Looking for powder and bullet ideas for a .300 Win Mag

[brentwal]

Bought a Tikka T3 in .300 win mag a month or so, got a new set of Hornady dies yesterday but I'd like some ideas about what powders and bullet weights generally work best.

I'll mostly use it for punching paper and a little bit of hunting.

 

[Cypress]

Got a Remington Sendero in 300 Win Mag a couple of days ago and am about to work up some easy on the shoulder loads. I'll let you know how it goes.

 

[dakotasin]

165 or 180 grain bullets - i prefer 165's.

i like rl-22 a whole lot in the 300 win mag, but h-4831 and rl-25 could also find a place in the 300 win just fine.

 

[Afy]

I am using 180 gr SMK's with 71.7 gr of VV N165...

The topmost shot is a flinch... this is at 100 meters

 

[Afy]

I also use 168 gr SMK's and 185 grain Scenars.

 

[moooose102]

i have always used IMR4831 in mine, unless i am downloading. for hunting, i like 180 grain pills, for targets, whatever your gun likes. i have 165bt's 178 amax, and 180 flat based. it shoots all of them just fine. but i am not really much of a bench rest shooter. i like to practice shooting as if i were hunting. and that means no bench. i use me, and a sling in different positions. thats about it. i can see the point in bench shooting. but i want to be good in the feild, when shooting at game. paper soup tastes terrible!

 

[brentwal]

Shopping list

RL22
IMR4831
LRM primers
.300 Win Mag brass
Shellholder

 

[brentwal]

Whoops

 

[Shoney]

I started loading the 300WinMag in 1967. Back then it was IMR4831 and 180 gr bullets. In time I have come to favor the 200 gr bullets. Nosler partitions for hunting and Sierra for target.

If I were to get another 300WM, today I would look at Retumbo, H1000, RL22, and RL25.

I use an old ski pole that is over 4' long as a drop tube in all recipes that call for full or nearly full cases. I find that using the long drop tube copacts the powder, much like the consistency of the Federal Premium loads.

 

[Afy]

You could also compact the powder by tapping the case a few times... seems to help.

Personally I avoid compressed charges.. since 99% of the time I am shooting paper at 100 meters.

 

[neal7250]

What are you going to be hunting?

 

[~z]

Best powders I have used are RL22 and H1000. I have been getting SD in the low singles. I'm commonly using 168, 180, & 190 SMKs.
~z

 

[Tom488]

Just got back from the range the other day, having fired my first .300 Win Mag reloads. Using Barnes 180gr TSX bullets, RL22 powder, and CCI LRM primers, shooting them out of a Remington 798.

73.0gr of RL22 gave me an average of 2935 fps (2909fps to 2969fps). The max load of 77.0gr of RL22 produced an average of 3142 fps (3116fps to 3176fps).

Again, these were my first reloads, so I'm not surprised at the spread in velocities - I weighed the charges on a balance scale (RCBS 505). My next loads will be measured on a Chargemaster, which should give me a little better consistency.

 

[TooTaxed]

Like Tom above, for hunting loads I use 180-gr bullets with 73.0 gr RL-22. For elk and large game, you need heavily-constructed bullets like the Barnes and Nosler Partition PP bullets, which are expensive...for range practice I use the cheapest 180-gr bullets I can find, which also are fine for deer in soft point, such as the Remingtons. For fun range shooting, lighter bullets are fine, and I can load those with surplus 4895, which is my standard powder for everything from .223 Rem through .30-06.