Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles .300 Win Mag - The one rifle battery

Many of us enjoy the .300's.. If I had stuck with a 30-06, I would have quit shooting a long time ago.. It is a good caliber, but much of my enjoyment comes from shooting lots of diff. calibers.. Spent the morning with my .243, 25-06, and .270.. All fine calibers, but they make me certain, if there is a chance for a fine buck or bull that may only give me a shot at longer range the .300 will be in my hands..
Most of the guys shooting .300's maybe would be better off with an 06.. But most 06 users I know don't shoot them much either..
So it does come to a matter of practice and enjoyment.. Later this week I plan a day at the range with my 7mm's and .300's..

Good points, but the ole '06 is just too boringly efficient, not the stuff that Loonies would be drooling over...

DF

I'm not a world traveled hunter. Mostly Texas, from one end to the other, up, down, and sideways. I have owned .300 magnums from Win., Wby., and H & H. The only thing I ever killed with one was my friends steel turkey cut out that was suspended with chains at 400 meters. I shot it full of holes. Wrong gun for that job.

The reason that I never killed game with one was weight. I would carry two guns and when the time came to hunt off my own two feet, a lighter piece was always chosen. From my bench work, I know the .300s to be superior, but I do not think I ever missed out on game by carrying a .30-06, and in later years a .308, both being lighter and handier than any factory issue .300 - going back some thirty or more years.

As I age, recoil is now an issue. About 6-8 months ago, I sold my last magnum. I do still have a 9.3x62, but I have no logical explanation as to why, other than to scratch an itch.

A do it all caliber? I have killed everything from armadillo to whitetails, and from coyote to heavy desert mule deer, and the occasional exotic with a .30-06 loaded with Hornaday's fast loaded 180s. I suspect that that a 7 Mauser would have worked as well, and with today's bullets, perhaps even a .243. Seems like it does not take as much gun for women, kids, and old farts to kill stuff as it takes for flat bellied studs. Hey, I did not notice this just last week. A huntress of my acquaintance showed me a few tricks, some of them with a .243, almost fifty years ago.

Use what you enjoy,

Jack

GETTING THE MOST OUT OF YOUR .30-06


by John Barsness

TODAY THE PRIMARY OBJECTIVE of most handloaders seems to be accuracy,
with muzzle velocity closely behind, though we still run into guys who claim to
get 100 or even 200 ft/sec more than most loading manuals suggest might be
realistic. In my experience these experimenters are often into hot cars as well
as hot handloads, but most of us recognize that if we want a .300 magnum we
should buy one, rather than attempt to turn our .30-06 into a .300 WSM.

The majority of us want fine accuracy with as much velocity as is safely
possible. Modern powders continue to improve performance, though
sometimes not quite as much as we'd like to believe. While some new powders
do provide higher muzzle velocities under "normal" conditions, they can lose
considerable velocity at cooler temperatures. (And exactly why "normal" means
about 70 degrees, the temperature of our climate-controlled living-rooms, I've
never been able to quite figure out. Do we hunt deer in our living-rooms?)

Though I own rifles chambered for centerfire cartridges ranging in powder
capacity from about 12 to 120 grains, and in calibers from .20 to .45, I am an
unabashed admirer of the .30-06 Springfield. In fact 10% of my centerfires are
chambered for the .30-06. This isn't because I don't like smaller and larger
.30's; another 20% of my rifles are chambered for .30 caliber cartridges
ranging from the .30-30 Winchester to the .300 Weatherby Magnum.
(Obviously I haven't fallen for the modern suggestion that 7mm is the perfect
all-around bullet diameter for big game hunting - though I own exactly as
many 7mm rifles as .300 magnums.)

But the .30-06 always seemed just about right, even before my first game
animal. This was because the gun writers of the early 1960's, including Jack
O'Connor, told me so. I spent my paper route money not just on .22 ammo
but a subscription to Outdoor Life and an annual copy of Gun Digest, and so
knew an awful lot about big game rifles long before taking my first deer.

Since then I have actually used the .30-06, buying my first at age 20, a
"sporterized" Model 1917 Enfield that I turned into a real sporter, partly by
grinding the rear sight "ears" from the action and drilling and tapping it for
scope bases. This rifle shot pretty well, but I soon acquired yet another .30-
06, a used Remington 760 that the brother of a friend had to sell cheap.

Since then I've owned at least 20 more '06's, including several 1903 Springfields
(one a Sedgely sporter), a couple of pre-'64 Model 70 Winchesters, several 98
Mausers, a T/C Encore, a Browning BAR and a Sauer drilling. Last fall I took the
biggest bull elk of my life with a Benelli autoloader in .30-06, using 180-grain
Federal Tipped Trophy Bonded ammunition, while filming a TV show, about as
modern a rifle and load as can be found. In fact I've owned or hunted with a
.30-06 in every type of rifle action except the lever, and might have to correct
that.

For many years I'd taken more big game animals with the .30-06 than any other
cartridge, though recently the .270 Winchester edged it out slightly. I still have
taken a much wider variety of game with the .30-06 than any other round,
ranging from American pronghorn and African springbok to elk and kudu, on
three continents. It works.

Over the decades I've experimented constantly with various handloads, so know
how to make a .30-06 shoot both accurately and with reasonable zip. The
loads that follow have worked not just in one rifle but several. They may not
work in your .30-06, and may have to be adjusted slightly due to differences in
chambers and bores - but the odds are they will work pretty darn well.

Let me start by saying that if you have been loading your .30-06 with IMR4350
and any bullet weight from 150 to 220 grains for many years, then you might
as well go ahead and keep using the same load. That powder still works for
anything worth doing with a .30-06. What follows is for rifle loonies only.

150-grain bullets:

I am not crazy about using bullets under 150 grains in the .30-06. Yeah, some
modern 130-grain bullets will penetrate elk reliably, but I was born and raised
and live in the West, and have hunted too many other windy places to be
impressed with high muzzle velocity that sacrifices wind-bucking ability. So
the list starts at 150.

As noted, IMR4350 is a fine powder with 150-grain bullets, and a safe one too,
since you just about can't pile too much into a .30-06 case to be dangerous.
But in recent years Ramshot Big Game with 150's has proven itself a little
better. Not only is Big Game less cold-sensitive than IMR4350 (not a bad thing
when hunting in a typical Montana November) but accuracy and muzzle
velocity tend to be just a bit better. It also meters a heck of lot easier than
IMR4350, which really doesn't meter at all but ka-chunks its way through a
powder measure.

Nosler's latest Reloading Guide 6 lists Big Game as the fastest powder for 150-
155 grain bullets. I tend to trust Nosler's numbers a little more than those of
some other manuals, because they actually report the muzzle velocities from
their pressure barrels, rather than working up loads in a pressure barrel and
then shooting them for velocity in a sporter barrel, or rounding them off to the
nearest 100 ft/sec.

Nosler's muzzle velocity for their top charge of 58.0 grains is 3056 ft/sec, while
Ramshot's own top load is 57.5 grains for a muzzle velocity of 2932 ft/sec. My
own experience is that 3000 ft/sec is easily reachable in a 24" barrel,
sometimes with less powder. A lot depends on the bullet. I first tried Big
Game with 150's using Swift Sciroccos, a rather "sticky" bullet, and got 3059
ft/sec with 54.0 grains from the 24" barrel of my New Ultra Light Arms Model
24, with fine accuracy. With 56.0 grains ejector-hole marks appeared on the
case heads.

This proved to be a deadly deer load, but also serves to remind us that today
that various bullets create widely different pressures, so we can't blithely
substitute one company's 150-grain data for use with another company's 150-
grain bullet. Start with around 53 grains of Big Game, just to make sure, and
watch the chronograph carefully. Often a magnum primer will help accuracy
when using any Ramshot rifle powder.

165-grain bullets:

Here's where good old IMR4350 really shines. For decades my standard load
with 165's was 58.5 grains. The extra half-grain may have been superfluous,
but did seem to result in better accuracy in more than one rifle than "just" 58.0
grains. Muzzle velocity was around 2900 ft/sec, and this load killed a pile of
big game, first with Sierra GameKings, and then with Nosler Solid Bases and
Partitions, long before we had today's vast array of "premium" bullets to
choose from. In fact, I would still be happy to hunt any game in Montana with
a 165 Partition and 58.5 grains of IMR4350.

(By the way, you won't find this load in any manuals, because .30-06 data is
kept to 60,000 psi instead of the slightly higher levels afforded more "modern"
cartridges. But a few years ago I loaded up some 165 Partitions with 58.5
IMR4350 in Federal and had Ramshot's pressure lab run them through their
piezo barrel. The average pressure for 10 rounds was 58,348 psi, with very
low standard deviation, so the load was entirely safe even by SAAMI standards
- and with the Federal 215 primer, which tends to raise pressures slightly over
standard primers.)

These days, however, I am far more likely to load 59.0 grains of Hodgdon's
H4350SC, and for the same reasons I load Big Game instead of IMR4350 with
150-grain bullets: H4350SC meters a lot easier and is far less cold-sensitive.
In fact in tests at around 0�F it didn't lose any velocity at all from 70-degree
levels, while IMR4350 often loses 100 ft/sec or more. The loss of velocity isn't
as important as the changes in point of impact that often occur. H4350SC also
tends to be a little slower than IMR4350, though this isn't always true from lot
to lot, so again watch that chronograph.

180-grain bullets:

For decades I bounced back and forth between IMR4350, Hodgdon H4831 and
Alliant Reloder 19 when loading 180's in the .30-06. All worked pretty well,
but none stood out so much across several rifles that I could pick one load and
stick to it. Then, a few years ago, I tried Ramshot's new Hunter powder with
180's. The first experiments took place in my old NULA with Barnes then-new
Triple Shock X-Bullets. Eventually I worked up to 58.0 grains. Accuracy was
very fine and muzzle velocity was right around 2800 ft/sec.

I have since tried this load with different 180's in several .30-06's, including my
Sauer drilling. Accuracy has been universally very good, and in 24" barrels
velocity around 2800 or even higher. Ramshot's own data goes up to 60
grains (with Hornady BTSP Interlocks) but I have never found any reason to go
beyond 58.0 grains. The load has worked not only in the NULA and Sauer but
in the .30-06 barrel for my T/C Encore and a fine pre-'64 Model 70
Winchester. In the Model 70 (with no changes other than adjusting the trigger
and making sure all the screws were tight, including the forend screw) the load
grouped around .5" with Sierra GameKings and .8" with Nosler Partitions at 100
yards.

In fact, when I went to New Zealand in early 2007 to test Berger VLD's on wild
goats and big red stags, I immediately loaded up 58.0 grains of Hunter behind
some 185 VLD's, and got 100-yard groups of .4" at 100 yards, with a muzzle
velocity of 2862 ft/sec. Combined with the very high ballistic coefficient of the
VLD's, this made shooting at long range very easy in the New Zealand
mountains. So now I do have a 180-grain .30-06 load that works in several
rifles.

200-grain bullets:

Today I don't think there's a real need for anything bigger than a 180-grain
bullet in the .30-06, but when I started using one in the 1970's I often hunted
elk and mule deer in the steep, thickly-timbered Montana mountains near the
Idaho Panhandle. Shots could come at any angle, but a lot of range or velocity
wasn't required. I tried some of the old "semi-spitzer" 200-grain Nosler
Partitions (the ones with the relief groove around the middle) in my first
Springfield sporter and found that 58.0 grains of the original military-surplus
H4831 shot acceptably (especially for an ancient rifle with a 3x Weaver) at just
over 2600 ft/sec.

This load worked very well, so even when I "modernized" with a Ruger 77, a
Bushnell 4x and Nosler's extruded-jacket 200-grain spitzer Partition, I tried
H4831 again, this time the newly-manufactured version, eventually working up
to 59.0 grains for about 2650 ft/sec. The new powder was a little hotter, but
the load worked just as well as the old one. Eventually this load was used in a
bunch of .30-06's, anytime the game was relatively large and the ranges
relatively modest - though with the spitzer bullet it shoots as flat as a factory
180-grain load.

For a few years I used the Ruger 77 for all my big game hunting, using either a
"deer" load with the 165-grain Nosler Solid base or an "elk" load with the 200
Partition. They shot to the same place at 100 yards, and the only difference in
appearance between the rounds was that the 165's were loaded in Remington
brass and the 200's in Winchesters, just so I could tell them apart.

However, that didn't always work. Once while pronghorn hunting I ended up
with the 200's. I didn't realize it, though, until after shooting an antelope at
about 250 yards - and the 200 worked just fine. In fact this load is still so
reliable that I occasionally use it again on some wild and tasty beast. And why
not? One of its virtues is that it doesn't shoot up a lot of meat.

I have shot some 220- and even 240-grain bullets from the .30-06, the last
Woodleighs, usually with H4831. They have grouped fine, but I am not real
sure about what they're good for, since I have never had any problems with
.30-06 bullets penetrating big game with lighter spitzers. Maybe if I were
using a .30-06 when guiding brown bear clients, as Phil Shoemaker has done, I
might pick one of the real heavyweights - though Phil mostly used 200
Partitions, as I recall.

The newest spitzers will work both near and far, and on the biggest game. I
have shot enough 165-grain Barnes TSX's and 180-grain Nosler E-Tips into
big game now to know that they work very well on game larger than deer, and
that if they don't seem quite big enough I should probably be carrying
something like a .375 or maybe even a .416. Heck, even at the modern muzzle
velocity of 2800 ft/sec a 180 Sierra GameKing works just fine for most
hunting, including elk. That's still one of the virtues of the .30-06. Though
modern powders and bullets allow it to compete with far more modern rounds,
it still works quite well with standard lead-core bullets, a real virtue if you're
traveling and get separated from your cutting-edge handloads.

When I was stationed in Camp Pendleton around early 1997, I got there as a PFC and immediately figured there must have been deer in the hills around the base.. So, I found a decent deal my little paycheck could muster and bought a M77 MKII 300 Win Mag in Stainless and Laminate. I put a VXII 3x9 on top and got a couple boxes of Winchester Supreme 180 BT's (couldn't handload in the barracks). I took it out to the desert, zero'ed it at 250 yards and had a BLAST come Fall. It straight knocked them little muley's around I enjoyed shooting that rifle a whole lot.

I then used it to hunt elk and muley, along with a couple black bear. Used the rifle pretty steady for about 5 years till the loonie'ism took hold and I found out I needed 15 other rifles.

I ended up selling that rifle to a good friend who was heading to Wyoming on his first muley and elk hunt. By then I had a bunch of great loads with the 180 PT's and I ran a nice load that went 3050 with RL22. I loaded him up 50 of them and he went on to commence killing a couple of elk, muley's and WT's since. It's the only Ruger I ever wished I could have had back. I didn't like the weight of the laminate, but I wasn't smart enough to know I could have put it into a good McMillan still been happy.

I am currently devoid of a 300 magnum. Had a 300 Wby for a bit, a 300 WSM for awhile and I think the next one will be a Winchester again. It does alot of stuff really well as everyone has mentioned. Maybe not a Wby, but a solid 300 magnum.

This is one of the Idaho Muleys that I took with the old 300..



Makes me miss it even more when I look at that picture!

Beautiful country. I'm sure you have great memories. Semper Fi!

The 300 Win will sure do it all, and ESPECIALLY in the contiguous 48, but being a LITTLE bit of a specialist and Rifle Looney with small R and L nowadays, I have narrowed my big game rifles down to three. 257WBY for everything up to about 400lbs except bears, 340 Tyrannosaur (Sort of an AI'ed 340WBY) for stuff from there including black bears and on up to the really big stuff of Alaska and Africa, then my nice 416 Rigby for Brown Bear, Ele, Cape Buff etc.

Works for me, but I could sure do a lot of hunting and put a lot of hurt on this continent with any of the big 30 cal's.

Beretz,

That is a GREAT photo! Nice buck, terrific panorama around it. I hope you print it in 8.5x11 format, frame it and display it.

And yes, that looks like a really fine 300 WinMag there. Great combo all around.

Dammit Scotty, makes me want to scrounge up the stainless Ruger 77 mkII at my dads and put it to good use. He keeps asking me when I'm going to take it home. I've been using my 300 WSM a lot lately and enjoying the heck out of it...Plenty flat shooting and doesn't recoil as much as the old winny..

I'm telling you BSA, I'm a Winchester nut through and through but that old Ruger was a great rifle. I'd buy another Ruger and make it right this time around.

Thanks for the comments fellas.

bsa1917, what are your favorite loads for the .300 wsm???? Just tried one.. About 70 gr. of Re22 and Sierra 165 HPBT shoots excellent.. Tried the same load with Accubonds, and had about 1 3/4 inch group.. For most of my hunting the Sierra will be fine..

My 300 wsm's have all loved H4350 powder with 165's and 180's. Here is a group I shot with one of my 300 wsm's that I sold to gunnut308 a while back:



Here's the same load that I double checked prior to my 2011 mule deer hunt. This is another 10 shot group, but was shot in a little wind. I took my buck at 600 lrf yards that year:


Same load at 160 yards:


My new 300 WSM isn't as accurate as the older FN pbr, but it's a lot lighter. Here is a 180gr. Nosler partition load I use with the H4350 powder:





However, lately I've been using a lot of IMR 4350 in my rifles (270 win, 30-06, 300 WSM, 338 win.. etc. etc...) since it's been easier to find:

BSA, many thanks.. That is a beautiful model 70.. I got a super grade, with fair wood, nothing like yours.. I am a sucker for nice wood.. anyway, I haven't shot any 10 shot groups, but the groups I have fired have been excellent for a new factory rifle..
I use I4350 because that is what I started with in the 60's.. If I ever resupply, it will be with H4350.. But have a ways to go before that happens.. again thanks.. This caliber seems to be very accurate..

Great shooting BSA. I never ran H or IMR4350, but maybe I should have, that is great shooting buddy.

I am 300 magnum vacant at this time, matter of fact, I have no real big 30's, other than my 30WCF and 300 Savage.

I am always keeping my eye out for another though.

beretzs. the .30 wcf and.300 Savage are nice rifles, but a guy is lost with out a big .30.

You aren't kidding about that. First time in my young life (36) that I have been without a bigger 30 caliber rifle. I have it covered decent on each side with a 7mm WSM and Rem Mag and the 338 Win and 35 Newton on the other side..

Still doesn't stop the want though.....

beretz,

If you happen to be left handed, I have a wonderful, beautiful WBY Mk V Deluxe in 300WBY for sale.

PM me if you are a lefty, and I will make it easy for you to won this rifle. MAgNaPorted,, Canjar trigger, other goodies incl.

Whether this one or another, IMO every rifle battery needs at least one big 30 or superfast 338.

Scotty, I suspect with 7mm and 338 mags you'll not really miss the 300 mags!

Just had a good morning with my 338WM. Came up with a real nice pig/deer load: 58g of AR2206H (H4895) putting 5 shots under 1.5 inches at 120y which is what my range is set up at.

Making a little over 2800fps and shooting to the same POI at 120y as the 250g Interlock load which is doing about 2750.

All good.

That's awesome Bob! Just about any decent 338 bullet will work for you! Can't wait to see pictures!

Safariman, I am not left handed but thank you for the offer.

Safariman, I'm left handed. Wish I had the extra jingle. Oh well.


The thing I like about the .300's are that the guys I know of that run them do so with the 180's. Even though they're running cup and cores they seem to kill their Bears. The 7mm Mag crowd always seems to be running 150 C n C's and when they shoot their bear in the shoulder (everybody in PA seems to shoot for the bears shoulder) they don't seem to find them. I've seen this a number of times. I just got a big 7 and I probably won't get setup to reload for it before hunting season so I bought the 175 grain C n C's.