Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles 300 WM vs. 300 WSM ?

Tough to top the 300 Winchester mag.

Quickload is giving far too many armchair QBs some odd sense of credibility.Wanna be cool? Get setup for Piezo and come back with some data.
The 300 Win. Mag has more capacity, fast or slow long or short bullets. Doesn't matter.
I like and have owned both, the .300 Long Winchester has the tip of the hat as it can do everything the WSM can do, but faster when both are loaded to the same pressure.

Nowadays I do prefer the .300 Winchester Magnum.

I have loaded for and shot .300RUM, .300 Bee, .300Win., ,300H&H and .308Norma, by far my favourite and second only to the truly outstanding .308Win. as my favourite .308" diameter round.

I have never even fired a .300WSM and doubt that I ever shall, I think that the "Wizzums" are 99% marketing and not actually ANY better than literally scores of well-established cartridges.

As to "short" actions, bleh, I have two VERY "custom" U/L short actioned rifles, a .308Win and a 7-08 and for the thousands of $$$$ these cost me, built by BC's top gunmakers, my old HVA custom .280 Rem, Krieger/Bansner/Timney/ is MAYBE 8 oz, heavier and actually gives more performance as the .300Win does over the .300 Wizzum.

So, for ME, I just do not see ANY reason to go with it over the popular .300Winny and with a 200-NP, my favourite 300 maggie bullet, the Wizzum ain't the hoss that the Winny is and never can be.

YMMV, I actually prefer .338s, anyway!

Couldn't have said that any better. Good post..

Dewey,

One of the interesting things about all this is the .300 WSM has exactly the same poowder capacity as the .300 H&H--and hence is capable of exactly the same ballistics. It took so-called civilization 80 years to shorten the .300 H&H enough to fit in an action about 1/2" shorter.

I like the 'so-called' civilization..... there is nothing civilized about shooting a .300 Mag without an H&H in its name....

Savage 99, you're implying you cut that case in half yourself..

Why is that very same picture on this website? Larrywillis.com

Go to Larrywillis .com and look under headspace.

Typical internet fantasy....

Ohhh, snap. That guy has a perma-douche stamped on his forehead now.
Or he is Larry Willis.

Grab two cats of equil size ducttape thear tails together and a close line in there while your at it. Crap! The OP Was how to siffer this from that when thear are so few. Parden me but I must step out at this point.grin

Veri wel sed

Agreed:

According to Denton (Bramwell) & Mule Deer - the Pressure Trace system is for all practical purposes equal AND much cheaper than Piezo equipment.

It doesn't break the bank to use P T.

Ok, now I have to look into Pressure Trace. Dang it.

Greater powder capacity = higher velocity potential. That's clearly a fact.

But, just because the 300 WM can hold more powder than the 300 WSM, does that necessarily make it the better round? The 300 WSM, in turn, holds more powder than the 30-06. Does that then automatically make it "better" than the '06?

Comparisons like these seem somewhat meaningless to me. Both the 300 WM and the 300 WSM are excellent rounds, IMO (as is the 30-06). We're fortunate to have these kinds of choices from which to pick.

As others have said, choose either one of them in the platform that best suits you and never look back.

I have had both, love the regular 300 Win Mag, but right now, I have a 300WSM which is probably about 95% of the longer 300 Win Mag. I run mine is a little Featherweight and like the rifle package more than I care about the difference. Can't beat the extra powder capacity of the 300 Win Mag. The only part I see the WSM making up any headroom is Winchesters box mag allows you to seat the longer bullets out to around 3.1" in there mags, which nets quite alot of powder space, while alot of the Win Mag's are restricted to about 3.4" or so. Not all, but my old Ruger didn't have a whole lotta space to play with when working with 200's. Not a huge game changer, but it lets the WSM sneak up on the 300 Win Mag a little, at least in my case.

Has Savage 99 come back and explained the "hi-jacked" photo yet?

Exactly! There is nothing magical or sinister about either - pick one that fits your needs and don't look back. (If I could just heed my own advice I'd be waaayyyy ahead!! haha)

you know his MO, we won't see him on this thread again, and if we do, he will completely ignore all the FACTS already presented.

I don't have a ton of experience reloading but I've had good luck with three Win Mags.

I'm getting 2950 fps with the 200gr NAB from my new 300 Win Mag using 83.0 gr of Ramshot Magnum. Rifle is a Salvage 116 FHSS, 24" barrel.

The Savage replaced my Tikka in 300 Win that got 2925 fps using 81.5gr of the same powder, 24" barrel. The Tikka shot under 1-moa out to 400+ yards, 3-shot groups.

The Savage is new, so I've only had two range sessions with it. Worked up the load at 100 yards on Saturday. On Sunday I tested it at 200 yards. Got 3-shots under 1.6" at 200 yards. Good enough for now. I hope it does as well as the Tikka at 500 yards. We'll see on Monday, but my new 375 Ruger and 270 BAR are giving me fits so the 300 might get neglected.

I've only had one 300 WSM, a Tikka. I didn't reload when I had it, but it shot lights-out with inexpensive 180gr Federal and premium 180gr Remington ammo. IIRC, it was getting 2900 fps for those 180gr factory loads.

Almost forgot...

Ramshot recommends 75.2 - 83.5gr of Magnum powder for the 300 Win Mag using the 200gr Nosler Accubond. Got this from the ballistician.

I don't think this was mentioned, but for Salvage fans the WSM only holds 2 rounds vs 3 for the 300 Win. May not matter to some people, but thought I'd mention it.

Jason