Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Africa 300 RUM with 200 gr. Nosler Partition for plains game?

Was wondering what your opinions are for using a 300 RUM (Remington Ultra Mag) with a 200 gr. Nosler Partition on plains game.

Thanks for any input.

What are you planning on hunting? Plains game covers a lot of animals.

Everything from Eland to Impala. Warthogs, wildebeest, kudu,gemsbok, blesbok, duiker.

168 TTSX works well in that round.

DF

Yes a .300 RUM and the 200 gr NP will work. Although for duiker it's really BIG,are you taking a second rifle?

Never hunted plains game, but the 200 grain partition from my 300 win has performed perfectly on moose and deer for me, my favorite bullet.

The most common rifle used in South Africa by locals for plains game species is a 308 and 30.06

Anything bigger is a bonus for those that can shoot them. Remember if hunting actual wild plans game in natural habitat. Most shots will be under 150 yards.

300RUM is a lot of rifle for 50-150 yards!

300 RUM truly shines with 180 TTSX at about 3300 fps.

Not a doubt in my mind it will work.

300 RUM?
Have it rebarreled as a 404 Jeffery (best use of a 300RUM)

Buy a nice 7x57 Mauser (Ruger for example) and take that.

Even better, find a 7mm STW and have it rebarreled as a 300H&H and take that.

I use a 300 Weatherby mag,same power with 200 gr A-Frames. Crushes Gemsbok,Zebra,Kudu etc. I take 257 Weather by mag with 215 Bearclaws for little stuff.

It will be more than enough.

Last May I took a Kudu, Gemsbok, Warthog, Zebra, Blesbok, and Impala with a 300 Win shooting 180 gr, partitions. All dropped in their hooves, (actually, the warthog ran about 75 yards in a circle back to where he was shot. tough little piggy)

The only thing you want to take care of is that soft tip of a partition as you will load and unload your rifle 2-3 times a day. This can possibly damage the tip and that may cause you issues if you have a longer range shot planned, especially important if you plan to stalk Kudu.

Interesting.

I've often wondered about this. Last year I did a little test with my 350 Rem mag and 225gr partitions. I shot several groups out to 250 yards. Some bullets I filed the tips off flat with the jacket, some at a 45 degree angle, both to the left and right, and some I took a hammer and tapped the lead tip to "mushroom" it out a bit. To my surprise it made absolutely no difference in group size or drop. Granted, 250 yards isn't that far, but it's what I had to work with. At farther distances it may come into play, or possibly with higher velocity it migh make more of a difference(muzzle velocity with the 225 NP is 2675 out of my 350RM)

This issue with Partitions has been well documented, damage the base and they fly all over, damage the tip and it's virtually meaningless. As a PH I have used the partitions during my career and have loaded and unloaded them from the magazine several times a day for months of hunting every day. The tips on some were completely missing and others were so bad it was like a cartoon shaped bullet! It never mattered one bit.

As far as being worried about shooting a Kudu at long range? Kudu live in the thickest bush available. I can count on one hand the kudu's we have shot over 200 yards in over 25 years of doing this. Maybe if you're hunting them in the open country of the eastern Cape. There are no natural greater Kudu in this area though, all have been introduced or stocked by game farms. Maybe some areas of Namibia. But certainly not the natural habitat they live in over most of their range

Exactly.

This can easily be demonstrated with a ballistic program by comparing the trajectories of the 180-grain spitzer Partition and its counterpart, the Protected Point, which is the same except for the flat tip--very much like the tip of the spitzer would look after days of "flattening" on safari.

The listed ballistic coefficient for the spitzer is .474 and the PP .361, yet if you start them both at a muzzle velocity of 2750 fps (typical for a .30-06 handload) and sight them in at 200 yards, the difference in drop at 300 yards is much less than an inch, and a little over two inches at 400. Neither would ever be important when shooting at a kudu. Only at 500 does the difference amount to much, and even then its only about 5 inches.

And as Jim pointed out, most kudu are shot at much closer ranges. The only two I've killed past 200 yards (or even seen killed by companions) were Cape kudu, the slightly smaller subspecies found in the up-and-down country of the Eastern Cape. One was taken at 250 yards and the other at 360--and longer shot was made with a .30-06 and handloaded 180-grain Partition spitzers handloaded to just about 2750 fps.

I'd been hunting for around 10 days by then, and had already taken quite a few animals. The rounds had been in and out of the magazine many times, in between being subjected to recoil. I have no idea whether the bullet that killed the bull at 360 yards had a normal tip, deformed tip, or if the tip was completely flattened like the Protected Point's. Don't really care, because it wouldn't matter at that range, and didn't, since the kudu dropped to my first shot, which landed where I aimed.

What truly matters is how well the hunter shoots. Off the sticks. At live game. Quickly.


RS

I used a 300 RUM on my first safari in 1998. I took 16 animals with 18 rounds...needed a 2nd in a Zebra to keep it from getting to a steep dropoff. I used 180gr Partitions as I recall, but 200gr is probably a better choice with Eland being on the menu. Good luck!

I have shot a 16-17 Plains game in Africa, with a bow. Your 300 mag is more than enough. You can do it just as well with a 7MM Rem, 30-06 or size of cartridge. Interesting is that the eland was the largest I shot and went down the quickest. Its hide was thinner than a whitetail hide.
Have fun in Africa.

Curious as to what you have hunted to date with said round given it being complete overkill for what it is its intended used?.