30.06 vs 300 Win mag?

I am breaking nearly 3000 fps with 190 grain Hornady BTSP bullets out of my Remington 700 in 300 Win. No pressure signs, easy extraction,primers still have the radius. I neck size the brass only and they fit without resistance on bolt close, I can load them hotter and maybe squeeze another 100 fps, but the accuarcy now is better than risking it to get another few feet per second faster. The 06 has always been a favorite of mine too, the game taken with either always fell down with no fuss or chasing them around. Either one is a good choice.
 
todbartell said:
30-06 in a normal weight rifle is probably about the max amount of recoil the average hunter can put up with and shoot half decent. The 300 Mag is a great cartridge, but few average guys can truly utilize any advantage it offers over a 30-06. That is my opinion :)
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This might be true of the 2 box a year hunter, but a dedicated rifleman should easily be able to manage a 300?

Perhaps I am an exception here , but I find a 8-1/2 pound 300 to be very mild?

My 12 year old son (he is 5'7" already) shoots my target 300 a few times every time we go out?
 
H4831 said:
200 grain Nosler in my Husqvarna 30-06 are chronographed at 2700 fps, using an Oehler 33. This is not an over-loaded cartridge. Brass has long life with it.
Never mind the manual charts, what does a 200 grain factory loaded 300 W. Mag actually chronograph at?
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My 300's usually shoot 200's best at around 2950fps (I develop and test my loads at 350 yards). I imagine that if you were looking for max velocity it would be around 3000- 3050fps, but accuracy has always suffered in my rifles.

The 30-06 rifles I tried the 200 Nosler in shot best around 2500-2550fps with RL-19, RL-22, and H4350. I started seeing ejector marks on the case head at around 2650fps...perhaps you are using a better powder or have a faster barrel?
 
todbartell said:
thats why I mentioned the average guy, which is probably more like a half a box of ammo per year hunter :(
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Not being in the retail sector I wouldn't honestly know, but is it really that bad out there?:mad:

I see frequent evidence of it when I 'm at the range....It is no secrete to me or my son that he can shoot better than the vast majority of clowns that show up.

The worse ones usually seem to gravitate toward the 300 Ultra and get the pi$$ pounded out of them.....I can barely watch.
 
Gatehouse said:
Those are also the guys that say



"All I gotta do it hit it anywhere with my THREE HUNDRED MAG and it falls down!"

:kickInTheNuts:
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When I asked a guy working behind the counter at Island Outfitters In Victoria if he thought the 300 Win Mag was OK for our small deer on the Island he said "just shoot them in the neck" ... :rolleyes:
 
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X-fan said:
Not being in the retail sector I wouldn't honestly know, but is it really that bad out there?:mad:

I see frequent evidence of it when I 'm at the range....It is no secrete to me or my son that he can shoot better than the vast majority of clowns that show up.

The worse ones usually seem to gravitate toward the 300 Ultra and get the pi$$ pounded out of them.....I can barely watch.
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A 300 mag is fast enough that is requires a pretty stout, premium bullet if you want to get decent performance. This type of ammo is expensive, so its best to shoot as little as possible. ;)

Honestly I would say the average guy at least around here shoots less than half a box of ammo out of his big game rifle every year. Some might not even shoot their rifle more than once or twice ever year or two, no joke.
 
X-fan said:
My 300's usually shoot 200's best at around 2950fps (I develop and test my loads at 350 yards). I imagine that if you were looking for max velocity it would be around 3000- 3050fps, but accuracy has always suffered in my rifles.

The 30-06 rifles I tried the 200 Nosler in shot best around 2500-2550fps with RL-19, RL-22, and H4350. I started seeing ejector marks on the case head at around 2650fps...perhaps you are using a better powder or have a faster barrel?
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My original question was how did my 200 grain Nosler at 2700 fps compare with a factory loaded 200 grain bullet, in the 300 W. Mag. And I said actual speed, not what the book said it was going. Obviously, a 300 Mag can be loaded to be higher than a 30-06.
Yes, I was loading with a better powder, Norma 205. I do not have a fast barrel in that rifle, in fact it is a piker compared with what Bob Hagel gets, as shown in his book, Game Loads and Practical Ballistics for the American Hunter.
Here is a picture of one of his loading charts from that book.
He managed over 2800 with a 200 grain Speer, which in my experimenting is interchangeable with the 200 Nosler.
When the 30-06 is talked about, some of us are considering performance approaching these kind of figures, while the majority are thinking in terms of the pussy cat loadings of modern manuals. Which means we are really talking about two different rifle catagories.
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H4831 said:
My original question was how did my 200 grain Nosler at 2700 fps compare with a factory loaded 200 grain bullet, in the 300 W. Mag. And I said actual speed, not what the book said it was going. Obviously, a 300 Mag can be loaded to be higher than a 30-06.
Yes, I was loading with a better powder, Norma 205. I do not have a fast barrel in that rifle, in fact it is a piker compared with what Bob Hagel gets, as shown in his book, Game Loads and Practical Ballistics for the American Hunter.
Here is a picture of one of his loading charts from that book.
He managed over 2800 with a 200 grain Speer, which in my experimenting is interchangeable with the 200 Nosler.
When the 30-06 is talked about, some of us are considering performance approaching these kind of figures, while the majority are thinking in terms of the pussy cat loadings of modern manuals. Which means we are really talking about two different rifle catagories.
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What kind of pressure lab did Bob Hagel use?
 
Factory 300 Win Mag ammo with 200 gr bullet is loaded by Remington (200 gr Swift A-Frame @ 2825 fps), Federal (200 gr Trophy Bonded Bear Claw @ 2700 fps) & Norma (200 gr Oryx bonded @ 2790 fps). With handloading, getting 2850-2900 should be no trick

For comparison the only two 200 gr factory loads for 30-06 that I know of are :


  • Norma 200 gr Oryx @ 2625 fps
  • Lapua 200 gr Mega @ 2540 fps
In one of my 30-06's I was able to get 2580 fps with 200 gr Mega's & 53.5 grs H4350, and in another 30-06 - 58 grs H4831sc did 2510-2590 fps with 3 different 200 gr bullets (Lapua mega, Barnes TSX, Speer SP). I did not find any high pressure signs, I just figured 2550ish fps was good enough ;)
 
What kind of pressure lab did Bob Hagel use?

For starters, Bob Hagel has a following that most writers can only dream about. Pictured are some blurbs from the book jacket.
Lets examine the 200 grain bullet loading. He used 60 grains of Norma 205. That is EXACTLY the load shown in the Norma loading guide of the day!
I was going by this Norma loading guide when I built up my load. The rifle I was using is a bit slower than other 30-06's I have tested and takes more powder to get the speed up. When I was at the 60 grains of 205, it didn't appear to be a heavy load, so I went .5 grain heavier. In my rifle that gave just over 2700, while Bob Hagel's Sako went over 2800.
No, there is no danger of over loads in the rifles used. My loading in my rifle is just a normal acting load.
The other thing is that these heavier loads are very accurate. Jack O'Connor once wrote how he had experimented with heavy loads of H4831 in a 30-06 with 220 grain bullets. He said he couldn't get over the tiny groups they made. He said he shot up all the bullets he had, just to see if it was a few shots fluke, but it wasn't. It didn't take me long to load up the same load O'Connor gave, and guess what? My rifle too, made some of the smallest groups I have ever made with it.
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I know who Bob Hagel was.:)

But I wonder if his loads were proven by instrument, or he just measured case head expansion?

I can lean on a load with seemingly no pressure signs, too.

But if I want 300 magnum performance, I'll just buy the 300, rather than lean on the 30-06.:)
 
Here is what Ken Howell said:

For decades, I defended the notion of miking cases to get an idea of the internal pressures being developed. I'm the editor who originally published both Bob Hagel's and Ken Waters' articles on how they do it. I also published Waters' "Pet Loads" article as a supplement for his Pet Loads book.
At the time, Waters and I both considered Hagel's method extremely risky. I still do (because it IS!). I supported Waters' more moderate approach. I've since learned how foolish and unreliable any variation of this basic technique is.

• Many cases don't expand enough, even at 80,000 lb/sq in., to warn of risky or excessive pressures.

• Catastrophic failures of overloaded rifles may occur with either the first over-hot round, or they may occur only after years of repeated use of over-hot loads. In the latter type of failure, the rifle has appeared "safe" with these loads, clear up until the time one round "caused" the failure "for no apparent reason."

• Cases work-harden in use. Repeated use makes them become brittle in the crucial portion exposed in the breech — typically 0.200 inch of the head of the case. Cases already too hard to show "excessive" expansion here (some, even at 80,000 lb/sq in.) are especially likely to become brittle in repeated firings and reloadings, and spew wild gas and bits of brass into a shooter's face. I have on hand now a rifle utterly demolished when half the head of the case blew back through the action. The rest of the case is still in the apparently unharmed barrel, but the receiver is in many pieces, and my friend still has one piece of brass in his face (a larger chunk was surgically removed).

• The maximum safe limit for many rifles and cartridges is well below the level of peak pressures that many cases can handle without any discernible or measurable indication of excess.

• The less experienced you are in the use of this method, the greater is the certainty that miking your cases will inevitably lead you to accept dangerously high pressures as "safe."

Careful lab tests of many typical "pet" loads, developed by attention to traditionally accepted "signs" of pressure, have shown their peak pressures to be 70,000 to 75,000 lb/sq in. The highest SAAMI "safe" pressure I know of, for any cartridge or rifle, is 65,000 lb/sq in. Most are lower. Many are much lower.

Some carefully lab-tested loads, developed by miking case rims, webs, and expansion rings, have developed 80,000 lb/sq in. without measurable expansion.

Stay well below the maximum charges listed in the manuals, and you'll be worlds safer without significant sacrifice in down-range performance. No micrometer is a reliable pressure gauge.

_________________________
Ol' Useless
Benefactor Member, NRA
member, National Shooting Sports Foundation
Life Member, The Wilderness Society
obsolete now, soon extinct
(Ain't no tree family in my family tree!)

Ken Howell
 
I've read all of Bob Hagel's stuff (still have the book in question) and have a lot of respect for his work.
His loads on the other hand tend to be super hot. Whether it be 30-06, 300Win, or 340Wby I could never approach Hagels velocities safely....Been there tried that.
We have come a long in ballistic understanding since Hagels writings....I too have learned a few lessons along the way.

Modern pressure tested data from Hogdon's web site lists a maximum safe velocity of 2580fps using 53.7grs of H4350...A long long way from 57 grains and 2700fps....

The velocities I quoted you are from my experience...Not some book as you seem to suggest. I have been doing this long enough to have learned not to trust any reloading data other than my own.
 
Todd doesnt like recoil.
todbartell said:
30-06 in a normal weight rifle is probably about the max amount of recoil the average hunter can put up with and shoot half decent. The 300 Mag is a great cartridge, but few average guys can truly utilize any advantage it offers over a 30-06. That is my opinion :)
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My view on the subject is, buy whatever you want. While the '06 will do whatever you need it to, if you want a .300WM, go get one.
Just don't try to make your '06 into a .300.;)

There is no point in arguing over deer cartridges, as anything from a .357 pistol round to a .50bmg will kill a deer. Buy whatever you fancy, no need to justify...
 
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