Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles 300 Weatherby

At the bench I use a limb saver butt pad

the 300 Weatherby mag. is a great hunting cartridge but to continue shooting this cartridge off the bench gets old no matter what pad you put on your shoulder. i know many guys always want me to sight in their 300 which i used too but now days i pass.

I'm just getting ready to reload for the 300WBY. A dumb question but are you guys talking IMR 7828SSC?

Either that or plain old 7828 has worked fine for me.

When I used to load for my 300 Wby. it was IMR7828 in the rectangular metal can.

That is SSC which stands for Super Short Cut. IMR-7828 is a long grain extruded powder, and the SSC is easier to get through a powder measure and probably causes less space issues in a cartridge case to allow more consistent powder charges.

It is a great, large capacity powder for magnum cartridges…

Bsa1917hunter

I often see and read about temp sensitivity. My best suggestion is to work up your load in the fall/winter months. Around the same temps you intend to hunt. Absolutely no issues or concerns doing it this way.

I rather go that route where I hunt, I hunted years of fluky weather and was really mild, it warmed up considerably during the day,

Rechambered from 300H&H. It was pretty common back in the day.


Bottom rifle in this pic. These 2 weigh in at 8 pounds even as shown. 338wm has a custom barrel on it. At one time, it was also an H&H.

I generally just use the regular ol 7828.

anothergun, the 300WBY has elk written all over it!!! The cartridge itself was one of Roy's ultimate designs, as far as I'm concerned. It's the cartridge that forced me into handloading though. Couldn't afford to shoot the rifle I bought because factory ammo was so damn expensive. Learning real quick why I got such a great deal on the rifle at the time!! I burned the barrel out on that sporterized m1917, and used Nosler 180gr ballistic tips to do it too. 84 grains of 7828 was the sweet spot.

Now, shrap is right. These are not benchrest guns. However, most of mine have shot less than 1" off the bench, some closer to 1/2", or off a pack. My spare 300WBY shoots like this:

Lighter bullet using H4831 powder^^ This is a nice shooting load. Mild if you want to call it that.

One thing shrap hits the nail on the head about is your POI/POA. IF you can keep your bullets 3" from POA at 500 yards, that is another question all together. With his example of a 1 1/4" group, that is no guarantee that those bullets are going to even be a 6" group or be 3" from where you are aiming. Especially in the wind. That largely depends on how your rifle is set up, if you have it zeroed properly, and whether you can use it that well. I've seen it so many times at the local range, that I can't even count. Generally guys shooting 300wm, 338 lapua magnums and the like. Some can't even consistently keep their shots on my favorite steel coyote at 400 yards. Let's put it this way: I'd not take them deer or elk hunting with me.

I remember last year, shooting my spare 300wby and doing a side by side comparison with a measly AR15 I have. Set up some targets at 400 yards, and was appalled by how I shot with the magnum. Generally shooting standard cartridges better, I'll admit.

You'll notice, both rifles are scoped the same^^

300wby:


Measly AR15. Rogue Defense with old Bushmaster HBAR:


That's another 7 pound Winchester model 70 of mine.

The group is not great, but any of those bullets (from the 300wby) would have made elk steaks that day..


Also, as a side note to the 175 LRX load I worked up in my pre 64 model 70, I also shoot it in the newer XTR in the pacific research stock (shown above). In that rifle, it shoots 1 moa out to 400 yards:


So to answer the OP's question about magic bullets and powder. That load is proven in both of my 300WBY rifles. I wanted to try that LRX out on an elk, but did not get the chance to. Last day of the hunt I was packing my Tikka T3x 7mm-08 and shot a spike bull with a 140gr TTSX, as luck would have it!!!

looks like they did a really good job cuz it's shooting pretty dang good..

Thanks. I don't know who did the work. The guy I bought it from said he bought it that way and he had it for 20 years. He said he was waiting for just the right person to sell it to. Made me one hell of a good deal on it. Last year I restocked it in the Brown Precision PoundR kevlar stock. She's a shooter. I don't shoot either of these rifles much because I want to conserve the barrel life.

BSA1917

I was always under the impression the tighter at 100 the better, and spreads out father down range. Even with a tight group under an inch, spreads like your 400 yard group ? I shot tight groups with the .270 WCF and it only open to inch or inch and a quarter at 300.

I still have a small amount of old 7828 in a metal can. IMR/hodgdon discontinued old 7828 in 2018

There are all sorts of experts that make claims of what a rifle and bullets will always do. The more I see of these claims, the less I believe them. Guys like Bryan Litz make assertions that become gospel, yet I have personally witnessed results that don’t follow his narrative.

Almost everyone will calculate a group by multiplying the group size at 100 yards by how many yards past 100. That may be mostly true, but I have guns and have seen others that don’t necessarily follow that model. That is, I have seen guns that were around 1 inch at 100 yards and shoot better than the cone theory , and actually shoot better at distance.

I know it’s not fashionable to argue the industry standards, but I don’t care and continue to shoot better than some of the cone concept of bullet performance…

I always shoot for the best 100 yard groups, then test at 400 yards. Since I can set up targets at 400 at my range. I can shoot steel out to 1,000 yards at our local range, but not set up paper there. I have other spots I can do that though. In general, most times it works out the way you say, but not always. That is why it is important to test your ammo out to the range you intend to hunt. It's not always a guarantee, that you best shooting ammo at 100 yards will be your best shooting ammo at 400 yards. That's not even taking conditions into the equation. We all know what winds can do to a group.

Your 270 statement is also valid. I've seen some weird stuff like that when shooting my 270's. It could be human error, luck, or some other phenomenon going on as well..

I can go along with that... and article I just read about a guy who tests loads at 400 yards, so yeah, I get that.

I can only test at 200 after 100 yard test. No wind helps and watching a flag helps too. When I hunt at longer distances I watch the wind, and I made some shots that I couldn't believe, and said to myself, that is exactly where my cross hairs were.

some people argue that with bullets stabilizing better they will shoot better at distance and close I don't know that I've ever bought into that entirely. but sometimes I'm going to say many times if you're shooting better at distance than close up it's probably a parallax issue

Barrels are like tires buddy! Shoot em up. Can’t do it when you’re dead!