is the 300 Win Mag an obsolete target caliber?

[WestCoastGhost]

I recently got a Weatherby Vanguard in 300 win mag as a gift from a good friend. I know it is overkill for what i hunt- blacktail, but i know weatherbys are decent rifles. My other buddys are saying sell it and buy a 6.5 creedmore. Anyone got any opinions on this topic? I am thinking of just learning how to shoot the 300.

 

[Jerry m]

Hunting and plinking steel targets, especially at long range are two very different things. I would much rather have a good .300 Win Mag in my hands if an Elk presented itself at 500 yards. Yes I know tons of elk were killed with lesser cartridges. As for the 6.5 Creedmoor I'd rather use this for shooting field matches. It shoots well and dings steel at a distance. Shooting 30-50 rounds of .300 WM in a day could be a chore...

 

[MNhunter1]

I wouldn't necessarily look to the 300WM as a target caliber, but a very well respected caliber for taking down any game in North America, if not the world. If I were to have just one hunting rifle, it would be chambered in either 300WM or 7RM.

 

[Newbie2020]

If you don’t intend to shoot it a ton, it’ll be a great hunting rifle/cartridge combination. Maybe add a suppressor or a muzzle brake and a decel pad on the buttstock and it’ll be perfect.

If you want to do more target shooting and long range steel shooting get either a heavier rifle or a smaller cartridge or both.

 

[SmartDonkey]

Depends on what you mean by target rifle... 300 WM can be just as accurate as anything else, but I wouldn't want to run box after box of ammo through it at moderate ranges. It works very good for long range (or ELR) but that's not what kind of rifle the Vanguard is. Unless they have a different model- the Vanguard is more of a hunting setup. But you never mentioned what kind of distance you wanted to target shoot at....

 

[gunsnjeeps]

About as irrelevant as a .30-06 or .308. According to some folks newer is always better.

 

[WestCoastGhost]

I'm so new to the rifle world I wouldn't even know where to start. Where I live there is a monthly competition that goes out to 1000 yards that I am interested in trying just to see whats out there and what this world of competition is like (i was a competitive archer and bowhunter). I know Carlos Hathcock won Wimbledon with a 300 win mag way back in the day, so it made me think that he found a way to get enough practice in with that caliber.

But yea my Weatherby is a hunting rifle for sure. in archery there are hunting bows and target bows and the two rarely mix with success.

 

[Newbie2020]

HOW DARE YOU EQUATE YOURSELF TO THE GREAT CARLOS HATHCOCK!!!???!!! DROP AND GIVE ME TWENTY-FIVE!!! Semper fi. Carry on.

 

[Jerry m]

He won it with the .300 H&H.

 

[Hobo Hilton]

In this day and age..... Don't sell it. If you want a target rifle then start a savings account.

Hobo

 

[Jscb1b]

The vanguard is made by Howa. They are good rifles. Get yourself a good heavy chassis and a muzzle break. And have fun.

 

[Powder_Burns]

You don’t need +70gr of gunpowder to ring steel. If you are new to shooting in general the .300wm is gonna eat your lunch with the recoil it brings. From a economics/practicality standpoint there are better options for target shooting or competition.
That said .300wm is an excellent hunting cartridge for pretty much any large game in north america.

 

[DocRDS]

No it is not obsolete.

Echoing what others have said there are better other "First Choices" but 300 WM is a fine rifle. It is a FANTASTIC hunting rifle. I was very much in the boat of the OP, except as a young and foolish man, I got my 300 WM "on sale" as my first rifle. A couple of thing to help tame the beast (and its not really that bad a beast).

(1)Get a good recoil pad if you plan on an extended shooting session. The Decelerator from Pachmayr pad really helped me out in hot weather where its me, a t-shirt, and a rifle. If you don't want to put a muzzle break, this really help tame the stout recoil. 300 WM isn't awful at recoil, but after 25+ rounds it will add up.
(2) Muzzle Brake and/or Suppress. Just a good idea in general, but 300 WM is the point where a Brake is a good idea to take recoil--again especially for extended shooting sessions. The supressor makes your ears last longer.
(3) Reload. If you reload, the 300WM explodes with opportunity. Store ammo is all pretty much 180 Gr. Reloading you can go all over the place, plus its one of those rounds where you start to save $$ right off the bat.

cons
(1) 2$ a round gets expensive
(2) No buddies at the range--you're 'that guy'
(3) Fundamentals cannot be lax.

Yeah the 6.5 is the cool new kid in town, but if you already have the rifle, enjoy it! 300 Win Mag is good people. Like most things, rather than re-invent the wheel with a new rifle, spend that money on a class and enjoy it.

And laugh at all the pussies and their 6mm pea shooters.

 

[WestCoastGhost]

DocRDS- this made me smile and giggle at the same time. i mean laugh heartily. I plan to throw a nice chassis on this bad boy and Ive already started down the path to reloading. Having fun with this rifle is my main goal

 

[WestCoastGhost]

He won it with the .300 H&H.

"The legendary sniper Carlos Hathcock used a 300WM to win his Wimbledon Cup in the 1960’s before he went on to become a sniper in Vietnam. "

History of the 300WM for sniping - Sniper Central

It is no secret that the 7.62x51mm NATO cartridge continues to be the most widely used cartridge for combat sniping among NATO countries and likely throughout the world. But that dominance has been challenged recently by the adoption by more and more countries of rifles that use the extremely...

www.snipercentral.com

this is one source and i could be wrong.....

 

[WestCoastGhost]

HOW DARE YOU EQUATE YOURSELF TO THE GREAT CARLOS HATHCOCK!!!???!!! DROP AND GIVE ME TWENTY-FIVE!!! Semper fi. Carry on.

Carlos was a beast. I'm a pretty sore sight behind crosshairs right now. But I'm working on it.

 

[kthomas001]

No it is not obsolete.

Echoing what others have said there are better other "First Choices" but 300 WM is a fine rifle. It is a FANTASTIC hunting rifle. I was very much in the boat of the OP, except as a young and foolish man, I got my 300 WM "on sale" as my first rifle. A couple of thing to help tame the beast (and its not really that bad a beast).

(1)Get a good recoil pad if you plan on an extended shooting session. The Decelerator from Pachmayr pad really helped me out in hot weather where its me, a t-shirt, and a rifle. If you don't want to put a muzzle break, this really help tame the stout recoil. 300 WM isn't awful at recoil, but after 25+ rounds it will add up.
(2) Muzzle Brake and/or Suppress. Just a good idea in general, but 300 WM is the point where a Brake is a good idea to take recoil--again especially for extended shooting sessions. The supressor makes your ears last longer.
(3) Reload. If you reload, the 300WM explodes with opportunity. Store ammo is all pretty much 180 Gr. Reloading you can go all over the place, plus its one of those rounds where you start to save $$ right off the bat.

cons
(1) 2$ a round gets expensive
(2) No buddies at the range--you're 'that guy'
(3) Fundamentals cannot be lax.

Yeah the 6.5 is the cool new kid in town, but if you already have the rifle, enjoy it! 300 Win Mag is good people. Like most things, rather than re-invent the wheel with a new rifle, spend that money on a class and enjoy it.

And laugh at all the pussies and their 6mm pea shooters.

DocRDS, love it. 6mm pussies.

 

[Alpine 338]

My 300WMs don't beat me up. With a Rem 700 action M24 barrel in an AICS chassis and a Surefire brake, that's what I used to shoot my first Hide Cup with, and didn't feel I was beat up or hurting at all at the end. Only drawback was the stages where I couldn't easily spot my hits/misses with less than stable positions as it wasn't a 28-lb 6mm. I was shooting the 208-Amax at 2860-fps, burning 75-gr of H1000.

Love the 300WM!

 

[Aftermath]

300WINMAG has been my goto caliber for decades. When I first obtained a 700Rem in 300WINMAG, I used 168gr bullets and looked for as much velocity as I could get. That was about 1985. I killed lots of stuff with it, didn't dial for elevation and just guesstimated distance and elevation. I could shoot it about 5 times before I didn't really want to feel the punch again.
Then, about 15 years ago, I started realizing (I know, a little slow to the "game" but better late than never) that Ballistic Coefficient was a serious factor and started looking for that number as close to 1.0 as I could get. I figured out at some point, maybe about 2010, that a 210 Berger leaving the barrel at 2950 fps would be flying faster at around 400 yards than that 168 gr bullet leaving the barrel at 3200 fps.
Then I got interested in ranges farther away than 500 yards.
I installed a muzzle brake. Then I had that old action blueprinted and installed in a McMillan stock with a Brux barrel and a good trigger and that was the start of spending many thousands of dollars.
That original action, I still have in that McMillan stock and still that same barrel but only around 700 rounds down it. I have a shot book but just going off memory. It is pretty heavy, plus the brake, I have fired it in fairly rapid succession 100 times and had no problems with the recoil.
I've never fired a 6.5 Whatever and will not try to say that it is inferior in any manner. I do have smaller calibers...7mm Rem Mag, 280 Ackley, .308, 5.56...
If I have need, or want, to shoot at something that is a long ways away, I'll use one of my 300WINMAGS.
Caveat: I have a new 30Nosler that I have a load developed for, very accurate at 100 and 200 yards but have not yet built dope for any other distance. It will replace my 300WINMAG stuff and I intend to sell all of my 300WINMAG stuff. Also, I have a 338NormaMagImproved in the works for just for heckuvit.
No...the 300WINMAG is, by no means, obsolete. It will still be relevant when your grandchildren are grandparents.

 

[WestCoastGhost]

300WINMAG has been my goto caliber for decades. When I first obtained a 700Rem in 300WINMAG, I used 168gr bullets and looked for as much velocity as I could get. That was about 1985. I killed lots of stuff with it, didn't dial for elevation and just guesstimated distance and elevation. I could shoot it about 5 times before I didn't really want to feel the punch again.
Then, about 15 years ago, I started realizing (I know, a little slow to the "game" but better late than never) that Ballistic Coefficient was a serious factor and started looking for that number as close to 1.0 as I could get. I figured out at some point, maybe about 2010, that a 210 Berger leaving the barrel at 2950 fps would be flying faster at around 400 yards than that 168 gr bullet leaving the barrel at 3200 fps.
Then I got interested in ranges farther away than 500 yards.
I installed a muzzle brake. Then I had that old action blueprinted and installed in a McMillan stock with a Brux barrel and a good trigger and that was the start of spending many thousands of dollars.
That original action, I still have in that McMillan stock and still that same barrel but only around 700 rounds down it. I have a shot book but just going off memory. It is pretty heavy, plus the brake, I have fired it in fairly rapid succession 100 times and had no problems with the recoil.
I've never fired a 6.5 Whatever and will not try to say that it is inferior in any manner. I do have smaller calibers...7mm Rem Mag, 280 Ackley, .308, 5.56...
If I have need, or want, to shoot at something that is a long ways away, I'll use one of my 300WINMAGS.
Caveat: I have a new 30Nosler that I have a load developed for, very accurate at 100 and 200 yards but have not yet built dope for any other distance. It will replace my 300WINMAG stuff and I intend to sell all of my 300WINMAG stuff. Also, I have a 338NormaMagImproved in the works for just for heckuvit.
No...the 300WINMAG is, by no means, obsolete. It will still be relevant when your grandchildren are grandparents.

I just got my hands on some 168s for reloading and a nice muzzle brake. I just gotta load some up and go to the range

 

[Rancid Coolaid]

I took a 300WM to Africa a few years ago and was very successful on game from 100 to almost 500 yards out. For hunting, it is my favorite caliber by a significant margin.
That said, it isn't my first choice for a precision gun on the range.

With a can, it shoots about the same as a 10-pound 308.

 

[GrumpyOleFart]

I don't think it's an obsolete calibre.
Comes down to what you are happy with.

 

[Punkur67]

Not obsolete to me. I just rang steel out to a mile with my 300wm last weekend.

 

[Hesperidins]

It may be in poor taste to sell such a gift. I know, I know, some will say it's yours and that's all that matters.

 

[Hesperidins]

I target shoot with one.

 

[isofahunter]

Like the 30-06 it is dead and no one should own one for hunting or target shooting. Please forward your ammo and supplies to me for disposal.

 

[Slides]

I just ordered one specifically as it gives me the option of a flat shooting hunting gun with available factory ammo and the ability to load 210-250 high BC target loads that will shoot happily out to a mile, I'll be buying a chassis for mine but will probably keep it in the stock for a while, I have a 40MOA pic rail on the way for it and will use a 4 5-27 FFP scope.

It won't shoot as flat as 300PRC but it is a good cartridge if you want a genuine do anything gun.

 

[Steel head]

With all the good 30 cal Bullets and newer powders
I’d say it’s more relaxant than ever.

 

[Druid54636]

My Winnie is my go to steel slapper for 1200 yards and out.

My rifle prefers the small bullets fast though.

 

[smithwill]

With all the good 30 cal Bullets and newer powders
I’d say it’s more relaxant than ever.

yeah it is and i really have some more better than that

 

[Slides]

It certainly isn't your ideal modern cartridge being belted and not a stubby but it is chambered in a heap of actions, there are plenty of options for components, it will knock over pretty much anything most people will hunt and doesn't impose the costs that guys going over 338 cal look to operate. If all you want to do is punch paper inside 1000 yards a 6.5 is probably more economic and lower recoil but even if it is "just" a hunting/occasional 1000+ steel gun I would be hanging onto it.