Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters .300 WBY vs. .300 Win. - Realistic Expectations

To me a lot depends on the individual rifle, how it performs, fits and carries in the field. A gun one is comfortable with and can shoot well is more critical than the particular round.

I'm assuming rounds within a similar performance range, suitable for the game animal being hunted.

DF

This is certainly true in my case

Amen brother!! That's why I keep a couple of rifles that, by today's standards, are "too heavy". But their performance in the field, and that includes handling, balance, how they fit me and how comfortable they feel to me in various field shooting positions, all combine to make me more confident and therefore more deadly.

Yep!

Call me 'old school',
or
Call me 'OLD', it ain't 'magnum' without a belt.

Having had loaded a bit for a 23 inch 300 and a 24 inch 300 wby I found a little less than 100fps difference but never found the urge to load either full throttle. Very happy with a 180 at an easy 3030 and 3100 with R17.

Very little difference, performance wise, and I load for both.....

you might be surprised About a month ago I help a friend load for his 30-378 accumark 200gr LRX at like 3260 had less felt recoil than my ultralite .308 with 165's at 2740

The brake makes a big difference.

A friend and I just built a pair of 26 Noslers on a pair of shot out 700 BDL 7RM's. These guns are over nine pounds all up.

They kick about like a 7RM, 140 NAB's at 3,300 fps. I have a light weight Ed Brown Damara .300 WM that may push 8#'s all up with Conquest 3-9x40 in Steel Talley rings. Shooting 180 NAB's at 3,050 fps, it kicks less than the 26 Noslers. It has a brake, they don't.

DF

Yes , but I wouldn't want to shoot it without ear plugs of some kind !!

For sure...

I wear professionally fitted ear plugs AND ear muff protectors with my .300 WM with a brake. A member of my deer hunting club has a .30-378, his son has a .300 RUM. The bench is under a metal roof. Even with full hearing protection, you can feel the concussion when one of those cannons goes off.

DF

the 30-378 is a damn fire breather.My accumark aint too bad recoil wise, but the blast will rattle your brain,I dont use it much anymore,but i do have high praise for that cart,even tho it burns up 115gr of scarce powder per shot...\

Still wish Roy would have done a 2.5" 378 based beltless (or not,dont matter) 6.5-30cal, much like Dakota attempted.

Seems the 6.5 has come into its own more recently. Back in Roy's day, not that popular. And, he was a marketing animal, no doubt about that. Meaning, if he didn't think he could sell it, he didn't make it...

DF

I used to reload for an associate that used to hunt with a 30-378 quite a bit. He would always pay me to sight in the damn thing for him. I wore earplugs plus muffs and it still rattled my brain and turned my world upside down. I hated it, but he paid well. He took it to Kazakhstan on some kind of exotic sheep or ibex hunt and said the guides hated and cussed that rifle extensively, although he made some terrific shots with it. Even though he said it made an awesome bean-field rifle, he finally got a belly full of it himself and it has collected dust for the past 11 years.

I have owned both the Weatherby and the win mag. 100 for difference all things being equal. Given that I stick with the win mag of which I have two. Better than either is the 300 ultra...

I have a bunch of hunting rifles, I only take the 300 Weatherby when I am hunting - the rest just don't give me the feeling that I have the best tool for the job.

I have never polluted it's 26 inch barrel with bullets under 200 grains, and I added my muzzle break to it instead of having the barrel cut back.

The reason for a rifle of the 300 magnum class is that you expect tough shots, so why go for second best, you can reason this slight differences line of thinking all the way back down to the .243 if your inclined to.

None of my reasons for using it are technically sound, but all the game has tasted good, and I am a bit overweight for a guy who mainly consumes venison.

It is not costly to shoot in comparison to the costs of licenses, tags, etc.... And once you have the brass it is only pennies more than anything else.

Two people I moose hunt with have 30-378s. They are both set up for long range shooting as this can happen on the lakes where we hunt. My s-I-l has one and I have been with him when he is sighting in. As others have stated the muzzle blast is horrific. I don't like to stand even directly behind him on the firing line. Get out to one side and concussion is easily felt. Shooting is usually done at times when there are few if any others at the range. With that said they are formidable firearms. Not my cup of tea but, to each his own.

Jim

Roy Weatherby took a bunch of .30's cal's to Africa in 1948 to test his .300 and qualify it as superior.
When you read the data in the journals he published, the .308 seemed to have a higher percentage of instant drops as I recall.

Now remember that back in 1948, it was all cup and core. Nosler was not prominent yet.

In fact John Nosler sold his first Partitions commercially in 1948.

Reading Roy's journal entries from that first safari is interesting. He'd only killed a handful of deer before formulating his theory that high velocity was the secret to killing power. Shooting a bunch of animals in Africa really opened his eyes.

JB,
I CYA'd my comment because of the time period. Books took longer to produce and a new product takes longer to establish itself, particularly back then.

There could have been a year and more likely longer, between the actual shooting trials and the "availability" of Nosler's but the observation made is about what it was when I first played with magnums.
JW

Interesting. Where could someone find these published notes? Also, was Weatherby using an experimental version of the .308 Win in the late 1940s or are you referring to .308 bullet diameter?

I have never hunted with a .300 Weatherby but have a couple and like the round. Mine get 200--250 fps more than my handloads in .300 Win Mag with weatherby factory loads. My .300 Weath Ive shot the most is getting 3420 fps from 165 TSX factory loads and 3250-3300 with various 180 weatherby factory loads. I also don't think I've ever shot a group larger than 3/4 MOA with that rifle and most have been significantly smaller than that and therefore have never shot a handliad through it.

It fits ne well too. Maybe it should go hunting some day.