Questions about 300WSM in a short action

[XTR]

I shoot a lot of F-TR. Over the yrs I've begun to accumulate 10TW 30 cal barrels that are no longer holding elevation and I really dont have much use for them, and while I could shorten and re-chamber some of them, for competition purposes I usually spin up a new barrel, but I've been thinking lately that some of my tubes that started with 5" breach sections could have the stub lopped off and shortened by a few inches to the 24-26" range and would make pretty good hunting barrels, though they'd be a bit heavy they'd support a can well.

I have a R700 short action with a DBM system that accepts AICS pattern mags and has been relieved to feed bullets that are full length in Alpha or Accurate mags w/o the plate so an OAL in the 2.9 range. So it would not be difficult to add a magnum bolt, a WSM mag from Accutate or Alpha and spin on a 300WSM barrel.

I realize really long bullets are going to be pushed way down into the case, usually not the best setup.

My question(s) are:

How heavy of a bullet have you seen run well in a short action 300WSM setup?
What bullets have worked well for those who have run a setup like this?
What kind of MVs do you get with the ones that have worked?

Thanks.
Wade

 

[Clint E.]

I am tagging in because I would like to know the the experience others have had as well.

I just ordered a magnum bolt head for my SA TL3 and I have a 9.5 twist 30 cal barrel that I am going to get chambered in 300 WSM and run out of a AICS mag like you are planning.
I am hoping to use a Berger 215 hybrid, and if I can get to 2750-2800 fps in a 23" barrel I will be happy. From the research I have done RL26 would be good to try.

Here is the Nosler data which might help, you might have seen it already.

 

[Bradu]

I am tagging in because I would like to know the the experience others have had as well.

I just ordered a magnum bolt head for my SA TL3 and I have a 9.5 twist 30 cal barrel that I am going to get chambered in 300 WSM and run out of a AICS mag like you are planning.
I am hoping to use a Berger 215 hybrid, and if I can get to 2750-2800 fps in a 23" barrel I will be happy. From the research I have done RL26 would be good to try.

Here is the Nosler data which might help, you might have seen it already.

View attachment 7032475

A berger 215 hybrid is 1.564" long which means if you are mag feeding, the bullet will be stuffed into the case and you will lose quite a bit of powder capacity.

 

[jda2631]

Not sure if this helps you or not, but I have been using a Winchester model 70 300 WSM for years. My go to hunting load is a 185 Berger hunting VLD at 2.945", 65gr of RL17 and MV is 3033FPS. So my 185gr (granted it is a VLD) is over the 2.9" limit for DBM.

 

[XTR]

The 2.9 is conservative, you can load to 2.950, at least in Accurate mags.

Thanks for the input. Just trying to get a feel for reasonable expectations for a setup like this.

 

[jda2631]

I just looked it up, first off apparently Berger doesn't make the 185 hunting VLD anymore, only the 190. But the 190 is 1.371", and the 210 is only 1.47", so you could probably make that work. And that is just for Berger's, I'm not sure what other bullet lengths are, I know hornady doesn't list bullet length on their website.

 

[spife7980]

I just looked it up, first off apparently Berger doesn't make the 185 hunting VLD anymore, only the 190. But the 190 is 1.371", and the 210 is only 1.47", so you could probably make that work. And that is just for Berger's, I'm not sure what other bullet lengths are, I know hornady doesn't list bullet length on their website.

http://www.jbmballistics.com/ballistics/lengths/lengths.shtml

 

[XTR]

I think I'm going to do this. I gotta find some uses other than recycle for the barrels I'm collecting. I bet loading it with 165 SGKs will work pretty well too.

Now I gotta figure out a reamer spec.

 

[Clint E.]

@XTR what reamer specs are you planning on going with? I am not an expert when it comes to reamers but from what I can tell a SAMMI would be about as good as gets if running out of the AICS mags. As far as I can tell it has zero freebore, which I think would be the best possible solution with the bullet seated so deep in the case. But I am not sure my thinking is correct.

 

[XTR]

That will probably be the idea, and I have a 30 caliber unithroater if I decide that I can run it longer. I've used it on a bunch of barrels on my F-TR rifles over the yrs, I know it works.

https://loaddata.com/articles/PDF/3-Inch 300 WSM.pdf

Found the above article yesterday.

 

[Clint E.]

The 2.9 is conservative, you can load to 2.950, at least in Accurate mags.

Thanks for the input. Just trying to get a feel for reasonable expectations for a setup like this.

Looking at the Nosler data above the Long Range Accubond bullet they are using is 1.550" long and they show a OAL legnth 2.860, so I think at 2.950 in a AICS mag you could still get decent velocity out of long bullets.

 

[b6graham]

are you stuck on 300WSM for any particular reason?

 

[XTR]

are you stuck on 300WSM for any particular reason?

The barrels are 30 cal, the action(s) I have are short action. Open to other suggestions?

 

[Geno C.]

This fits in a model 70 bdl just barely.
.230” freebore
210 hvld .010” into the lands
2850 from a 26” barrel

Stick with the 300wsm. It hits animals hard and is super easy to find a load for. You have the barrels and reloading stuff and are obviously used to the round from competition so you should know how accurate they are.

 

[XTR]

I like that.

 

[Geno C.]

My hunting 300wsm is a .090” freebore and I run 168 and 155 Berger’s. I can’t find my load data for that right now

 

[b6graham]

The barrels are 30 cal, the action(s) I have are short action. Open to other suggestions?

https://shermanwildcatcartridges.com/300-ss

just gotta neck up some brass

 

[Cjl2010]

That 180 elite hunter has a pretty good B.C. as well. Should work pretty good in a short action.

 

[XTR]

The WSM was originally designed for a SA, we just like to run things out on the edge and you need a LA to wring out the most from them, but I've got a feeling this will work just fine. The record of performance by the WSM in competition is pretty clear, it's easy to tune, is capable of better accuracy than I am, and it's a standard chambering.

Now I need (another) reamer, a bolt, a magazine, and another set of reloading dies.

 

[Geno C.]

Get one with zero freebore and throat it where you want