The Next Cartridge

tanda10506

Sergeant
Full Member
Minuteman
Jan 10, 2010
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Phelan, CA
I'm thinking of buying a rifle in .300 Win Mag. I've gotten pretty decent with the .308 (I still consider myself new) and want to get another rifle, so I figure that I might as well step up to something bigger that will go well past 1000 yards. I've been pretty set on the .300WM but I have some people locally trying to talk me out of it and into a .234 or 6.5 Creedmor and some other 6MM's saying that they are cheaper to shoot and can be shot as accurate at the same distance as the .300WM. What do you guys think is the "prefered" caliber for the 1000-1400 yard mark? A few things I should state also are that I do reload and that stopping power matters to me.
 
Re: The Next Cartridge

I agree. Not saying that they aren't all good rounds and very accurate but I have a 6.5 Creedmoor and just acquired a 300RUM as well. The 6.5 is very accurate out to 1k but past that the 300 will hold the advantage by far. Not to mention you want stopping power and a Magnum 30 caliber with 210 VLD or 208 AMAX is the best choice before you go to a 338. I shoot 8" steel swinging targets at 1000 yards and you can really see a difference in energy between the 6.5 and the 30 caliber magnums when they hit.
 
Re: The Next Cartridge

Stopping power means nothing if you don't hit your target.

7mm or 300 WM are good choices, buy something that you can swap the barrel on yourself, as barrel life is short.
 
Re: The Next Cartridge

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: tanda10506</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I do reload and that stopping power matters to me.</div></div>
if it's stopping power you want, stay big. In 7mm, that means shooting the 180 Bergers and 175 grain SMK's from a magnum cartridge, being the smallest I would advise. Otherwise, go from the .30 caliber 208 hornady amax and bigger. I shoot 220 grain SMK's (the same projectile the Navy Spec Ops chose) because they are unusually stable going trans-sonic. For long range shooting, that's something you will be interested in if your intent is to actually hit the target.
 
Re: The Next Cartridge

I had figured with stopping power being a factor staying with a .300WM would be the way to go. I know the chance of me using the stopping power is very very low, but to me it's still somewhat important. On a side not, I'm not bothered by recoil. So I don't see a reason to go with a smaller caliber for what I want it to do. The .300WM seems to be pretty popular on here and it seems like a lot of people here are getting into the 6mm's now to so I knew I would get good opinions here. You wouldn't believe the argument that took place over this lol. I'll be the first to admit that I know next to nothing compared to most people on here, but I knew I had to be right on that.