Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors 300 Savage/Deer!

Four years ago I inherited a 300 99 EG when my best friend passed away. It is equiped with a scope and my eyes certainly need one now at 59 ... especially with buck only tags.
Last year I took a doe in one shot and this year a nice sized buck with a very por four point rack.
Both were double lung shots and neither deer moved a foot after being hit. The 180 grain round nose bullet was used on both and distance was 65 yards in each case.
The difference that about 3 inches of point of impact can make was amazing. The doe was hit closer to the shoulder and the wasted venison (blood shot) was sad to see. The buck was hit back just a touch and the only waste was a 3 x 3 inch piece of ribs on both sides.
Taking the time for that perfect lung shot is well worth it.
BillR

I guess I can be the first to congratulate you on a great deer with a great classic gun. So far though I haven't found a decent recipe for horn. When you do, let me know!!!! I like the "if it's brown, it's down" philosophy.

Just get the kids book Stone Soup and follow the recipe. Comes out about the same!

A 150 gr. Hornady on top of 42 grains of 4895 puts down the brown with authority too. My hunting buddy verified it just this weekend.

Haven't tried any round-nose out of the 300EG, though maybe it'd like them better. It's just that I love those Partitions.. and they don't make huge entrance or exit holes, which means less meat wasted.

Congrats!

Mathman: 42 grains of H or IMR 4895? I'm thinkin' the latter as H seem to build pressure faster. Does that give you about 2600fps?

Calhoun:

180 RNs work well. Pretty sure you'll always get an exit on a broadside shot. Shot my biggest buck head on with the RN but never found the bullet. Buck didn't care. He went 40 yds for a first down. Be using 180 PP's here in about 6 days if the bucks cooperate.

Loaded some 165gr Hornady Interbonds with 37grs of 4064 and will shoot under an inch at 100yds off the bench all day. I'm using this load in my 99F lightweight t/d in 300 for Elk this year.

nash

My EG likes 150 grain Rem corelokts. Seems to do the trick quite nicely.
BTW congrats on your deer. Jim

Do you guys find that your 99(whatever you shoot) likes either 150 gr or 180 gr, or do they both do well?
I shot 150 gr at the range while at the fest with my EG that I have traditionally shot 180's. It seem to be the same.
Brian

In this case it was H4895 with CCI 200 primers and new WW brass. This was fired from the 24" barrel of my friend's 700 Classic but wasn't clocked. The bullet was the BT version of the regular Interlock, not the SST which does eat powder capacity a bit.

When I have clocked this lot of H4895 in my main 308s it has been on par with or even a little slower than the IMR4895 I've used over the last few years. That was with "match type" loads of 165/168 grain bullets around 2580 to 2600 fps from 20"-22" barrels. The same weight of H takes up less room on the case.

I have gotten into a slow lot of IMR4895 and a fast lot of IMR4064 lately though.

Brian, my lucky EG much prefers 180's. Much touchier on the 150's.

Only complaint I have ever heard about 180's myself is that if they don't hit something hard sometimes they fail to open up and just blow right through.

Can't confirm that myself though cause as a yougster growing up my uncle who claims to have lost several deer to 180's steered me away. Heard the same from many other old timers.

I've used 150's with great success. But I know some hunters that swear by 180's. If you talk to 10 experienced hunters about bullet weights, construction and velocity, you will get 10 different answers.

One thing I have learned about bullets over the years though, is that you can't let yourself be confused that bullet accuracy necessarily equals bullet performance.

Randy

I agree 100%. As a lad, my father always shot a Remington 740. With a Weaver 4X with post and crosshair. He ALWAYS shot 220 grain Remington corelokts. I NEVER saw him recover a deer that he shot at legally!!!!!!!. Now THAT'S a memory. He was a depression hunter and had his rifle and/or shotgun with him MOST of the time. Saw him drop a good many deer in a "less" than legal manner.

My way of thinking is a deer is a thin skinned animal. Heavy bullets are not needed. MOST of the time they sail on through with little or no expansion. BUT, where you PUT the bullet is the important part. An unexpanded bullet through the heart, liver, or lungs will + a very dead deer. Right now, depending on which rifle I shoot, my bullets range from 87-165 grains. If I use a 35 cal for deer, it's a 200 grain. If I use my 45-70, it's a 300 grain. All are useless if I don't do my part.

On bigger animals where more penetration is needed, I use a heavier bullet.

My EG loves 180's I can put 3 rnds into a quarter at 100.
150's My average group is 10" at 100.
I can't comment on the stopping power of 150's because when I got thos crappy groups, I tossed the 150's. The 180's will definatly put meat on the table. I like the remington coreloc 180's.

I had worked up a beautiful hunting load for my "99" in .300 Savage, 41.5 grains of IMR4895 that shot tiny 3-shot groups, considerably less than a minute of angle.

Then Hodgdon bought out IMR and the next pound of IMR4895 came in a Hodgdon "bottle" rather than the familiar IMR rectangle metal can. When I loaded that powder... suddenly, the M.V. dropped 80 fps compared to the muzzle velocities I had been getting. To insure it wasn't just the conditions (temperature), I checked a "test" round from the former IMR made powder can. And sure enough, my chronongraph gave me 2627 fps on a cool (35�) day for the "old" IMR4895 and on the SAME day, it gave me 2547 fps using the "new" Hodgdon-made IMR4895... 80 fps LESS!!!

On a hot (85�) day, the "old" IMR4895 yielded 2685 fps... an average of 20 shots. So temperature really made a differnce in muzzle velocty with IMR4895, but the "new" IMR4895 obviously yielded a MUCH lower muzzle velocity, so I went looking for a new powder to launch my hunting bullets (150 grain Nosler Ballistic Tip, boat-tailed bullet).

And so, two years ago, I worked up my current "hunting load" which is now 40.8 grains of Hodgdon H4895 powder which is one of Hodgdon's "EXTREME" powders and is claimed by Hodgon NOT to be effected by outside air temperature... and so, it should yield 2635 fps whether it's 85� or -10�.

On a coolish day (34�), 40.8 grains of H4895 (one tenth of a grain less than the listed MAXIMUM LOAD of 40.9 grains) behind the same 150 grain Nosler Ballistic Tip bullet sparked by the same standard Winchester primers in the same "accurized" Winchester cases yielded an average M.V. of 2635 fps with an amazing velocity deviation of just � 3 fps (+1 fps/-2 fps) and gave less than a minute of angle accuracy out of the 24-inch barrel of my 1953 Model 99 EG.

The above are the readings I got from actual shooting. I don't know if Hodgdon changed the IMR4895 or not (they claimed "not" in their email answer to my email inquiry) and IMR4895 is supposedly still made in the same Canadian factory it has been made in for many years when the former IMR owners controlled IMR powder manufacturing.

Why the "difference"? I dunno... but it IS "different" than it use to be. Loaded with IMR powder purchased in 1995, the chronographed muzzle velocity of 41.5 grains of IMR4895 using the same components as above yielded an average muzzle velocity of 2708 fps. The next can (2002) of IMR4895 was slower (2695 fps) and the next can (2004) even slower by a slight margin.

The next can (2006) was down to 2685 fps on an 85� day and, finally, the Hodgdon BOTTLE of IMR4895 dropped all the way down to 2547 fps!!! You TELL me "wot happened" 'cause I sure the heck don't know !~!~!

And so, in 2006, I went looking for another powder for my hunting loads in my "99". I tried 40.0 grains of IMR3031 which yielded 2665 fps, but always with one "flier" outta 3 shots. Then I tried H4895 and found my "new" hunting load.

A well-known gun writer who posts on this site (24-Hour Campfire) claims it was "just a difference in the production lot of IMR4895", but I purchased a 2nd. "bottle" of IMR4895 and it yielded just about the SAME MISERABLE muzzle velocity (2551 fps). And so, I concluded it WASN'T "the lot", but rather a change in the formulation of IMR4895.

You might try my "hunting load" (40.8 grains of H4895)... it works for me!

Jus' my 2�...


Strength & Honor...

Ron T.

this sounds like a perfect question for Rick99!!! Is every batch a little different? how do you control the quality of burn rate and such?

Yes... powder and primers vary from lot to lot. So if ya find a good shootin' pound of powder, you go back and buy up as many containers of it (the SAME lot) as you can afford... or as many as you feel necessary.

Same thing with primers... but a little less so with bullets... you can weigh those out and use only the ones that make up the majority of bullets weighing the same or close to the same amount.

But for hunting... weighing the bullets isn't all that important. It's NOT bench-rest shooting, don't cha know.

But if you're after maximum accuracy, that's what cha do.


Strength & Honor...

Ron T.