• Winner! Quick Shot Challenge: What’s the dumbest shooting myth you’ve heard?

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300WM Barrel Life with soft loads

MMH

Sergeant
Full Member
Minuteman
Mar 17, 2013
310
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If the 300WM is loaded to low levels, will barrel life go up significantly. Still burning a lot of powder at low loads. I'm talking about really low loads like 178 gr. at 2700 FPS.
 
Unless I'm missing something, you should be able to compare vs the same amount/same type of powder in another caliber., but with the same size bore. The load you describe sounds like a hotish 308, so I'd expect you to get at least 4-6k rounds because you are burning a lot less powder comparatively.
 
Its My understanding that the short bore life on the Win Mag became a issue after loading the big heavies with slower burning powder became popular . I load 175 grain Sierra Match Kings with IMR 4831 and I'm not worried about shooting the barrel out anytime soon .
 
Unless I'm missing something, you should be able to compare vs the same amount/same type of powder in another caliber., but with the same size bore. The load you describe sounds like a hotish 308, so I'd expect you to get at least 4-6k rounds because you are burning a lot less powder comparatively.
I thought about that, but not sure that it 100% works that way. In my 308, 178 gr. bullets w/ 43.0 grains of varget get me 2525 FPS out of my 20" R700. The max bullet weight that Hogdon has varget data for is 168 gr. They have a starting load of 54 grains (2,795 fps) and a max. of 58.2 grains (2,964 fps). Maybe I will start with 54 grains under the 178 gr. bullet. A little more powder than in the 308, but nothing like the slow powder, heavy loads that burn up barrels.
 
Just buy a .308 if you want to shoot 178s at 2700 and get good barrel life.
I got a 308 that I absolutely love. Beginning to shoot PRS w/ my son, and am already in the process of building up a 300WM. So I need another rifle & would rather spend the money on getting my 300WM set up, rather than another 308. Although I will use my 300WM "the way it was intended", that does not mean that I will want to launch 225 gr. bullets @ 2850 fps during every practice round & every PRS shoot.
 
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I got a 308 that I absolutely love. Beginning to shoot PRS w/ my son, and am already in the process of building up a 300WM. So I need another rifle & would rather spend the money on getting my 300WM set up, rather than another 308. Although I will use my 300WM "the way it was intended", that does not mean that I will want to launch 225 gr. bullets @ 2850 fps during every practice round & every PRS shoot.
Are you really shooting a 300wm in prs comps?
 
...that does not mean that I will want to launch 225 gr. bullets @ 2850 fps during every practice round & every PRS shoot.
 
Depends on how many shots fired in a string and how quickly.
NRA Long Range, unlimited sighters and 20 shots for record in 30 minutes, is pretty rough on barrels. 1100/1300 rounds depending on your barrel. Seen them shoot out around 900 and saw one go 1600. They start blowing up bullets:)