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

What are they?

Weatherby 180 gr ammo clocks 3350 in my rifle but shows signs of high pressure.

My handloads go about 3175, which isn't that much more than the books say a .300 Win. can get.

I know mule deer has a formula for predicting these things. I'm curious as to what others results are.

Just from what I've read here at the Campfire, the realistic difference between the to is approx. 100 fps. I don't own the Weatherby so I can't say for sure personally.

I have worked with a Ruger #1 in .300 win mag from 1976, and a fairly new Mark V Ultralight in .300 Roy - both rifles have fairly long throats and 26" barrels - so although different makes and vintages, they are comparable rifles each with 26" barrels and long throats. Both are very strong actions.

Cartridge OAL is of no issue in the Ruger, as it would be in a magazine rifle - and you can seat 180gr Noslers well out there, around 3.65" OAL. The Weatherby can take cartridge OAL's to 3.665" and still fit them in the magazine. I've worked mostly with 180's in the Ruger, and 165's in the Mark V, though future development will be with 180's.

Weatherby claims 3350fps with 165's, and in fact factory ammo clocked 3425 out of my rifle. I got it up to 3350 with 165's and decided that was plenty, especially since the load was well over book for Reloader 22, and I was meeting factory claimed velocities. I broke down one factory load and found it had a similar charge of an extruded powder. Case life seems satisfactory and accuracy was okay. I'll try 180 Accubonds in the future, with an eye toward auodad hunting. I think 3200-3250 is probably a realistic goal for that weight. Wby claims 3250 for their 180 factory loads. I have not tried any of it in my rifle, only the 165's.

I've actually hit .300 Weatherby claimed 180gr speeds out of the #1 .300 win mag, but pressure was clearly too high and the WW brass was expanding far too much. With 180's out of the Ruger, I think 3100 is doable with good case life and accuracy. That speed may not be achievable in a different rifle, especially one with a 24" barrel, or a std length action and magazine box. And I think I'd set the goal still lower, if the rifle was an older Springfield or Mauser variant.

The .30 cal Long Range Accubond may be a real interesting bullet to try in the future.

The short answer to the OP is I think the .300 Roy can beat the .300 Win mag by ~100-150 fps, for the a given bullet and barrel length, in rifles of comparable strength and allowable COAL. As far as which one I'd pick, it would be a matter more of how I liked the individual rifle for the task at hand.

Bellydeep my results are about what TexnCal is seeing with his rifles. I have used some customs and factory 300 Win Mags modified for a 3.6" box and bullets seated to longer OAL in the 300 Win Mag....with that arrangement and 24" barrels slightly over 3100 fps with the 180 gr was routine....and in 300 Weatherby's with 24" barrels you won't see much more with hand loads.

All my 300 Weatherby's have been M70's either customs or factory Classics and generally I have seen about 3150-3175 with app 85 gr 7828 and 180 gr bullets.

Ultimately the 300 Weatherby is faster but a lot depends on barrels. I had a 9 twist .309 groove 26" Krieger SS barrel in 300 Weatherby that would do 3250 with a 180
. OTOH a 24" McGowen barrel did no better than 3125 with 180 and there was not 60-70 fps that separated it from the 300 Win Mag and 300 H&H that I also had in the stable at the same time.

Also had a pre 64 M70 that was rechambered from 300H&h to 300 Weatherby that showed 3420 with the Weatherby 165 gr BT factory ammo. The Weatherby stuff is loaded pretty hot.

I spent an afternoon last fall sighting in a pal's rifle, a custom 300 Weatherby with 25" Krieger and it routinely gave 3050 with his 200 gr AB hand loads. That's about 100 fps better than the best I ever saw from a 300 Win Mag.

In the end, I think the others are right...100-150 fps difference between them seems about right.

Any advantage that the Weatherby has in performance is more than offset by the cost of ammo and cases for reloading. The rifleman will pay a premium for that extra 100-150 fps.

Worth it? Dunno.......

Me neither.

bellydeep;
Good morning to you sir, hopefully this cold snap finds you keeping acceptably warm.

John's formula is this - for every 4% increase in case capacity one gets 1% increase in velocity.

I've run the numbers on a couple rifles I've played with, a .250AI and a .30 Gibbs and they work out pretty close.

Pretty close of course with the caveat being "all other factors being equal".

Like my cyber friend tex n cal, I had a 26" barrel No 1 in .300Win Mag and was able to get similar velocities as I recall.

It may or may not be of interest that we have two .308 Normas with 23 5/8" and 24" barrels respectively and with 165gr/168gr bullets were able to get awfully close to the 26" barrel .300Win. Mag.

As far as a .300 Weatherby goes, I've only shot a now gone shooting mentor's which was a Model 70 with a 24" barrel. While I can't recall specific velocities from that rifle, I do recall him being unimpressed with them.

My gut feeling is that if one wants to have a .300 Weatherby be "all it can be" - especially with lighter bullets than 180gr, then a 26" barrel would be the way to go.

Anyway sir, that's what I can remember on this cold November morning, hopefully it was a bit of use to you.

All the best to you this fall.

Dwayne

My M70 pf 24" 300 Win Mag shoots a max loaded 180 NPT with good accuracy using RL-22 just fine at 3110fps seated to 3.34" (because of the mag block in the action), yet my M700ss has a 3.6" box but a tighter chamber and will not even begin to tolerate the same load. Ended up using IMR 4350 and 180 gr NPT's with it avg 2995 fps . Can't see a difference on how dead the animals are with either load. I mean you know they were just as dead as you can get them. Everything shot with my 308 Norma gets dead too. Damn it all for there not being a provision in determining the degree of deadness. Oh besides that you can buy 300 Win Mag ammo just about anywhere ammo is sold. Magnum Man

The chronograph really burst a lot of bubbles on what were previously guesstimated velocities. I know my Pro Chrono did.

MM/RD: Far as I'm concerned, you can take most all the belted and non belted 300 magnums, toss them all in a bag,shake it up, reach in and grab one....and end up about the same place. Things like a 30/378 excepted. But cripes I have never seen one of those used by anybody.

This is true. I did shoot some factory Weatherby 300 WBY 165 grain in a 24 inch barrel that clocked 3600 FPS. I don't know how Weatherby loads their factory ammo, but it will clock higher velocities than what most people will handload...

In the end, they both kill animals very dead, very fast. Been using one or the other for nearly 30yrs and haven't seen much difference except when using 200r bullets. My current 300Win will barely manage 2800fps with them whereas both of my 300Wby rifles will easily hit 3000fps or a bit more. Since the Win has a 24" tube and the Wbys both have 26" the difference could be shrunk by 50fps if all barrels were same length. I like them both.

I hear you about the 30-378. Maybe Elk at 1500 yrds plus.....?

My 1/4 formula for figuring potential velocity in different-size cases was confirmed as very close to reality by a guy who knows a lot more about physics than I do. I came up with it by crunching the numbers from every source of loading data I could put my hands on. According to the 1/4, the Weatherby is capable of about 3% more velocity than the Winchester with the same bullet weight, or about 100 fps in loads that get 3000-3200 fps.

There are a few powders that will get 3000 (or very close to it) from a 200-grain bullet in a 24"-barreled .300 Winchester Magnum. Both Ramshot Magnum and Hodgdon Retumbo will do it in mine, with published data.

I've had a couple of .300 Weatherbys, one with a 24" barrel and one with a 26", but eventually decided the relatively small increase in velocity over the .300 Winchester Magnum wasn't worth the increase in recoil, since animals never seemed to care. In the process I also decided more affordable and available brass and factory ammo tilted the balance toward the Winchester.

Have also owned and hunted with both .300 WSM's (two) and .300 H&H's(three) and eventually sold all of them too, partly because I just don't feel the need to hunt with a .300 magnum of any sort very often anymore, having done it enough to pretty much know what happens.

Did keep a .300 Winchester Magnum, my Heym SR-21, because it's extremely accurate, so is the perfect "test vehicle" for new scopes: Any little glitch shows up on paper. But I haven't hunted with it, and probably won't. When I hunt with a "magnum" these days it's generally 7mm caliber or smaller, or .375 or bigger.

While a .300 magnum is certainly a good choice for an all-around North American rifle, or for plains game in Africa, I got past the "one rifle for big game" stage by age 20. Might get there again in the next few years, as I semi-retire, but wouldn't choose a .300 magnum of any sort.

I have owned both and after using them for a while i would take the 300 WM over the Wby . I have neither at the moment and the only Magnum 300 i presently own is the 300 RUM and hardly ever use it.

Question Mule Deer: What would your "one rifle for big game" choice be?

I have both and like both.. Of the two I would pick the Win. because brass is easier to find and in a long action I can seat the bullet out.. Not possible with the Wea. and any actions I have used..

I use other rifles, but on a serious hunt, I almost never go without a .300.. The last huge mulie I had a chance at, got a pass because I didn't have a .300.. I feel certain, if I would have, he would have gone home with me.. The average guy doesn't get to go on half a dozen big game hunts per season, so I want to be able to make the most of the chances I do get..

I wound up with a Ruger #1 (which I collect) in .300 win mag - it has some family history behind it, is pretty, and slightly collectible.

The Roy is a stainless/synthetic rifle, and at the time the only stainless/synthetic rifle I owned was a 7mm-08 Kimber with a POS barrel, so the Mark V seemed to fill a niche. It's spendy for the level of accuracy, however.

If you think you need a 300 Mag just buy a 30-06 and use the Fed High Energy Loads and you won't know you are aren't using a 300 Magnum except you will be carrying a lighter rifle with a shorter barrel

I own a .300 Wby, in MkV form. With factory 165 Barnes TSX ammo, it clocks 3390 fps MV. Accuracy is sub-MOA. For some reason, when it's time to hunt big bull elk, it is the rifle of choice most of the time for me.

Like Mule Deer, I've pretty much gotten past the 'one rifle for everything' stage, and the .280, .270 WSM, and .257 Wby see most of the action nowadays here in the US, for mule and whitetail deer, antelope, cow elk, etc.