Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Africa How Does the 300 WSM Rank for Plains Game?

Yet the 300 H&H is lauded as one of the greatest plains game calibers of all time. I guess it really does matter which case you send the same bullets, at the same speeds from, eh?

Completely disagree. The WSM although I much prefer the longer cousins, makes for a SUPERB PG caliber, certainly better than any 7X57, 3006 or the 9.3. More range than the first two and much flatter than the latter. With 168TSXz it's a great PG round. And BTW, it develops LESS MV that the 300 Win Mag and more of a par with the H&H.

I've shot the 300 WSM in 5 differ rifles near 13 years now.

Superformance powder with the 165 should work great.

General comment: Cartridges don't "kill"....bullets do.

.............Although I `ve never been to Africa as of yet, I would treat the 300 WSM no different than a 300 Win Mag or the 300 H&H.

Just a 30-06 with more power. Nothing more than that.

Per my 49th Edition Lyman manual on pg 231, here is a portion written for the 300 WSM.

"Ballistics of the 300 WSM averaged 30 to 50 fps below the full sized 300 Winchester Magnum while consuming around eight to ten percent less powder in out lab tests",,,,,,,,,,,

In checking the #s that`s about right for all bullet weights.

So whatever you can expect from a 300 Win, you should also expect the same using a 300 WSM. No reason to believe otherwise whether used for African plains game or for any other game.

When planning my Safari, I originally was going to use the PH's 7mm Rem Mag on all my plains game except for the Giraffe & possibly the Eland, for which I would swap over to a 375 H&H Magnum. Once I got there & began to "try on" his rifles, I quickly found that his custom 30.06 built on a CZ 660 action fit me like a glove. I stoked it with Norma Oryx 180 grainers & started killin' stuff with it and became so fond of it that I decided to head shoot the Giraffe with it, which I did.

They are thick skinned and huge, and require a lot of killing when shot with the normal shoulder shot.

With the overwhelming rave reviews of the 30/06 and the 308 on PG how can this be a real question other then just making chat or wanting to have confirmation of what you like?

.308 diameter is the base line of good functional successful calibers. The speeds of the WSM exceed those of the cartridges that have had 100 years of brilliant performance with Plains game. Do the math!

As far as Giraffe, I've killed and seen killed quite a few, one property had 20 and wanted them all killed right away for Land grab reasons and meat sales. We shot them all in a two week period. I killed the biggest bull in the area which was a 17' bull that was an absolute monster. One shot in the back of the head from under 100 yards with guess what? ...... my 30/06. 165 grain TSX game over....... ..................TIMBER!

Seriously, a 165 grain TSX at 2900 plus is perfectly lethal on nearly anything on this planet. If you can get them to 3000 plus............ wow! you will have a magic wand of death.

Jeff/JJ: Thanks for the info!

I think the 300 WSM is a near ideal 30. Not too punishing, efficient, can be put in a trim rifle and good ballistics with popular bullets.

It won't do something magical, though, that the 300 Win Mag or 30-06 won't, other than be a bit more efficient.

Hello. I'm not a World traveler but I did get a .300WSM when they first came out. Browning and Winchester came out with the cartridge and a rifle with a BOSS recoil reducer/barrel tuner. The concept was for a mountain rifle that would weigh less with a shorter action. How much weight could that possibly save? Well, the rifle was light and I knew better so I had one built on a Nesika action in a big McMillan Winchester Marksman stock with a heavy 25" Dan Lilja barrel. Mine weighed 8 1/2 pounds bare. It still kicked hard. I had a muzzle brake put on and it got much better. I reload for it, and dote on it, and it'll shoot 165 grain ballistic tips into half inch groups at 100 yds. I have shot deer out to 450 yds with it, twice in fact. Never missed, never wounded, never taken more than a step before falling flat on their faces rifle. I've been hunting with it 11 or 12 years. It works really well. My advice is don't buy one in a short light mountain rifle without knowing it will beat you hard. It is an accurate cartridge and can be handloaded to some pretty impressive levels of accuracy. My heavier rifle with a brake is fine to shoot and I keep it to right around 3000fps and it seems very accurate and manageable.

I'm assuming that 3000fps is with 180's?

You can further tune that recoil by switching to 165 TSX at 3000, there will be no difference in the performance. However the lighter bullets will recoil less. Although if you're not using the TSX now then you will actually see at least as good performance and likely better should you shoot bigger heavier game then deer with it. Or when you make step raking quartering away shots when needed.

I hunted South Africa earlier this year with a 300 WSM and 165 grain TSX bullets. I had eight one-shot kills on (3) impala, gemsbok, blesbok, kudu, wildebeest, and zebra. I recovered one bullet; the rest are still in orbit circling Earth somewhere.

I have nothing but praise for the combination. I personally believe that with a good bullet like the TSX, the 165 is a better choice than the 180.

I don't shoot 180s. 165s at 3,000 fps. I use IMR 4350 and it's a really nice load. I've killed at least 60 deer in North Carolina with 165 grain ballistic tips over 20+ years of trips to Northampton Lodge. I found that 150 grain ballistic tips will break up and shrapnel will blow the guts of a perfectly shoulder shot deer far too often. I also found that 180 grain ballistic tips didn't offer any real benefit so I just bought box upon box of 165s. I loaded 180s for my best friend's .300 Wby with the same 4350 at 2900 or so because he blew the guts with 165s. It seems that a couple hundred feet per second more would tear apart the bullets. I didn't get into solid bullets. Obviously you wouldn't blow them apart like the lead core ones.

Well, then your WSM 165's at 3000fps are nearly identical to my 30/06 with 165's

My Loaner rifle is shooting that 165 TSX close to 2950fps.

Probably why I feel it's a good combination. Having used this myself, and my hunters using this for many hundreds of animals with only few un-recoverd. These coming from admittedly poor shots.

By the way, the 165TSX at 3300 plus fps is like magic. I had a fella shooting these with the 300 ultramag in the Drakensburg Mountians. He was shooting springbok and Black wildebeest at 500 plus yards, also an eland at what we guessed at 750-800 yards. We could not get a clear measure with the rangefinder but we could in front and behind it. Not what I would promote, but his interests were in Long range shooting and he was clearly far more a shooter then a hunter. ( X military sniper, now an FBI sniper)

His skills were not human at shooting very far and on moving/ running targets. This was the guy that enemy nightmares are made of.

I've hunted twice with JJ and shot a .300 WSM, 200g Partitions first time. No problem-- killed everything. Second time an .06 with 165 BTSX, same loads as JJHack. The .06 is just more fun and easier to shoot-- recoil, etc. Also, you can leave JJ the unsoent ammo when you leave!

Bobin,

I took mine with a neck shot........timber!!!

Body shots with light calibres evidently make for "fun" follow ups

We made a trip to Namibia this past June, upon arrival the PH asked what rifles we had. I told him 300 win mag and 7mm mag. He said, the 300 WM is fine, but would not let us shoot the 7mm mag. I asked about a 300 WSM as I had considered taking one, he said we would not have shot it. The interesting part is my son shot most of his animals with a bow. I encourage you to talk to the folks where you are hunting as you plan. It was our first trip and I learned a lot, one thing I learned, if the booking agent does not get you in touch with the outfitter it is a red flag for problems.

MSmitty7 - what didn't he like about the .300 WSM?

Essentially it's got the same ballistics as a .300 Win mag, close enough anyway I'd think.

Thanks, Guy

I never got a logical response as to why he did not like the .300 WSM other than he had seen too many wounded and lost animals. I mentioned the similar ballistics, but got no response. The owner and he really preferred larger calibers and heavy bullets. They favored Nosler partitions as well. He did say it was difficult to find ammunition there for the 300 WSM if yours did not make the trip. He was also very careful to point out that time lost tracking was time away from hunting. In defense of the PH, we did get off to an interesting start due to information from the booking agent that was not accurate and a lack of communication from the booking agent. Being our first trip, I was unaware that if the booking agent does not put us in contact with the owner/outfitter upon making deposit there is a good chance for communication problems.

Exactly. Not enough difference for the animal to tell for sure, and in a lighter, handier rifle to boot. :-)

The bullet is a lot more important, and the 168 gr. TTSX looks like a winner there.