Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles 300 H&H

Anyone have any info on this caliber I was thinking of a 338-06 but now steering towards the 300 H&H. I was thinking of getting a barreled action with a Shilen barrel and a muzzle break

A classic cartridge for sure!
If you send Ingwe a PM I bet he can help.

The .300 Holland and Holland magnum is an old cartridge that while popular in print has never sold that well in the real world.

There is nothing special about it except for the H&H aura.

Some praise it for instance because "it feeds so well". Heck, almost all cartridges feed well!

In the real world it requires a special long action, ammo is almost impossible to find and if you hand load it the brass does not last as long due to the extreme body taper and belt/headspace.

Of course if you must have one then do. Thats the fun of guns.

Easier to find cartridges that do about the same are the .300 Win. Mag. and the .300 WSM.

The .300 H&H is skookum for shure, but requires a longer action on some models, and a longer mag box on almost all of them. The caliber does not belong to have a muzzle break on it....kinda like worm fishing with a fly rod...

Think 280 thank me later! It's the best taint cartridge there is BTW.. you know it taint 270 or aught 6

.280s are great, and you can put a brake on them without ridicule....

I totally agree.....If he wants a muzzle break then he should be looking at a newer cartridge like the RUM....Just sayin...The H&H is too classy for such acts....

The H&H is a sweet round, if you have a Magnum length action, it would be pretty sweet. Love the looks of the H&H..

so maybe 300 win mag then lol unless a 7mm mag will give me a big boost up from a 270 wsm

What exactly are you needing it for? Long range hunting/target shooting? Give us a little more detail on its purpose...

THE .300 HOLLAND AND HOLLAND MAGNUM

The American shooting public�s opinion of the .300 Holland and Holland Magnum is firmly ambivalent.
On the one hand we have the modernists, who claim the case of the .300 H&H is prone to head separations after a few firings. It�s also �inefficient,� since the same ballistics can now be achieved by short, fat rounds. (Shooting is now the one area of human existence where short and fat is a real virtue). The cartridge�s length is apparently too much for many 21st-century hunters, who grow arm-weary working the bolt. The case also wears one of those pesky belts, which were summarily outlawed in 2000 A.D., partly for being �useless� and partly because they prevent smooth feeding from a bolt-action magazine. Last but not least, ammunition can be hard to find, making the .300 H&H a doubtful choice for the traveling hunter.
On the other hand we have the traditionalists. They know the belt is necessary to control headspace, due to the tapered case that makes the .300 H&H case the slickest-feeding .30 caliber magnum ever designed. And so what if it�s long? Many newer .300�s are just as long, including the beltless .300 Remington Ultra Magnum. If a handloader knows what he�s doing, .300 H&H cases can be reloaded several times without stretching too much, and with modern powders the ancient case produces modern ballistics. Ammunition may be scarce in America, but not in Africa, where the traveling hunter is most likely to need a box or two of factory ammo.
Apparently there are enough traditionalists to prevent the .300 H&H from being dead and buried. All three major American ammunition manufacturers still produce factory loads, and in 2010 Ruger started making their No. 1 single-shot in .300 H&H. Also, the price of older factory rifles in .300 H&H keeps climbing, whether the rifle is a legendary pre-�64 Winchester Model 70 or a plain-as-a-stump Remington Model 721,
The biggest reason for this slight comeback, however, has nothing to do with any technical edge. Instead, the main virtue of the .300 H&H is that it�s old enough to be perceived as retro-cool. This is especially important to aging hunters who long ago ceased to be cool in any other way. They can even gain �extra cool� by calling the round by its original Holland and Holland name, the Super-Thirty.
Here it must be admitted that �aging hunters� describes the demographic of our sport. Despite some young blood, hunters as a group are older than the overall population. This causes much public hand-wringing, but in reality it doesn�t matter as much as some doom-sayers would have us believe, partly because older hunters tend to spend more money on their sport�one reason for the .300 H&H�s minor comeback.
While to a few handloaders muzzle velocity is everything, many aging hunters begin to realize that faster isn�t always better, especially when a certain recoil level is reached. The truth is that the .300 H&H�s ballistics match those of the .300 Winchester Short Magnum, the round that became the darling of ultra-modern hunters partly because it kicks less than other .300 magnums.
Of course, the reason the .300 WSM supposedly recoils more gently is that its short, fat case burns powder more efficiently, also resulting in finer accuracy. Hmm. A few years ago my friend Charlie Sisk, the well-known custom riflesmith from Texas, built a heavy-barreled .300 H&H and shot the rifle with half-a-dozen handloads in his indoor range. He then rechambered the same barrel for the .300 WSM and tried the same powders and bullets. Muzzle velocities and strain-gauge pressures were carefully recorded. Guess what? The results turned out to be practically identical in every way, despite the extreme differences in case shape. (These velocity and accuracy results were reported in Handloader a few years ago, but are included here so you don�t have to look �em up again.) The reason for this coincidence is simple: The powder capacity of both cases is practically identical.
So it took America 80 years to come up with essentially the same cartridge the British invented in 1920. Of course, the .300 WSM fits into a much lighter, handier rifle. Or does it? For a while I owned one of the new �South Carolina� Winchester Model 70�s, a .300 WSM with a walnut stock. It was indeed fairly light and handy for a .300 magnum, weighing 8.25 pounds with a 4x Leupold in Talley Lightweight mounts.
More recently, however, I purchased a pre-�64 Model 70 in .300 H&H off the Internet, partly because the price was too low to pass up, unlike gun show prices for pre-�64 .300 H&H�s, which seem to be keeping pace with the price of gold. Based on previous pre-�64 experience, I expected the scoped rifle to weigh over nine pounds, due to the 26� barrel. Imagine my surprise when, after mounting a 6x36 Leupold in Talley lightweights, the entire rifle weighed 8.5 pounds on an accurate electronic scale.
The 4-ounce difference between the two rifles is just about exactly the difference between the two scopes, plus the 2-inch longer barrel and iron sights on the pre-�64. Evidently Model 70�s haven�t changed all that much since 1955, when my .300 H&H left the Winchester factory in New Haven, even the newer short-action rifles.
The Sisk experiment also provided some basic handloading information. Not many powder and bullet companies bother with working up new handloading data for the .300 H&H anymore. Hodgdon�s data, for instance, is pretty much limited to a handful of older powders, and Ramshot doesn�t list any .300 H&H data at all. But these days we can cheat a little by stealing the abundant data for the .300 WSM. This is how the loads with the newer powders Ramshot Hunter and Alliant Reloder 17 were worked up.
A new Ruger No. 1 was also used in the test, purchased from Capital Sports & Western Wear in Helena, Montana, at just about the same time as the old Model 70. (This suggests that the owner of both rifles may be trying to recoup some lost cool.) At first the No. 1 strung its shots up and down anywhere from 2-4 inches. This used to be a common failing of No. 1�s, but has become relatively rare since Ruger started making their own hammer-forged barrels about 20 years ago, but in my experience it�s easy to fix.
The forend of No. 1�s is designed to apply tip-pressure to the barrel, a bedding method also common to many factory bolt-action rifles. The �tip hump� in the forend doesn�t always fit the barrel perfectly, so the front of the forend hops around slightly with each shot. Also, the rear of the forend often places some pressure on the front of the No. 1�s action.
When combined, these two bedding faults can cause erratic, vertical stringing, but a small file will quickly relieve any action-pressure at the rear of the stock, and a tiny bit of epoxy on the tip-hump will stabilize the front of the forend. This treatment settled the No. 1 .300 H&H right down.
Like the Model 70, the No. 1 has a 26� barrel. This used to be the traditional length for .300 H&H rifles and is still a good one, especially if getting 3000 fps with a 180-grain bullet is important to our state of mind. Some hunters claim that anything less means we might we might as well be shooting a .30-06. (Plus, as my old friend Stu Carty once exclaimed, �I love all those zeroes!�) The two previous .300 H&H rifles I�d fooled with had 23-inch and 24-inch barrels; 3000 fps could only be achieved with certain powders, and then just barely.
Many shooters, however, don�t like longer barrels. Personally, I�ve always found this a little odd, partly because much of my hunting is done in the wide-open West, but partly because I once followed up a fatally-hit but stubborn water buffalo in thornbush so thick that the bull couldn�t be seen until it was only 17 yards away. The rifle was a bolt-action .416 Rigby with a 25-inch barrel, and the brush never �caught� the barrel, not once. It must also be pointed out that a 26� barrel on a Ruger No. 1 results in an overall rifle length of 42 inches, about the same as a bolt-action .300 magnum with a 22� barrel.
Most of my handloading and hunting with various .300 magnums has involved 180-grain bullets. Many years ago I followed the conventional wisdom and used 150-grain bullets on smaller animals, but the fast little bullets shot up a lot of fine meat, even if stoutly constructed. Since then I�ve used 180�s even on American pronghorn and African springbok. Astonishingly, all the animals still died quickly, with less meat loss. But more zip makes some hunters happy, so data for lighter bullets is also included, as well as data for 200 and 220-grain bullets, for those who plan to hunt brown bears or mid-sized whales.
Finding cases can be a little difficult these days. Both Remington and Winchester only make it occasionally, but Hornady, Norma and Nosler also offer .300 H&H brass, and a check of the MidwayUSA website found all three on hand. I had a bunch of once-fired Winchester brass on hand that fit perfectly in the Ruger No. 1�s chamber, but was a little snug in the Winchester�s chamber even after full-length sizing, so some new Nosler brass was obtained for the Model 70.
Nosler brass isn�t cheap, since it�s primarily made for the handloader who has more money than time. The case mouths are already chamfered, and the brass comes in well-padded boxes that prevent the case-mouth deformation common in other bulk brass. I checked the necks of a 25-round box on my RCBS Casemaster, and none varied more than .001 inch in thickness. Case weights were similarly matched. This is really good brass, and ready to be loaded right out of the box.
Fired cases were sized just enough to re-enter each chamber fairly easily, and none ever showed even a hint of starting to separate. Apparently the 8.5-degree �shoulder� on the case is enough to prevent excessive stretching, given a little care in sizing. (The .300�s shoulder is much gentler than the 15-degree shoulder on the .300�s parent case, the .375 H&H, which is something of a mystery.)
The Model 70�s stock had a deteriorating Pachmayr ventilated recoil pad, which was replaced with a 1-inch-thick Pachmayr Decelerator. The Ruger No. 1 came with a soft half-inch factory pad, and the rifle weighs an ounce under nine pounds with a 4x Leupold. The recoil of both rifles is noticeable but not obnoxious, as it can be with faster .300 magnums such as the .300 Weatherby and .300 RUM. (Oddly enough, the kick seems just about identical to that of an average .300 WSM!)
Most of the loads tested were selected through a �literature search.� Some of today�s loading data not only lists muzzle velocities and pressure, but notes which powders resulted in the finest accuracy. Some of the powders were chosen for high velocity, others because a manual suggested that powder was more accurate.
The accuracy suggestions didn�t always work out. The latest Barnes manual lists IMR4895 powder as the most accurate with 130-grain bullets in their tests, but in my pair of rifles it shot the worst of any load. It must be noted, however, that in each rifle the groups with the Tipped TSX showed fliers rather than a general scattering. Barnes TSX�s are often respond well to small changes in seating depth, so some experimentation would probably result in good accuracy. (Interestingly, the throats of the two rifles were almost identical in length, so all bullets were seated the same distance from the lands.)
One of the real successes in the experiments was good old IMR4350. I have heard but can�t confirm that this powder was at least partially developed for the .300 H&H when it appeared in 1940. If so, the DuPont chemists did a good job. One of the interesting things about the Sisk experiment is that Ramshot Hunter proved the most accurate in that barrel, whether it was chambered for the .300 H&H or .300 WSM, which suggests (but doesn�t prove) that powder preferences may be related to the harmonics of a particular barrel.
The powder tried with 220-grain bullets, Accurate 3100, resulted in faster velocities with than H4831SC obtained in the 200-grain load. This may be as much due to the bullet as the powder. The 220-grain Hornady round-nose has a very short bearing surface, much shorter than that of the very long 200-grain Nosler AccuBond. If you decide that 220s are absolutely necessary in your .300 H&H, loading any other bullet (say the 220-grain Nosler Partition) will no doubt increase pressures, so please heed the ancient advice and start a few grains below the suggested loads.
The results certainly prove that our oldest .300 magnum is still a very fine hunting cartridge. If you have a desire for a .300 H&H, there�s no reason not to take advantage of its cool factor. Modern powders and bullets have made it an even better all-around hunting round than it was almost a century ago.

The best thing you could do with a .280 is trade it for a worthwhile caliber..and one of the neatest is the old .300 H & H.. I have owned several...as far a s a "special" long action...you have to round up a really rare 700 magnum action..you will probably have to look long and hard to find one, but they are out there..mine have all had 26 inch barrels. I mine have all shot very well..my current on is an new Ruger #1..I remember when I was a young man I heard the old O'Connor tale that there was little difference between a .300 H & H and and 06..I mentioned this to one of my older pals...He was a Camp Perry shooter and one of the two best rifle shots I have known in well over 50 years of shooting...he told me there is quite a bite of difference between the two..as I found out later..This is one old caliber that is enjoyable to own and use..and not everyone has one...

Friends don't let friends put a muzzle brake on a .300H&H That is like chambering a Weatherby for a RUM...

I figured if 700 actions could chmaber the 300 rum then they would be long enough for the H&H

Yesterday, I put some rounds through my Rem 721 in .300 H&H to fine tune a load. They were loaded with 180 Nosler Partitions and H4350 and didn't break a sweat getting just over 2900 fps (26" barrel). I've mentioned here before but it was made in the month I was born (July,'50) so apparently I'm one of those "aging hunters" looking for some "retro cool" that JB mentions in his article. Hopefully I'll get to use it on a bull in Colorado this October.

P.S. four three shot groups in less than an inch at 100 yds

Very nice navlav8r......The pre 64 model 70 300 H&H that I shot last summer was that accurate as well...It fed like a hot knife through butter too (Kind of like my std wt 06 does)....

I just want it for s&g's really

navlav8r, what was your charge of H4350? Just bought a M700 Classic and looking for a load suggestion to start with.

Man, you have to be happy about that. That is some serious elk medicine right there!