Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors BTs in 300 Savage

I'm probably guilty of not remember this being previously answered. Has anybody tried Sierra 150 grain soft point boat tails in their 99s? I've never strayed from falt base spitzers. Can get a decent deal at gun show tomorrow. Even a good deal aint worth it if they don't be shootin, so feed back is welcome.

Not exactly, but I do shoot BT bullets in the 284.

I've read that the ballistic advantage that the boat tail has does not show up usually until about the 300 yard mark and beyond.

Depends on what you will be doing with them. If your'e hunting with them that's one thing but punching paper is another.

If it's a great value I'd go for it.

The boattails are often longer for a given weight than a flat tail, so you get less powder space to keep it under the COAL. Not sure if it's enough to matter, might on 165's or 180's and probably not on 150's.

and a longer bullet when seated to an OAL so it fits in the magazine will end up with the bullet base seated below the base of the cartridge neck. I'd read that this is not optimal for best accuracy, but have no hard data to prove or disprove. FWIW, based on their lengths, I calculated that the Speer 150RN (#2017), Speer 150 Hot Cor SPFN (#2011) and Hornaday 150 FN will fit within the neck.

The OAL from flat base to boat tail is less than I expected. Going to pick up the SPBT this morning. Besides, one gets board without trying different things. Hell, I might even learn sumfin.

I think boat tails represent a technology that definitely has its advantages but I’m not sure if they actually make that big of a difference in the woods or at the rifle range for what most guys do. I also think that boat tails in the 300 are the worst pick for the caliber due to the very short case neck. The bullet I’ve been wanting to try in the 300 is the Hornady Spire Point as it is a spitzer but the shape of the ogive makes it practically the antithesis of a boat tail.

To All,

For HUNTING (I'm not a target shooter.), I see no reason to buy/not buy BT JSP for a .300SAV rifle. = BUY whatever shoots BEST in YOUR rifle.
(My beloved Model 760 from 1954 likes GCCB in 180m grains best with the cheap/easy to find SPEER bullets next.)

Imo, game animals don't care that they were slain with a cheap/homebrew GCCB or JSP, as they aren't around anymore.
(I use 180 grain bullets for ALL of my .30 caliber rifles./carbines. AND only 285 grain bullets in my 9.3x62mm for heavy/dangerous game.)

yours, tex

I load the 150 gr Hornady Spires in both my Dad's 300 Sav and my son's 30-06. Keeps the bullet supply simple and works in both cartridges for deer and black bear here in Pa.

Dale

I’ve loaded and shot in a 99f (‘56/57 ?), EG and a Remington bolt. good performance,

I had an old box full of those Sierra 150 BT's and used them up primarily in .300 Savages. With the non-max load of 38gr. 4064 they shot like a house afire. No clue as to velocity, nor did I care (paper targets don't give a whit as to how fast the bullets which puncture them are traveling).

Yeah, I too understand BT's don't come into their own until way to hell and gone out there, but if they make for tiny groups at 100 and 200 yards who cares.

One thing I have heard batted around by reputable sources is that BT's may hasten the burning out of throats, due to what I'm not sure. Again that concerns me not a bit as I'm not inclined to shoot enough jacketed bullets through my rifles to matter either way. (I'm tellin' ya's, cast lead bullets are the way to go for cheap, accurate, no-harm-to-barrels fun.) I would buy another box of those Sierras if I stumbled upon a deal. As it is, the one rifle I haven't bothered with working up a cast bullet load in yet is my recently acquired 1953-vintage M70 .30-06. It likes 165 Sierra HPBT's. It likes them a lot, to the tune of 3/4" @100 yards with boring regularity. (1953 was a very good birth year for rifles and their owners.) It may well be the one .30 gun I own that won't get force fed cast bullets- and I'm not sweating it's throat loss due to BT jacketed bullets. It's not a high volume shooter.

Come to think of it, I have between 7 and 8 hundred BT 30's I pulled out of some old308 reloads, but they're 180's. Don't know what brand.

I don't shoot a '99, but I can tell you the 150 grain Sierra boat tail gets along just fine with the 300 Savage cartridge.

That's the feedback I was hoping for. I picked up the box, an older box (full 100 count) of Sierra 150 SPBT at the gun show for 10 buck. I'm gonna try to hit the range this weekend. Michigan is finally cooling down enough to go outdoors again.
Seems over the years and all the loading I've done, never tried BTs in any of my 99 300sav rifles. Have unsubstantiated beliefs in the back of my grey matter which subconsciously prevented me from giving em a whirl. Hell, I don't know what makes me tick. , but for some silly reason, I thought it was a bad idea. Hope to prove my mythical idiosyncrasies wrong.

Go forth and smite them hip and thigh.

The 150 Sierra Game King is not a particularly long bullet. The boat tail angle and the tangent ogive are on the conservative side of bullet design. It's isn't a VLD Berger after all.

What were your unsubstantiated beliefs?

Give them a shot and let us know how you like them. Seems to be I heard that boat tails were developed back in the 20s to improve the effectiveness of long range automatic machine gun fire. I like the concept of boat tails almost as much as I like the better ballistic coefficient that of 165-grain 30-caliber bullets have over 150-grain pills. But I also know that switching from one to the other isn't going to make a spectacular marksman out of me. Its just that reloading is a technical thing that appeals to guys who tend to like splitting hairs over such items. So you're going to get opinions. Now having said that can I interest you in a conversation about tying flies or building split cane fly rods.......

That the 300 Savage and boat tails were a bad marriage. Dunno if the questionable belief that short neck of said savage cartridge came from folklore , or my fertile brain cooked up the theory up all by itself.

The short neck of the 300 case is not folklore, but it is measurable. It’s just plain short. Still the 300 has got to be my favorite of the proprietary Savage rounds.

Of course it's short, but a lot of folks make too much out of that.