Thoughts on .300 Win Mag vs 7mm Rem Mag?

[freakazoid]

Why limit yourself? Go big or go home son, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcEvBwMKZ9s

[Regolith]

Go ahead shoot one from the bench 20 or 30 times in a row, you may change your mind on magnum high power.

Yeah....I ended up having to change shoulders on my .30-06 after 20 or so rounds. Thing weighs maybe 7 lbs with a scope, and it will put a bruising on you.  I eventually put a pound or so of lead birdshot into the buttstock to take the edge off. That comes out during hunting season, though.

[RoadKingLarry]

Who are you calling a whippersnapper? I hunt with a muzzleloader for much of the Iowa deer seasons. You and your self contained cartridges. :)

I haven't hunted with the 1874 yet but I did manage a garden pillaging woodchuck with this a few years ago.

[RoadKingLarry]

Yeah....I ended up having to change shoulders on my .30-06 after 20 or so rounds. Thing weighs maybe 7 lbs with a scope, and it will put a bruising on you.  I eventually put a pound or so of lead birdshot into the buttstock to take the edge off. That comes out during hunting season, though.

I have to be careful with the heavy kickers after my shoulder surgery. I need to wear a recoil pad even with the AR-15 for more than few dozen rounds. Full power/heavy bullet rounds from the Sharps will just about cripple me for a few days without the PAST recoil pad on. Damned incision was way to close to where the butt rests.

[mtnbkr]

I bought an Encore in 300wm this Spring "just because" and because I had Cabelas credit to burn.  I don't need anything like that, but wanted an Encore and something more powerful than my 6.5x55.  I've been playing around with alternative loads for the 300.  Things like cast bullets with Trail Boss, lite loads, etc.  Once I get my hands on the appropriate projectiles, I'm going to experiment with heavy bullets (205gr+).  I doubt I'll ever hunt with it, but if I get an opportunity to go after elk (we have them in VA), I'll have an appropriate gun for it.

With full power loads, I can go 20-30 shots off the bench before I start fighting flinch.  With my 6.5x55, I never reach that point (have burned 50 rounds in a session with it).

Get the 300.  Nothing says you MUST run 165gr spitzers at warp speed.  Try some 200gr RN at a more sedate level or give paper patching a try (something else I may play with).

Chris

[MechAg94]

My shoulders are fine, but I have just found I don't like bench shooting with high recoil guns.  Shooting while sitting up or standing is much easier as you can roll your shoulder with the recoil better.  

Between my PTR-91 with it's surplus scope and that 300 WinMag I have, I got to really hate the visual of a scope jerking back at my eye.  I had a muzzle break installed on the 300, and the recoil dang near eliminated, just lots of blast.  It is an older rifle that was a gift that isn't so accurate.  

[brimic]

I bought an Encore in 300wm this Spring "just because" and because I had Cabelas credit to burn.  I don't need anything like that, but wanted an Encore and something more powerful than my 6.5x55.  I've been playing around with alternative loads for the 300.  Things like cast bullets with Trail Boss, lite loads, etc.  Once I get my hands on the appropriate projectiles, I'm going to experiment with heavy bullets (205gr+).  I doubt I'll ever hunt with it, but if I get an opportunity to go after elk (we have them in VA), I'll have an appropriate gun for it.

With full power loads, I can go 20-30 shots off the bench before I start fighting flinch.  With my 6.5x55, I never reach that point (have burned 50 rounds in a session with it).

Get the 300.  Nothing says you MUST run 165gr spitzers at warp speed.  Try some 200gr RN at a more sedate level or give paper patching a try (something else I may play with).

Chris

Yep, You can always load a .300 down to 30-06 or even 30-30 levels, but you can load neither up to .300WM performance.
The old man that introduced me to the world of bullet casting had the same philosophy with a .458 WM- load it down to 45/70 levels or so and it makes a dandy deer rifle. Nothing more fun than shooting 'light' cast loads out of a rifle like that. Low recoil, and a loud 'WHAP' when the bullet hits the target backer.

[Brad Johnson]

Yep, You can always load a .300 down to 30-06 or even 30-30 levels,

Tru dat.

Brad

[Gewehr98]

This ain't my first rodeo, Balog.  I got soured on the eargesplitten loudenboomers back in my long-range competition days.  Those rifles were heavier than hunting/sporter variants, yet still punished the shooter over the course of a match.

Shooting them from the prone bipod was absolutely no fun at all.  The barrel life at factory and top-end handload data is not so great, either.

The higher working pressures and the bead-blasting effect of all that extra powder going through the chamber throat and burning further down the barrel raise hell with things over time.

I actually competed against a guy at a 500 meter sniper match who had his 7mm STW rig wired with a barrel-mounted thermocouple and digital display, so he could keep the chamber end cool and lengthen his barrel's life.

Overbore rounds certainly get the job done, but it's no free lunch.  The quest for more fps is one of diminishing returns once you get past a certain point.

The .30-378 Weatherby Magnum is one hell of a round.  It also has a barrel life measured in the hundreds of rounds.  You'd better get your favorite handload dialed in within 20-40 rounds, because the clock's ticking before the throat is washed out.

That's why I settled on my own 6.5-06 for 1000 yard work. The bullets stay supersonic well past 1000 yards, yet the recoil is minimized and I'm not overbore like the .264 Win Mag and others.

Hence my saying you should explore what that .270 is capable of.  At .277" bore, it's darned close to a .264, and IIRC Walt Berger even started making VLDs for that caliber. 

Although, the long-range rifle that sees the most trigger time from my gun safes is my own 1874 Sharps Business Rifle. 

535gr Postell cast by yours truly, beeswax and lard lube, a card wad, then 70gr of Goex Cartridge grade Holy Black.  32" of burn time, Creedmoor sights with spirit level.  My own kind of Magnum!   

[HankB]

I get ~3120 with a 180g bullet. My Hodgdon book shows 2600-2800 for 180 in 30-06. So that is 300-400.

If I max out the 165g I can get ~3300 fps out of my rifle, My Hodgdon book shows 2650-2950 for the 165g loads. There is your 400-500+fps.

Try again.

Comparing top loads, in the first case cited there's 3120-2800 = 320 ft/sec difference. (Hodgdon's on-line data shows 2840 for the '06, cutting the difference to 280. What does Hodgdon say YOUR handload ought to be doing?)

Looking at the lighter bullets, the data you cited gives 3300-2950 = 350 ft/sec difference.

But since you're comparing a particular rifle to a handbook, it's really a bit of an apples-to-oranges comparison; I at least tried to be consistent.

Even so, if comparing top loads, it's still well short of your 400-500 ft/sec assertion . . . unless you deliberately choose "downloaded" '06 loads for comparison purposes.

[charby]

Try again.

Comparing top loads, in the first case cited there's 3120-2800 = 320 ft/sec difference. (Hodgdon's on-line data shows 2840 for the '06, cutting the difference to 280. What does Hodgdon say YOUR handload ought to be doing?)

Looking at the lighter bullets, the data you cited gives 3300-2950 = 350 ft/sec difference.

But since you're comparing a particular rifle to a handbook, it's really a bit of an apples-to-oranges comparison; I at least tried to be consistent.

Even so, if comparing top loads, it's still well short of your 400-500 ft/sec assertion . . . unless you deliberately choose "downloaded" '06 loads for comparison purposes.

I get that with my .300wm vs my .30-06

Factory loads I can agree more with you, but as you know handloading can beat the performance of most factory ammo (not all, because of the mixing of powders ammo manufactors do to increase fps without spiking pressure)

Also as said earlier, you can load a 300 wm to match 30-06 but you can't safety load a 30-06 to match a 300win.

My favorite powder for 300wm is Alliant R-22 and I do load over max sometimes, and I will not share my load data.

[HankB]

Agree that you can download a .300win to match .30/06, but the '06 will not equal a full power .300win. We're not really debating which one is more powerful - that's clearly the .300 mag. Just some disagreement over the magnitude of the difference.

BTW, unless I'm loading for a Garand, my favorite .30/06 powder is RL-22; Nosler says the top load with a 180 is good for 2870, but in MY rifle, with it's well-used 22" barrel, it only gets around 2750. 

(I used to get more with N-205, but that was discontinued long ago . . .    )