300 WSM

[Idlewild]

I really don't want to sound like a dumbass and ask the questions that should have the obvious answers. So, I shoot a 30.06 and I'm thinking of switching to a 300wsm. I have always shot a Winchester 180gr load. My question is how much different is the WSM when comparing accuracy/ballistics/power/recoil/etc? I was informed that a shot @ 100yds or less into the shoulder will basically render you a deer/hog that has a useless piece of meat. For those of you that have or are shooting this load, has this been your experience? Your advice is greatly appreciated.

[mirroman]

I know nothing of the comparison you are trying to get, but a .300 is TOOOOOO much gun for around here. I bought one, shot it for 1 year, then sold it. Your gun, so your decision, but unless you are going Elk or Moose hunting in the future the .300 is overkill. My .02...

[Kwacker]

300 WSM , 180 gr. jacketed bullet, Accurate Mag Pro @ 76 gr. = 3028 fps

300 Win Mag. 180 gr. jacketed bullet, Reloader 25 @ 82.3c gr. =3112 fps

30-06 Springfield 180 jacketed bullet, Reloader 19 @ 60 gr. = 2800 fps

30-06 Springfield 165 jacketed bullet, H4350 @ 59 gr. = 2938 fps

Idle, I don't shoot a WSM but hopefully I can help.The above is from a reloading manual and I think it illustrates a point that you aren't going to gain a lot from going to the WSM over the '06. 200 fps difference at normal shooting distances of 100 to 150 yards is (guessing here)probably only about a 1/4" drop difference. If you are setting up to shoot beanfields you would be better off, velocity wise,with the old plain jane 300 Win Mag (IMO).

Personally, I'm a fan of 165 grainers and for comparison I included the 165 grain '06 and you can see that it really treads on the 300WSM. I've killed truck loads of deer with both the 165 and 180gr and both dropped deer reliably, as far as wound channel is concerned I couldn't tell a difference.

Please don't take the above as I'm trying to talk you out of a new gun, we all need new guns.


Also, what the hell are you shooting deer in the shoulder for? Ya 'sposed to heart/lung shoot em.

Editted to add I shoot a 300 Win Mag and primarily for beanfields and it ain't too much gun. I spend more time behind my old 30-30 for the majority of my hunting though.

[rp]

I have always wondered about people around here that shoot deer with 300's (and 7mm's). Just what was it that poor deer do to piss you off so bad that you feel the need to blow it to hell with a 300?

Or are you so scared of a deer that you are trying to protect yourself at 300 yards?

Other than that, Win Mag 300's hold plenty of records but then I doubt you are hunting deer with sniper rigs.

[Kwacker]

http://www.putfile.com/pic.php?img=4728255

rp, while mine is not a "sniper" rig it is a bean field rifle and a lot of people do hunt with this type of rig. Long range may not be your definition of hunting but it does to a lot of folks. I say this not to dismiss your opinion but by y'alls thinking I guess any thing over a 6mm Remington is overkill.

Laminate thumb hole stock w/ full length aluminum bedding rail plus glass. Action trued. 1" bull barrel with brake and crown. Bi-pod is not fitted at this time since I got into the habit of carrying sand bags to the stand with me. W/out the bi-pod rest the rig weighs in a little over 13.5 pounds and shoots sub MOA, when I haven't indulged in too many Mountain Dews and Marlboros.

-R

[Idlewild]

Thanks Kwak & RP. I think I just needed to hear it, but the 300 has always been a bit of a misnomer, I suppose. Hearing from someone other than my own conscious that it really is too much and not all that different from the .06 with similar loads, I can rest easy with the gun I have. I don't think I can ever recall taking anything over a 150yd shot. So, when we refer to drops of only 1/4 and maybe .5/inch, the 300 is of no benefit that I can see. That settles that.

[CWPINST]

Take a look at this report. Note the issue with "hard" bullets and "heavy for caliber" bullets. They were not as effective as lighter and faster bullets.

http://www.scilowcountry.org/cedar_knoll_deer_study.htm

[Idlewild]

CWPinst,
...so a relatively "light" (<=180gr) bullet with a soft type tip is more effective in .30clbr and under rather than a heavy bullet in any caliber?

Did I read that correctly? Sounds as if he is stating up to a .30 caliber is fine as long as your ammo is easily expandible and not over-powdered?

Going on that assumption my 30.06 could match wits with a 300wsm under 150yds with a 180gr ballistic tip.

[SCTIMBER]

Not trying to hijack the post, but what do ya'll consider to be the ultimate beanfield caliber, and also barrel length? It would be interesting to see how the .300wsm stands up, never fired a .300 and I don't know many people who use them in my neck of the woods, but it seems a little overkill, but then again for knockdown power, it works. A lot of guys down my way got into buying 7mm a few years back, I've always just stuck with .270, although I think highly of many other calibers out there such as the .243, .257, .280, and .308.

[Swamp Rat]

Most folks consider a "beanfield rifle" as a one that shoots a deer-appropriate bullet at a flat enough trajectory and with enough velocity that the shooter can use a "point blank" hold on a deer at long range (up to or beyond 300 yards in some cases) and thus minimize how much attention he must give to hold-over.

(To those who don't know what I mean by "point blank" range, that is the distance to a target where, at no point along the bullet path, does the bullet RISE or FALL more than a certain distance, generally agreed upon being half the diameter of the target area on the species in question... In other words, for me, the point blank range for a deer rifle is the distance out to which I can expect the bullet to rise no more than about 4 inches, and to drop no more than that - thus allowing me to hold center on the target area out to that range and expect the bullet to hit in an 8" circle - if I do my part...)

Many rifles can do this.

ANOTHER "beanfield rifle" can be anyone's old 30-06 or similar rifle with a slower bullet, but with which the shooter has experience to know how far the bullet rises, drops, and/or is pushed by the wind out to long range. So, that broadens the range of calibers a bit.

My personal "beanfield" rifle is a custom-built Remington 700 in 280 Ackley. It is pushing a 140 grain Nosler Ballistic Tip along at about 3150 fps or so. That is 7mm Remington Magnum power, and it is deadly flat shooting and accurate.

Again - there are many that can fill the bill. My NEXT project on such things may be toned down a bit... I'm not much into the belted magnum or WSM scene, so it may be a 6.5-284 shooting a 140 grain bullet.

By the way, my idea of "deer appropriate" caliber/bullet combinations include...

243 Winchester, 6mm etc... 95-100 grain solidly constructed but rapidly expanding bullets.

25-06, 257 Roberts, etc... 115-117 grain spitzer boat tails with good expansion and solid construction.

6.5 (one of my favs) - 120-140 grains (I use 140's, but may try 120 gr Ballistic Tips this year)

270 - 130-140 grains (150 is overkill, IMHO)

30 (except 30-30) - 150, 165 are my favorites. 180's are a bit heavy and not needed, but are fine if NOT pushed too hard (a 30-06 with a match-velocity 180 grain Ballistic Tip or the seldom-used sleeper - a Sierra HPBT Gameking - is a killing, mild recoiling beast). Anything over 180 grains in 30 caliber is overkill on SC deer, again IMHO.

30-30 - 150 or 170... but that's about it anyway.

Other bigger stuff - use common sense.

I remember my deer killing load for over a decade was a Sierra 165 grain Gameking SPBT doing just over 2500 fps out of an '06. It kilt 'em DEAD out to 300 yards. But I knew what it would do....

[rp]

My favorite beanfield gun is a Ruger 308 target gun with a 4.5*14*50 on it. I will take a 300 yard shot with it but most shots are well under 200. The cartridge is a 150 gr factory load Winchester ballistic silvertip.

One thing about the 300WSM, I understand, if you start reloading, the 300 Win Mag can take larger (longer) bullets and this makes the gun more versatile.

And If you happen to need to buy cartridges in a more remote area, I will promise you that you could find the 30-06 and likely a 308 and probably a 300 Win Mag. Good luck on finding a box of 300WSM at your local mom & pop drug & hardware stores.

[skybuster]

Where can I buy some of those rising bullets Swamp rat?

[Swamp Rat]

Yeesh. I reckon I should have explained that I meant rise or fall relative to the line of sight.

Otay... thinking of all of the drivvle I mentioned above, consider that your bullet is NOT flying a straight path, but is actually a parabolic arc, starting BELOW the line of sight (with most bolt action scope-sighted rifles, about 1.5 to 1.8 inches below it). In most sighting situations, the arc rises up through the line of sight fairly quickly (usually within 20 - 50 yards) and falls back through it at the point at which you are "zeroed". The "rise" I was mentioning isn't levitating bullet, but the distance above your line of sight that the highest peak of the parabola hits. Once it drops though the line of sight at the zero point, it's all down hill from there...

This image I picked up online should help explain it... the dotted line representing a bullets arc in flight ("bullet path"), the line of sight being the straight grid line at "0".

[FLS]

I shoot a 300 WSM and it is more rifle than you need in SC. It doesnt damage any more meat than an '06 or .270 with a similar bullet and the ammo is pretty common now. I enjoy shooting different calibers and wanted to try the WSM. I have been very pleased.
I shot a Remington Model 7 in 308 for years. I think it was about the perfect short-medium range deer rifle. Plenty of gas in a compact easy handling package. I killed a bunch of deer with that little gun. With the Winny 180 Silvertip (what it shot best) most were DRT.

[CWPINST]

Yep, the bullet doesn't rise. It is just that the muzzle is pointed "up" relative to the line of sight.

Idlewild, I spoke with Charles about the article. He said that the bottom line is to shoot as light and fast of a "deer capable" soft bullet as your gun can shoot accurately. For me, that means 150gr. Ballistic Tip in a 30-06. Out of my 26 in. barrel rifle, I can get nearly 3100fps with a load that shoots around .6 MOA.

It is not that a heavier bullet or a harder bullet won't kill them. It is just that in the Cedar Knoll research, they simply didn't do as well.

I personally prefer a heavy barrel 25-06 shooting a 100gr. bullet about 3300-3400fps.

For a "bean field" rifle, I like a heavy barrel flat shooting rifle with a wide forearm such as a Sendero or a heavy barrel Savage (low profile or BVSS). A long, heavy barrel rifle is pretty cumbersome if you hunt out of a climber, but for a large platform stand, it is the ticket.

If you are in the market for a heavy barrel rifle but don't want to spend the bucks on a Sendero II, don't be afraid to try the Savage with the Accu-trigger. They aren't pretty, but they really shoot. There are a number of things from an engineering standpoint that make them inherently accurate. As with any rifle though, you can't try just one load and expect 1/2 inch groups. It usually takes a lot of trial and error to find THE load.

[SCTIMBER]

CWP, check your pm box, full

[Sportin' Woodies]

aint no such thing as too dead.
if you can shoulder it, shoot it.
(and afford ammo)

[Carla Dee]

This is a very interesting study... and confirms my gut feeling about shot placement and bullet type. However, based on the article that I read, it does a good job of shedding light on the situation, but it does not truly "prove" the conclusions.

Shot placement, weapon type, bullet selection, and caliber selection do not appear to be randomly assigned. In laymans terms this is significant in that it is highly likely that more profecient shooters would choose to shoot in a different manner (different bullets, different calibers, different weapon type, different shot placement). It would be very interesting (although very difficult to get a group to cooperate) to complete a double blind, randomized study. That being said, the results from this study make sense and offer better information that I have seen before.

[CWPINST]

Timber........cleared out some PM's

CD, Give Charles a call about the study. He is always interested in talking about it. I hear what you are saying about the stats. I guess that as the sample size increases, it tends to smooth out some of the anomolies and increases the validity of the findings. The sample size in this case was nearly 500 deer. Had it been only 75-100 deer for all the variables in the study, the standard deviation would have been huge.

It is always interesting to see hunters make firm conclusions about a gun or caliber or bullet based on just a couple of experiences. For example, one of my coworkers hates Ballistic Tips because 15 years ago he had two fragment on deer. He still killed the deer though. I told him that since I have been keeping records on Ballistic Tips, I have taken 64 deer with them (various calibers, weights, and shot distances) and had exit wounds on 56 of those deer. It didn't phase him a bit. His mind was made up based on those two examples, even though he had good luck with them before those two.

[Swamp Rat]

I've heard a lot of folks tell me the same thing about BT's ... I've preached their effectiveness until I was blue in the face. My brother in law is one of them. He took me aside at Christmas and said "you need to try spitzer boat-tails instead of Ballistic Tips". I told him that a BT WAS, essentially, an SPBT. He looked at me like I was crazy.

Old mentalities die hard.

There are MANY good bullets out there. My next experiment will be the Hornady SST 140 grain in my 6.5mm Swede.

The only bullet I questioned was the old Sierra SPBT Gameking back when I was experiencing a lot of core-jacket separations with them, but, it still killed the deer.

CWPINST is right - you have to look at long-term record. And some you know right off ain't right for deer. I had to trail more than one deer a guy a shot on our club, using a 300 Win Mag and something like 190 grain bullets that were meant for elk. Of course, all the deer died when hit well, and all had exits... but I don't think there was much expansion.