The title says it all, but with all the ideas that are thrown out there on a regular basis, and given my inability to be content with any rifle for very long, I figured let's get some fireworks going, or at the very least be told I should pick a new hobby
I always seem to be looking for the perfect do-it all rifle, not great at any one shooting discipline, but better in most areas than your average rifle/cartridge combo. And what I mean by this is shooting to practical distances/scenarios with portable rifles, not 28-30", 20lb plus pieces of artillery.
After having all the common calibers (.224, .243, 6.5, 7, .30, .338) , I have come to the conclusion that a mid-capacity .30 caliber is the best option for me. Which is probably the reason why I am currently shooting a long action 300 WSM. However, while I am enjoying it, I feel like there is room for improvement.
Enter the 7 PRC necked up to .30 caliber. Since it was announced, I believed the 7 PRC was the perfect .284 cartridge, and best fit for the rifle I thought I wanted, but remembering my experience with a 7 SAUM at a mile with spotting misses and hearing how much better .30's anchor elk at long distance than 7's, I changed the build to a 22" 300 WSM, and began playing with 2 of my favorite bullets, the 215 Berger and 225 ELD.
Accuracy out to 600 yards has so far been stellar with the 215 Berger at 2725 fps and on a braked, 15lb rifle the recoil is very mild. I'm thinking another 100 fps or a 225 ELD at 2700 would be ideal, and given the powder charges I've been using I don't see it happening with the WSM. Of course there will be plenty of people that start screaming that a 300 Win or 300 PRC will do what you want, no problem. And they are absolutely correct, but at the expense of more powder, more recoil and less barrel life, and most likely less efficient because of a lower powder charge in a larger volume case. Or maybe I'm just splitting hairs and need to tell myself the last thing we need is another new cartridge that doesn't do anything different than cartridges that are currently available.
There's nothing ideal about shooting a mild, 215/225 .30 caliber at 1 mile but I'm not looking for ideal, and that's the point of this. The 300 WSM is as close to perfect given what's currently available but having a true long action cartridge for reliable feeding and squeezing out a little more velocity without making the next level jump to 300 Win/PRC is where I'm at with this idea. Kind of a modern day 30-06 length cartridge on steroids.
I'm confident most people will say why would any major company go through the aggravation of R&D for a cartridge that gives you such a slight increase over 1 cartridge and falls short of many others and the answer is most probably wouldn't and I'm barking up the wrong tree, yet I feel like many companies have gone down this rabbit hole before, for example Winchester, Remington and Hornady all had their hands in the pot with their own short action .30's in the early 2000's and they were all closer in performance then what I'm talking about.
Anyway, I like the idea of a .30 caliber from zero to 1 mile over any other bullet diameter and I used to be a speed guy, but I'm not anymore so squeezing every ounce of performance out of the smallest case possible is why I'm talking about this.
Ok let's hear it. I'm sure my buddy is rolling is eyes as he reads this.
