About 25 or so years ago and buddy and I went on an elk hunt up on the Olympic Peninsula just out of a little town called Humptulips. One of the group we were hunting with was an 80 year old retired judge whose rifle was a very cherry Savage 99 in .300 Savage. IIRC, he was using 180 gr. bullets. I remember him as my buddy and I had our .44 mag. handguns with us and the old boy hated handguns of any sort with a purple passion. Rained like hell opening morning and the elk headed for the deepest darkest jackpots they could find. Needless to say we saw nothing during the whole hunt.
I've never hunted with a .300 Sav. but I do have a Ruger M77 RSI in .308. That rifle with it's 18.5" barrel will only shoot one load, the 165 gr. Speer Hot Core at 2550 FPS. Looks to me like it's a .308 that thinks it's a .300 Savage. FWIW, change the bullet to anything other than that Speer bullet and accuracy goes back to straight to hell. I have three of those rifles, don't ask, but they all shoot the Speer bullet just fine and lousy with anything else. Guess that's why I got into them so cheaply. Killed a lot of deer with them and reading here about the .300 Sav. has me thinking. All but one of my shots elk hunting on a ranch in New Mexico have been, except for one under 250 yards. Maybe I should take it out for an elk. Wouldn't be any different than if it was the .300 Savage considering how it shoots regarding velocity. I'll think about it.
Paul B.
