder

The father inlaw is giving us his Savage model 99 in 300 Savage. What powder do you like ,using a 150 grain bullet .Thank you

I used to use 4320 in mine and it was accurate and had good velocity. I'd also look at one of the 4895s. That worked very well too.

Just about any mid speed powder will do. I've successfully used 3031, 4064, 4320, 4895 both H and IMR, Varget, RL15, N140, W748 and probably others.

If you're a careful handloader you can work beyond some of the data out there which is pretty anemic, even in a Savage 99.

With 150s, I found H4895 best and Varget a close second.

I've had good luck with IMR4895, which worked well in several 99's and a Remington 722. But haven't owned a .300 for a while so haven't experimented lately.

MD,

Didn't you also get some nice results from the new production AA2495, or was that in the 250?

m

That was in the .250, but no doubt 2495 would work in the .300 too. It's very similar to IMR4895.

Of course, the other question is how much accuracy we actually need for shooting deer at typical .300 Savage ranges. Haven't seen anybody choosing one for "long range hunting" lately, despite the .300's resemblance to the .308.

You can pretty much pick a mid speed extruded powder, keep adding it under a 150 until you see good groups at 2600 fps or a bit more, and you're done.

For my 700 Classic I made some 300 Savage loads that could be considered long range compared to the typical 300 round: long seated 168 gr. Berger VLDs at around 2600 fps which shot very nice groups at 300 yards. I'm pretty sure they would carry a bit farther than that too.

I tried 4320 and then 4064. The latter was good enough that I stopped there... with 150s and 165s .

Was trialing 150 gr Partitions in my old 99G earlier this year and got extremely good accuracy with both TAC and Varget.
I agree with many of the earlier comments about the 300 Savage working with a wide variety of powders. It's a great round, easy to get along with, and one of the most underestimated on the market.

IMR 4895. My Sav 1899 wasn't too fond of any of the 150s. I stepped up to 165s (specifically speeds) and had much better accuracy.

As others have indicated, 4895 is a good one with 150's. My '99 300 Sav. does very well with it, but likes 165's with RE15 even better so is mostly what I load for it these days.

Varget pushes 150gr partitions well at 2600fps and 125gr Ballistic tips to 2950+ with little drama or load work.

I use IMR4320, but have also used IMR4064, IMR4895, Varget, W748, and H4895. They all worked, but I settled on the IMR4320.

I have used 4895 with the 130 Barnes at up to 2867 fps. Accuracy was good, but the doe I shot last year at 40 yards didn't give me much of a long range test!

Mike

Varget and Reloader 15 would be my favorites. I use them a lot in other cartridges, and they work very well in the .300 Savage.

I don't try to hot-rod the .300 in a 99. I do have a bolt action model 1920, but likewise there is little to be gained with warmer loads.

To be clear, what I mentioned earlier about stepping up the loads was not to hot rod the little 300 in a 99. It's just that a lot of published data is anemic even for a 99.

Agreed, I've chrono'd factory loads that only went about 2300 fps. a good condition 99 should be able to make 2600 with no trouble.

H4895. The best!

Has anybody here tried CFE-223 in their .300? Curious because I've been using it in .223's, .22HP's, and .308 and am very satisfied with the results. (And the reduced copper fouling is a benefit too.)

Heretofore I've been a devotee of 4064 in the .300 Savage. The powder worked from the get-go and since the .300 isn't one that I spend much time experimenting with I saw no need to mess with the results.