RIFLES
.300 Winchester Short Magnum
Is short-package performance enough to ensure success?
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| Accurate | 2520, XMR4064, 2700, XMR4350, XMR3100 |
|---|---|
| Alliant | RL 15, RL 19, RL 22 |
| Hodgdon | Varget, H380, H414, H4350, H450, H4831 |
| IMR | 4064, 4320, 4350, 4831 |
| Norma | N-203, N-204 |
| Ram Shot | Big Game, Magnum |
| VihtaVuori | N-140, N-540, N-150, N-550, N-160, N-560 |
| Winchester | 760 |
.300 Winchester Short Magnum Suitable Powders
The .300 Winchester Short Magnum has been with us for about three years now. In that time hundreds of thousands of words of copy have filled gun and hunting magazines to the brim. Guns & Ammo published its first set of loads for the .300 WSM in December 2001.
At that time I said that it was going to take three or four years to determine if the cartridge was going to be popular. As of the time of this writing, the factory cartridge listings show four loadings from Winchester: a 150-grain and 180-grain Ballistic Silvertip at 3,300 fps and 3,010, respectively; a 180-grain Fail Safe at 2,970 fps; and a 180-grain Power-Point at 2,970. Federal Cartridge Company also offers several options in this caliber.
But I haven't heard of many shooters throwing away their .300 Winchester Mags or, for that matter, their .30-06s to go out and buy a .300 WSM, though that doesn't mean a few haven't made the switch. Still, it's early, and I think the jury has yet to return a verdict on the ultimate popularity of this cartridge. That isn't because the .300 WSM doesn't perform well but rather that its performance falls too closely between two other excellent calibers.
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